IdyllopusPress Presents

Return to the Zeiglers

Cut to the outside of Zeigler’s house. Then to the inside, Bill walking Zeigler’s assistant down the same hall in which he’d entered for the party. The decorations are still up in the area with the stairway, though only the Christmas tree and the cascade of white lights are lit. As they continue down another hall, we see the same style of bow decorations hanging as had been at Sharky’s (which was also the Rainbow costume shop). We had just a glimpse of these bow decorations in the scene at the first party in which Nuala and Gayle and Bill had been flirting, observed through a background door, down the hall, barely distinguishable through surrounding lights.

Passing under the bow decoration which had been seen at Sharky’s

He’s ushered through a left door toward the middle of the hall into Zeigler’s pool room/library which is lined with books, reminding somewhat of the library in which the man with the tricorner hat (Zeigler) had directed a model over to Bill’s side.

Zeigler greets him warmly, saying he appreciates his coming and that he’s sorry to drag him out. Bill says he was out anyway. Zeigler offers him a drink and Bill asks for some scotch. (In the screenplay ithe drink is identified as Napoleon 1935.) Bill tells him it was a terrific party and that he and Alice had a wonderful time. As they approach the red billiard table, overhung with green lights, Bill asks if he had been playing and Zeigler says he was just knocking a few balls around. When Bill says it’s good Scotch, Zeigler says it’s 25 year old and offers to send over a case. Bill declines. Zeigler insists. Bill emphatically declines. Zeigler laughs, playing with the cue ball, asking him if he feels like playing, and Bill says no, he’ll watch.

Zeigler says no, hesitates, says listen, uh, Bill, the reason he asked him to come over was he needed to talk to him about something. Awkward. But he has to be completely frank.

“What kind of problem are you having?” Bill asks.

Zeigler says it isn’t a medical problem, crossing before a large model of a ship. He says it concerns Bill.

Cut to Bill staring at Zeigler.

Cut to Zeigler. He says he knows what happened the night before, and he knows what’s been going on since then, and he thinks Bill has the wrong idea about one or two things.

Bill stares in horror, drops his head, smiles, then asks what he’s talking about.

“Please, Bill, no games. I was there, at the house. I saw everything that went on.” Zeigler asks Bill what the hell he thought he was doing. He couldn’t begin to imagine how he heard about it, much less got himself through the door. Then he remembered seeing him with the “prick piano player, whatever his name was, at my party” and it didn’t take much to figure out the rest.

Bill says it wasn’t Nick’s fault, it was his.

“Of course it was Nick’s fault. If he hadn’t mentioned it to you in the first place none of this would have happened.” He says he recommended the cocksucker to those people and he’s made him look like a complete asshole.

“What can I say?” Bill asks. “I had absolutely no idea you were involved in any way.”

“I know you didn’t, but I also know you went to Nick’s hotel this morning and talked to the desk clerk.”

Bill asks how he knows and Victor admits he had Bill followed. He says he is sorry, he owes him an apology but it was for his own good. He says he knows what the desk clerk told him but what he didn’t tell him was that all they did was put Nick on a plane to Seattle and by now he’s back with his family banging Mrs. Nick.

Bill mentions Nick was bruised.

“Ok, he had a bruise on his face. That was a hell of a lot less than he deserved.” Victor goes on saying he doesn’t think Bill realizes the trouble he was in. “Who do you think those people were? Those were not just ordinary people. If I told you their names…I don’t think you’d sleep so well.”

Bill asks if it was the second password that gave him away.

Yes, finally, but not because he didn’t know it. Because there was no second password. It didn’t help that most arrive in limos and he showed up in a taxi. Or that when they took his coat they found the receipt for the rental house in his pocket made out to you-know-who.

“There was a woman there who tried to warn me.”

Victor says he knows.

“Do you know who she was?”

Victor says he does. A hooker. “Sorry. That’s what she was.”

A hooker.

Victor says suppose he told him that everything that happened to him there, the threats, the girls’ warnings, the last minute interventions, what if he said that all of that was staged, a kind of charade, that it was fake.

