One of the first long-form reviews I sent to friends and family in the email list that would become Sonic Cinema was for Stanley Kubrick’s final film, “Eyes Wide Shut”. Along with “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace”, it was the most anticipated film of the summer of 1999, even before Kubrick’s untimely passing shortly after presenting his final cut to Warner Bros in early March of that year. Production had been under a shroud of secrecy since it began in 1996. It starred Tom Cruise at the height of his popularity, along with his wife of the time, Nicole Kidman. The plot was whispered about as cast members were sometimes brought in, and pulled out, of the long production. (Harvey Keitel and Jennifer Jason Leigh were supposed to be in the movie, but were recast.) And famously, it underwent revisions with CGI bodies placed in front of the action during the orgy sequence to secure the film a contractually-mandated R-rating.
The word on the film at the time was very mixed from critics and audiences. Some hailed it as a masterpiece, others a great folly. Over the years, however, its reputation has grown, and the film has taken its place with other Kubrick late starters like “Barry Lyndon” and “The Shining” as another legendary work from the filmmaker. Was he trying to illuminate more about the world than we realized in 1999? Since the arrest, and death, of financier and convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein in 2019, people have wondered whether Kubrick was shining a light on the world of Epstein, and if it got him killed. This has only been turbocharged as the Department of Justice has released more of its files on Epstein, and the world he built around wealthy people, and raping girls and boys. This is going to necessitate discussing topics of child sexual abuse and rape and human trafficking.
Let us state the facts of the case regarding “Eyes Wide Shut”:
-It is adapted from a 1926 novella called Traumnovelle (or Dream Story) by Arthur Schnitzler.
-Kubrick optioned the material back in the 1960s, and considered it for being his follow-up to “2001: A Space Odyssey”.
-Prior to filming in the mid-’90s, he considered doing the film as a sex comedy, possibly starring Steve Martin or Woody Allen.
-The production ran from October 1996 through June 1998.
-The film, as presented to Warner Bros executives, and Cruise and Kidman, for screening before his death was the version we saw in theatres in July 1999, save for the digital enhancements mentioned above.
I think for a lot of people, the world of Jeffrey Epstein was not known until the 2000s, when he was arrested for solicitation of underaged sex, for which he would spend 13 months in prison, and would be registered as a sex offender. Of course, there is more to that case that we are aware of now thanks to the work of Julie K. Brown, and her investigative series (and subsequent book), Perversion of Justice, which helped illuminate how the case against Epstein was watered down by prosecutors, including Alex Acosta, a US Attorney who would later be Donald Trump’s Labor Secretary in his first term. Brown’s work helped shine a light on Epstein again, which is what led to his 2019 arrest, weeks before the official 20th anniversary of “Eyes Wide Shut”.
In Kubrick’s film, we follow New York doctor Bill Harford (Tom Cruise) who, after an argument with his wife, Alice (Nicole Kidman), goes on a long night of sexual temptation and frustration. All roads lead to, and from, a secluded mansion, where Bill crashes a masked orgy, and finds himself threatened. In this sequence, the women are all adults- mostly sex workers- but the sequence has been read as a representation of the debauchery Epstein and others were involved in. Prior to the sequence, we see Bill go to a costume shop to get what he needs for the event, and it turns out that the shop owner is prostituting his daughter (Leelee Sobieski) to two businessmen. This sequence of events- at least the orgy- is in the original novella, but it doesn’t mean that seeing it unfold in front of us on screen isn’t unnerving, and doesn’t feel like we’re watching something scandalous, as the film turns into a paranoid thriller when Bill tries to put the pieces together, especially when the pianist friend he learned of the orgy from (Todd Field) checks out in quick order, and the woman who supposedly sacrifices herself for him turns up dead.
I’ve written about QAnon and Pizzagate before, and how it led me to some writing and podcasts that would illuminate some things to me. It’s also helped me see that a lot of discourse around sexual abuse and human trafficking like Epstein was at the center of nonsensical conspiracy theories that exaggerated what was going on, as if the details of what Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and their wealthy clients have done- coming from victims themselves- isn’t horrific enough. (Brown’s book is infuriating, and I started- but haven’t finished- the posthumous memoir of Epstein victim, Virginia Roberts Giuffre; it was just too harrowing, although I will finish it, at some point.) As more and more of the DOJ files have been released, it feels as though more and more people- even ones who never bought QAnon or Pizzagate prior to now- are falling down the rabbit hole, and taking some of what we read in the files as confirmation of the conspiracy theories. We’re also seeing an uptick in “Eyes Wide Shut” theorizing, including the picture accompanying this blog, where people have theorized the background characters walking behind Alice are stand-ins for Epstein and Maxwell.
