Freud revisited or Kubrick's Erotic Psychology

Rating: 10/10 (25 April 2000)

EYES WIDE SHUT 1999 / Traumnovelle 1925 -- "Dangerous Art" ?

There the defining questions are always : How so? To What? To Whom? It is well known, among scholars, that Nietzsche said : "I believe that I have guessed some secrets of the highest man's soul. Perhaps everyone who guesses them is destroyed." (Trnsl., Thomas Mann; 1947.) Kubrick's so refined adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler's Freudian/Nietzschean novel of fin-de-siècle decadence, at this climactic turn-of-the-century and outset of a new millennium, takes the form of his culminating masterpiece of cinematic art and sophistication. And is, in a word : Great !
His filmed tribute to and like celebration of all the deep-psychological Mystery in the human condition, reconstructs anew and actualizes those earliest discoveries which motivated very passionate collaborative exchanges between the psychiatrist and the novelist. Indeed we may well contend that our extremely talented director was once again "ahead of his time" with this last film and his own breathtaking exploration of the dream-like reality of the human Soul !
Such examples of the "dangerous" variety ARE perhaps that which is why "we have Art" at all; that is, "to keep us from perishing from (mere) truth ! " (Nietzsche). It is regrettable that undue impediments have been imposed on our sharing in his "vision" !