“Fake.”

Yes, fake.

Bill, having seated himself on the sofa, bent over, beats his clasped fists against his forehead, asking why they would do that.

In plain words? To scare the living shit out of you. To keep you quiet about where you’d been, about what you’d seen.

Bill slaps his hands. He brings out of his pocket the newspaper article about the girl’s death and asks if Victor has seen it.

Victor advances, takes it. Folds it up and hands it back, saying he has.

Bill says he saw her body in the morgue. “Was she? Was she the woman…”

Yes.

“Well, Victor, maybe I’m missing something here. You called it fake, a charade, do you mind telling me what kind of fucking charade ends with somebody turning up dead?”

“Okay Bill, let’s cut the bullshit. You’ve been way out of your depth for the past 24 hours. You wanna know what kind of charade? I’ll tell you exactly what kind. That whole playacted, take me, phony sacrifice that you’ve been jerking yourself off with had absolutely nothing to do with her real death. Nothing happened to her after that party that hadn’t happened to her before. She got her brains fucked out, period. When they took her home she was just fine. And the rest of it is right there in the paper. She was a junky. She OD’d. There was nothing suspicious. Her door was locked from the inside. The police are happy. End of story. Come on. It was always going to be just a matter of time with her. Remember, you told her so yourself. You remember, the one with the great tits who OD’d in my bathroom. Listen, Bill, no one killed anybody. Somebody died. It happens all the time. Life goes on. It always does. Until it doesn’t. But you know that, don’t you.”

In the screenplay, Victor instead describes Amanda thusly:

Bill, are you so sure she was the kind of woman for whom the things you imagined were actually a sacrifice? If she attended these affairs and knew the rules so well, do you suppose it would have made any difference to her whether she belonged to one of the men, or to all of them? Bill, she was just a thousand-a-night hooker, no more, no less.

Victor’s costume at the play, the tricorner hat and the mask, is exactly as that observed in a statue in the theater district of Milton Keynes, paired with another female figure in a Napoleonic hat. The 1995 sculpture, “Dangerous Lliaisons” is by Philip Jackson and based on the Maschera Nobile.

The Tricorner Hat

Before I move along, I’d like to note that the notion that Amanda’s death by OD, rather than a murder, is given as proven by her door having been locked from the inside. “The Shining” had the scene in which Jack was locked in the storage room (pronounced story room at one point) and then is released by what may be a supernatural force. Much has been conjectured about whether he was released by such a force or of there is a rational answer. We’ve here another such mystery, the how of Amanda’s death given as confirmed entirely by that door being locked on the inside, Victor insisting that this proves her death was accidental. The viewer is left to judge whether or not Victor can be trusted.

Bill Returns Home

Cut to Bill’s mask on his pillow, Alice asleep beside it.

The light suggests Alice’s face is masked

Bill enters the apartment, the fleur de lis decoration on the blue hall wall outside. He removes his coat, enters the living room with its lit tree, presents all around. He cuts off the lit tree. Goes into the kitchen. Takes a beer from the refrigerator and sits at the table. Dissolve to his opening his bedroom door, looking slightly inebriated. He sees the mask. Stares. He lowers himself to the bed and begins to sob. His crying wakes Alice, whose expression is at first bizarrely inscrutable, mask like, distant, devoid of any emotion, even surprise. He leans down and rests his head on her. “I’ll tell you everything,” he says, she stroking his hair. “I’ll tell you everything. I’ll tell you everything.”

Only after the extinguishing of the multi-colored Christmas tree lights do we have this break down with Bill offering to tell Alice everything.

Cut to Alice, smoking, dressed in a blue sweater, eyes red as if with tears, sitting on the sofa. Bill sits across from her on the other sofa. Dawn. Alice says Helen will be up soon and she’s expecting them to take her Christmas shopping.