If you’re just thinking about the surface details of QAnon and Pizzagate involving the child sex trafficking, yes, one can see how what’s being released within the Epstein files “proves” that these theories are true. But as with the files themselves, context matters. Not everyone who’s name has been mentioned in the files has to do with the trafficking, and just because some connective tissue in content ties Epstein and QAnon together, it doesn’t mean they go hand-in-hand. After all, Pizzagate came out of 4chan baking leaked campaign emails from Clinton’s campaign manager, John Podesta, in October of 2016 that included several references to the DC-based pizza place, Comet Ping Pong; in December, a man drove from South Carolina and fired a shot in the restaurant, which resulted in prison. QAnon started on 4chan before moving over to 8chan/8kun, and posited that Trump was battling the Deep State to stop human trafficking, and trafficked in antisemitic conspiracies, as well as good old Satanic Panic, but for the internet age. As I wrote last year, the QAA podcast and Cullen Hoback’s “Q: Into the Storm” (on HBO Max) are but two fantastic resources that dive into QAnon, which hit its zenith after the 2020 election, and the January 6 insurrection on the Capitol. Yes, both had child sex trafficking at their core, but dig deeper, and they were nonsensical theories with no basis in reality, and at their heart just reheated past moral panics.
The Epstein Files release is the most substantial progress we’ve gotten in a public forum when it comes to allowing us a glimpse at the big picture of what Epstein was doing. It’s also been a time bomb that seems to have detonated a lot of people’s critical thinking when it comes to the subject, and inadvertently pilled people on QAnon and Pizzagate. The more that’s come out about Epstein, the more absurd those conspiracy theories are, by virtue of what they built their premises on. With Epstein, we have dozens upon dozens of victims that have told us what happened; we’ve seen countless examples of media coverage blackouts that only add to what feels like the most profound cover-up in world history. Epstein is not a conspiracy theory- it was a conspiracy (and, due to the lack of action against those he procured victims for, up until recently, it still is a conspiracy against the public, and his victims), and the dead financier feels like he’s orchestrating it, six and a half years after shuffling off the mortal coil. One of the most striking revelations in the latest file dump is how Epstein met Christopher Poole (aka moot), the creator of 4chan, shortly before the /pol/ board that would be home to Pizzagate, and the early days of QAnon, went online. Did Epstein direct Poole to create the board? I’m skeptical, as Poole had been trying to contain the right wing extremism on the image board for a while. I’m also skeptical that Epstein and Steve Bannon- Trump’s Chief Strategist, who was in communication with Epstein for a while about a documentary project to “rehabilitate” Epstein’s image- had anything to do with Pizzagate and QAnon (both of which were started after Poole had left 4chan), as well; the work QAA and “Into the Storm”– among others- have done to dig deep into both of those makes it unlikely, especially since both theories were still alive even when Epstein wasn’t.
At last, we must circle back to “Eyes Wide Shut”. Though the film is set in New York in the 1990s, Kubrick shot the film on sets in England, where he had lived and made movies since the 1960s. It is unlikely he would have known much- if anything- about Epstein, much less crossed paths with he and Maxwell, especially considering that- as I mentioned before- Epstein’s crimes were not terribly known about until years after Kubrick’s death. I think it’s certainly fair to read into the film when it comes to secret societies and the debauchery of powerful men, which has certainly been a common theme in history for centuries, but as a one-to-one “warning” about Epstein, it is not that. The film, at its heart, is about the fragile nature of a marriage when one man’s perception of his wife’s devotion- even when it isn’t acted upon- is shattered. Bill’s “adventures” after his fight with Alice are the “dream story” aspect of the film; isn’t it weird how, in just about every significant interaction he has up until he comes home to find the missing mask on his pillow at the end, Bill is frequently propositioned or harassed? This is a narrative with surreal twists and turns, some of which can be explained easier than others. And Kubrick made sure it was fully formed before he died. No, his death is not suspicious; according to family, he was at peace after delivering the film for that screening. And if he was “killed” due to revealing too much of the elite’s debauchery, how did the film get released anyway?
To close, there is one commonality between “Eyes Wide Shut,” Stanley Kubrick and Jeffrey Epstein that is a bit odd. In the film, Bill picks up a copy of the New York Post while he’s followed by a mysterious man, seemingly about his asking questions after the orgy. The front has a headline saying, “Lucky to be alive,” and he opens it to read an article about the prostitute’s drug overdose. Both were written by actual Post writer, Larry Celona. Celona would be the one who broke news about not just Kubrick’s passing, but Epstein’s as well, along with writing about Maxwell’s arrest in 2020. Personally, it feels like simply a coincidence, but how far does a coincidence have to go before it gets to be suspicious? Celona is still around- maybe we could ask him?
Thanks for listening, and be safe on social media, folks. This shit is exhausting.
Viva La Resistance!
Brian Skutle
www.sonic-cinema.com
