Hacker News Reader

Comment by xamuel | Hacker News Reader

Kubrick films often have amazing optical illusions of the "once you see it, you can't unsee it" form. In EWS, it's the mask on the pillow. Watch the film enough and you'll suddenly realize what Bill really sees when he walks in that room: he sees his wife sleeping with another man (the mask is the other man). Somehow the way the wife and the mask are positioned, you can "see" the entire outline of the other man, even though he's nothing but a mask. And now, you'll never see Eyes Wide Shut as the same movie ever again :)

View on HN

Here is the scene, in case anyone is interested:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRS6spe6xaI

And yet there is also the fact that "the other man" is signified by the mask left at the party.

I believe there is deeper subtext revealed here by Kubrick related to the tensions between petite bourgeois morality (and "Dr. Bill" is solid Upper East Side petite bourgeois) and the moral position held by "Hungarian" aristocrats who may or may not wear red robes while playing Grand Master in a ritualized ruling elite social gathering.

A tearful and oddly emasculated "admission" by Dr. Bill follows.

Are you saying there is an implication that there was another man in the bed, implied via the mask?

Because I took the mask to mean the wife participated in the orgy, so the rest follows accordingly

No, not that another man was literally there, but that Bill (or the viewer) sees such an impression.

Compare the Dr. Strangelove cover which shows the round table in the War Room [1]. If you squint, you'll realize what you're looking at is actually a mushroom cloud. The table is the main part of the mushroom cloud, the men sitting around it are little explosions at ground level, and the circular light above the table is the ring around the mushroom cloud. This is obviously intentional, but there's no implication that a nuclear bomb literally exploded inside the war room.

[1] https://img.goldposter.com/2015/04/Dr.-Strangelove-or-How-I-...

This is incongruous with how the book ends — which shows the wife as finding the mask and leaving the mask on the pillow to indicate her understanding.

Kubrick doesn't always stick to the book. In the ending of Stephen King's "The Shining", the Overlook Hotel literally blows up in a giant explosion. I think most people can agree Stanley Kubrick did the right thing by leaving that out of the film!

Most people being anyone but Stephen King, who hated the movie.

I don't see what you describe? The mask is there but don't notice even a subtle outline (watching video link above)

The pillow is depressed as though a person were lying there. The shape of the depression even seems to imply the shape of someone's shoulders.

Have watched the scene a few times but never picked up on that but it's very insightful to his reaction.. thank you for the comment!

The Shining also has many of these https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_u4A5tJ2j3o

"The Shining" is, among other things, a giant metaphor of human (and in particular, western) civilization. The constant references to the moon landing (and 2001: A Space Odyssey) can imho be understood as an one of the many illustrations of the great and unprecedented things that came out of a civilization that is masterfully portrayed in the movie as a fading grand hotel built on a burial ground that is trapped in a seemingly eternal winter. Seeing it as Kubrick's confession that he staged the moon landing is not only silly, it doesn't even begin to describe the film's poetic depth. However, I watched the documentary where this clip is taken from (Room 237 [0]) and can recommend it with reservations. But I remember that it "jumps the shark" somewhere around the middle of the documentary.

Just to elaborate: I often hear people discredit "The Shining" because it didn't scare them enough, or because they think King's book is better, or because they find Duvall's and Nicholson's performances over-the-top. In my opinion, "Shining" is Kubrick's masterpiece. It is arguably deeper than 2001, has a very high artistic quality (some scenes are staged like a ballet) and at the same time, the movie is constantly entertaining and thrilling (which is a quality 2001 clearly lacks, as I have experienced again and again when I tried to watch it with friends who were unfamiliar with Kubrick's work).

If you want to go down the rabbit hole of "The Shining" interpretations, you should start with the Wikipedia article [1] and end with the shot-by-shot-analysis [2]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_237

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shining_(film)#Social_inte...

[2] http://idyllopuspress.com/idyllopus/film/shining_toc.htm

To save anyone else this pointless click: that video is total nonsense and the ramblings of a moon landing conspiracy theoryist.

It's an excerpt from a feature length documentary called Room 237. Taken as a whole, it's a pretty fun, non-judgmental tour through some colourful interpretations and theories surrounding Kubrick and The Shining. I don't think it's actually intended to convert anybody to moon landing skepticism.

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/31/movies/aide-to-kubrick-on...

> “I stood staring at all that stuff for weeks while we were shooting in that room. It’s a downhill skier. It’s a downhill skier. It’s not a Minotaur.”

Etc, etc. Room 237 is not only the ravings of madmen, it has a bit right st the start where a guy is talking over The Shining shots, a baby starts crying on the background (of the guy talking) and they stop and discuss that. I turned it off in disgust after that.

Wow, this is some next-level crackpot tinfoil conspiracy theorist hogwash.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com