Next a toy store or toy section of a store. “Stairs to all floors” sign. The decorations are white stars on fields of blue and red. They pass by a sales display of games called “The Magic Circle”, a man scattering bubbles above attracting interest to the display via the many bubbles. Helena runs ahead and looks at a doll baby carriage saying how pretty it is, she could put Sabrina in there. “It’s old fashioned,” Alice says, dressed in a camel color coat the same style as had been worn by the bald individual who had been following Bill, her hands tucked into its pockets as had been that individual’s. A tiger doll or puppet sits on a box behind the carriage taking us back to Domino’s apartment, outside of which had been the baby stroller, inside of which had been the toy tiger.

The decorations are white stars on fields of red and blue.

Helena runs ahead and picks up a large teddy bear, saying she hopes Santa gets her one. Tigers hang nearby. Alice looks at the price tag and says he’ll have to wait and see. They pass through multiples of stuffed animals, teddy bears.

And, really, thinking in terms of a deluge and rainbow and the idea of multiplying afterwards, the toy store with its numbers of stuffed animals etc. Interestingly, the multi-colored Christmas lights and tree are absent here, as noted above, the store just being those stars on fields of red and blue.

“Alice, what do you think we should do?” Bill asks her.

“What do you think we should do?”

“Look, mommy!” Helena holds up a boxed Barbie doll in a ballerina costume. Numerous such dolls in boxes below.

“What do I think? I don’t know. I mean, maybe.” They stop before a wall of tigers. “Maybe, I think, we should be grateful. Grateful that we’ve managed to survive through all of our adventures whether they were real or only a dream.”

“Are you sure of that?”

“Am I sure? Only as sure as I am that the reality of one night, let alone that of a whole life time, can ever be the whole truth.”

“And no dream is ever just a dream.”

“The important thing is we’re awake now, and hopefully for a long time to come.”

“Forever.”

“Forever.”

“Forever.”

A trinity of forevers, just as the twin girls in “The Shining” had invited Doc to play with them forever and ever and ever, and Jack had told his son that he wanted to live at the Overlook forever and ever and ever. OD or OVD is a word that means continuance, eternity, life everlasting. It comes from a word meaning to repeat. My reasoning is that we have not only the word here, emphasized in the repeating aspect, inflating to the sense of eternity, but it perhaps also is referred to in the scenes with Sandor who references Ovid (Alice responding didn’t he die crying his eyes out in a place with a bad climate, referring to the flood) but also the overdose of Amanda which is in the film referred to as an event the recurrence of which was inevitable.

“It’s no use, that word,” Alice says. “It frightens me. But, I do love you. And, you know, there is something very important that we need to do as soon as possible.”

“What is that?”

“Fuck.”

It should be realized we have no idea what Bill told Alice. “Everything,” he said, but what was his vision of what he’d observed as opposed to what Kubrick has presented us or what we observe? I’ve no doubt that in the end we’re left to know no more than the once knowledgeable Bill, or Alice.

This Will have to do for my wrap up

The flooding that Bill experiences in the film seems to have to do with a stripping away of, let’s say, some attribute of the world of Malkuth or Assiah (the material worlds in cabbalistic lore), or an elevation into one of the higher worlds, so that he is suddenly immersed in a landscape of denuded formula, of signs repeating and expanding upon themselves. But I’m not a Cabbalist so what do I know. This is just how it seems to me from the little of which I’m aware.

There is perhaps a reference in 2001 that neatly ties in and strengthens my position. Dave Bowman has been drawing pictures of the crew in hibernation. HAL asks to see them and while Dave shows them to him HAL begins to question him on how he feels about things, asking if he has second thoughts. HAL says his reason for inquiry is difficult to define, that perhaps he is simply projecting his own concerns (just as any one of us can project wildly upon Kubrick’s films) but he is unable to free himself of the suspicion that there are some “odd things” about the mission and he’s sure Dave will agree with the truth about this. “Certainly no one could have been unaware of the very strange stories floating around before we left,” HAL says, and as he says it, on one of the computer screens is MEM, which I think refers to the Hebrew letter M and the waters. The strange stories floating around in connections with the waters is very akin to what has happened here.

