What was Stanley Kubrick trying to do?

Rating: Null/10 (20 May 2000)

Review of Eyes Wide Shut by Clarise Samuels
When a great director dies just before he releases his last film, it makes it hard for the critics to tear it to pieces. But in the minds of many viewers, Eyes Wide Shut was so boring and so difficult to grasp, even the untimely death of the legendary Kubrick was not enough to redeem it. What was Stanley Kubrick trying to do with this film? Having just seen the video, I'm going to venture my opinion.
The film was loosely based (or "inspired") by Arthur Schnitzler's Traumnovelle (Dream Novella). Schnitzler, an Austrian playwright (1862-1931), was influenced by Naturalism, Impressionism, and Expressionism. The Naturalists incorporated realistic literary themes that were previously not acceptable, such as alcoholism or suicide. From the Impressionists, Schnitzler became enchanted with the portrayal of passing moods and transient moments. The Expressionists desired to explore an inner reality, such as the shadowy underside of the human soul and most particularly the devastating effects of the human sex drive. Freud was teaching and publishing in Vienna during this period, and Schnitzler was attracted to the exploration of dreams and the unconscious.
Kubrick understood this Germanic quest to explore the dark side of human nature, and he was apparently enchanted with the artsy theatrical techniques used to create moods and impressions rather than action and conflict. I believe this is what he was after in Eyes Wide Shut. The theme is entirely based on dark, hidden sexuality--an upper-class couple (unsuccessfully transferred from late 19th-century Vienna to modern New York City), who are presumably happy, are plunged into a crisis when the wife (Kidman) candidly describes her secret lust for a stranger, who had temporarily swept her off her feet because of a casual encounter. This terrible confession unleashes a devastating reaction in the very bourgeois husband (Cruise), who prides himself on being a good husband, father, and doctor. Haunted by dreamlike images of his wife making love to another man, he takes to the streets at night, walking through dangerous and uncharted territory that corresponds to the sexuality that has been triggered by his unconscious.
First Cruise has to visit the apartment of a friend who has just died; there, in the same room as the deathbed, the daughter of the deceased suddenly falls upon him, professing a secret lust for him that she has hidden for years. (This is a very Schnitzler-like moment, but out of context, Kubrick couldn't pull it off.) The good doctor, quite shaken, then resumes seeking refuge in the street late at night, where he finds himself roughed up by hoodlums, negotiating the cost of sex with a prostitute in a sleazy apartment house, and last but not least, ending up at a weird ritualistic orgy, where good citizens could play out their most obscene sexual fantasies, while hiding behind elaborate masks.
Kubrick didn't seem to know where to take this Freudian odyssey, and the innocent doctor stumbles around, flirting with danger and having long conversations with a lot of people, but somehow emerges unscathed, as if at the end, he finally awakens from a dream. I could see why people who are not scholars of Arthur Schnitzler were left sitting in the theatre saying "Huh?" if indeed they were still awake. But when understood in the context of German literature as a psychological exploration of moods and moments, the film becomes a noble failure, rather than a mind-boggling failure.