Bill's Dream

Rating: Null/10 (13 July 2004)

Spoiler Alert I saw Eyes Wide Shut for the fifth time this weekend. The first time I saw it at the theater, I was not really that impressed with it. Tom Cruise was out of his league on this film. The crying scene was unbelievable. I did not buy it!
The next time I saw it, I looked past the acting and the content was fascinating. Is cheating in your heart/dream/wish etc. the same as the actual physical act of cheating? I kept thinking about the line from former President Carter when he said he had "lusted in his heart." I was in high shool at the time and I thought it was way too much information for anyone over 40 let alone the President of the United States.
How you view this movie depends on where you are in your life. But this is no great revelation to anyone who is an Eyes Wide Shut or Kubrick groupie.
I just wanted to make one point that I thought of upon this viewing of the movie. In the past, I have always been mind-boggled by the plot repetition among characters, Alice as a sect member, etc. This time, I saw that maybe the entire movie may be Bill's dream. I have never understood why Alice would or even admit to giving up her child for one night with the stranger. This began my thinking that the entire point of view is that of a man, Bill.
He is the one who fantasizes about his wife with another man. He is the viewer and commentator on all sexual situations. He judges Victor Ziegler on his world of cultish sex but it is he who infiltrated this world to satisfy his own purient interests. Bill turns down the advances of a sick patient's daughter after he has just died, again passing judgment on his wife's confession of a similar situation just a few moments earlier. Tom Later calls the daughter when he is looking for sex only to have her fiancé answer the phone. Twice his interludes with a prostitute are interrupted, once by a call from his wife and then by a positive hiv test.
Bill's adventure into the world of sex orgies, prostitutes and sexual confessions of a wife read like the dreams of a middle-aged man not sexually satisfied. Keys that make me think it is a dream are 1) Alice admission that she would give up her daughter for sex with a stranger, 2) even the street names are fictitious, i.e. Wren Street, 3) if he were on a mission to have sex, in one night don't you think Bill could get some in New York, 4) Bill's continuing to investigate the organization and he has been warned and his family may be in danger and finally when Alice said at the end of the film that they need to fu--!
All these issue lead me to believe that this is a dream of Bill's where he contemplates how sex with his wife and another man stimulates him. Alice's confessions inspire him to begin his sexual adventures without repercussion. Kind of, you cheated on me now I can cheat on you. If there was an Eyes Wide Shut 2, I believe that Bill may not have the need to explore sexual liaisons outside his marriage once he awakens from his eyes wide shut.