It is at this point in the inquiry that HAL breaks off and predicts a fault in the AE35 unit that will go 100 percent failure in 72 hours, but says that there will be no indication of this until the time that it fully fails. The computer, which has full knowledge of the mission, whereas Dave Bowman doesn’t yet, is acting as a sort of oracle on the failure of the communications device. But is HAL in error, as the folks back on earth say he is, or are conditions different out here in space so that the result he gives is different from his twin computer. Or is HAL simply already plotting the death of Frank Poole and Dave Bowman. Whatever, this is the turning point that will ultimately result in Bowman’s confrontation with the monolith at Jupiter leading to the long sequence of brightly colored lights that seem to convey intelligence, the close-ups of Dave’s iris wrapping round his pupil while this is ongoing, and the popping out the other side in the French Baroque bedroom and bath where he will progress through his final leg of the journey toward rebirth.

The fault in Bill’s life which seems to launch him into the flood is perhaps his forgetting of the name of Roz or, conversely, having been made aware of it, which is going to be in respect to his failure to really see his wife, to look at her, which has to do with the world at large and his own complex nature. RZ is “to attenuate” to hide, a mystery, secret. Roz is his babysitter’s name, the one for whom he’s left the numbers. Rosa is the name of the Nathanson maid. His experiences on the street beginning at the time of his seeing the couple kissing under the closed rosebud, one could think in terms of matters sub rosa. By the time we reach Domino’s apartment, the flood of signs well under way, we have “maid’s day off”, the place a mess of dishes and old food. At the costume shop we can see across the way the sign Eros and though there are historical warpings, present day myth has, according to Wikipedia, Aphrodite giving the rose to her son, Eros, who gives it then to Harpocrates, who has eventually become associated with the god of silence, “to ensure that his mother’s indiscretions (or those of the gods in general…) were kept under wraps”, which fits in with this movie as well as long as we don’t think in terms of personality. At the time of the winter solstice Bill is well on his way to Somerton, his wife also effected by the flood and providing her own view of the universe and its repetitions which seem to reach for novelty in evolutionary ways, which occur via multiplication. By the end of the film Bill and Alice stand in the toy store, amongst a suggestion of innumerable stars and all the games of magic circles, the creatures of the ark multiplying all about them, counting themselves as now awake and lucky to have survived their adventures, ruminating on mysterious natures of reality of which they were previously unaware.

The end story remains what is the nature of love and fidelity in this big universe and where does it fit in.

The Zeigler’s Party
Naval Officer, Marion
Domino, Sonata Jazz, Rainbow
Somerton, Alice’s Dream
Nick’s Hotel, Rainbow, Somerton
Marion, Domino, Sharky’s, the Hospital
Zeigler, Home, the Toy Store

Nick Nightingale’s Hotel

Fade in on the street. Bill emerging from a taxi (7P94), returning to the Sonata Cafe which is closed and gated. The ad on top of the cab reads DKNY EYES. We see behind the earlier sewing thread sign and that above it the building reads Thread Mills. People walking along carrying wrapped packages and a person has a GAP bag. As he approaches the Sonata Cafe again, with the guitar sign above it, just as when he last visited it, a man with a guitar passes to the right, wearing red and black plaid shirt. Bill finds the Sonata Cafe gated and locked.

He enters Gillespie’s Diner next door and learning from the waitress that Nick Nightingale comes in there, and that she knows his address, tries to get her to tell him where he lives. He even shows her his doctor card but she says no. So finally he tells her it’s a matter of medical tests and that Nick will want to know about them as soon as possible.

The waitress wears a pink shirt and a necktie. A necktie is perfectly normal on a woman but I think here is indicative of gender reversals.

Bill now is encountering gates closed to him after entering Somerton under false pretenses. And yet Bill was certainly enticed to Somerton.

We see him pass by Artini’s and enter Hotel Jaso…. (can’t see its full name) at building number 143. More people with packages and a person with a GAP bag. The exterior light globes on which we see the number 143 remind of the globes on the tables in the Sonata Cafe, and further of stone globes that had been on the gate at Somerton.

The clerk at the reception desk, obviously gay, eyes him up and down appreciatively and asks how he can help him, but when Bill asks for Nick Nightingale’s room, he’s told he already checked out around 5 in the morning, leaving no forwarding address. Bill asks if he noticed anything unusual about him. The clerk asks, “Hey you’re not five 0, are you?” Bill says no, that he’s an old friend, a doctor. “Really?” the clerk replies, interested. And Bill shows him his medical card. “It’s funny you should ask that question, Bill” the clerk says, allowing there was something strange about the way he left. He came in at 4:45 with two big guys, well dressed and well spoken, but not the kind of people you like to fool around with. And, he had a bruise on his cheek and looked a little scared. One of the men settled his bill while the other took him up to his room. When he was leaving, Nick tried to pass him an envelope but the men wouldn’t allow it, saying that any mail or messages for him would be collected by someone properly authorized to do so then took him off in a car and he hasn’t a clue where they went.

Bill says he appreciates it and leaves and the clerk says “any time”.

The gay man recalls Bill having been targeted as a “faggot” the previous evening, after his visit with Marion. A switch hitter. And here we have the gay man obviously attracted to Bill.

Big guys. This comes up a number of times, the big guys who appear to act as bullies or constrainers. Giants are also associated with the NPhL, fallen, overthrown ones, or tyrants. May fit with the film in the context of the mythic story of the rainbow/flood.

Speaking of the mail, if one pays attention to the mail receptacle boxes, we will see them now bearing identical graffiti, appearing to be the same box from place to place.

The second visit to the Rainbow costume shop

Now Bill goes to the Rainbow store to return his costume, a shop selling Murato paints just beyond, which is the store before which he encountered the prostitute, and we are able to see on it in large letters MANNING and below that BOWMAN. A woman passes with a large box. He goes up the side steps and enters into the store.

We see that one of the mannequins in the window is no longer wearing red, as it had been the previous evening.

We see that the stance of the mannequin beside the security gate is different from the previous evening.

Where there were shirts beside the mannequin beside the security gate, there are now shoes, and a second counter is located there, whereas the previous evening there had only been one counter located before the wall cases holding the suits.

The owner greets him, “Oh, the doctor” and asks him if his outfit was a success. He says it was. The owner informs Bill he’s forgotten the mask. “Maybe you left it at the party,” he suggests. Bill thinks a moment then says he doesn’t think so, that he must have lost it, and asks it to be put on the bill.

It was 150 for the rental, then the 200 and 25 for the mask. 375. As Bill prepares to pay, cut to the side and through the door that leads to the back room, the owner’s daughter exits, still in her lingerie and the little wrap that she’d used to cover herself with the night before, when caught with the two men. “Yes, yes, dear, come, come,” says the owner. “Would you like to say hello to Dr. Harford?” She advances to hold hands with her father and shakes hands with Dr. Harford, saying, “Hello.”

The tags on the suits in the case behind are different, much smaller than the previous evening.

The two men from the previous night exit, dressed (well-dressed), thank Mr. Millich and promise to call him soon. As they leave, the owner wishes them a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Bill stares on in disbelief, the owner giving him his receipt and thanking him for his business.

Bill says that last night he was going to call the police. The owner scratches his beard and says things change, “we have come to another arrangement” and if the good doctor should ever want anything again, anything at all (he wraps his arm around his daughter) it needn’t be a costume.

The girl’s face is very doll-like. One could take it that as the shop owner wraps his arm around his daughter with the mention of the costume, he is not so much selling her as referring to the idea of costuming, as if she is herself costumed.

The shopkeeper’s daughter

Her appearance reminds us of the shop owner indicating the mannequins the previous night and pointing out that they only looked real. The manner in which she said “hello” upon the shop owner’s direction seemed like that of a puppet, and the film Kubrick had been preparing for after Eyes Wide Shut was AI, a Pinocchio type adventure which recalled the problem of the HAL-9000 in 2001 which eventually appeared to possess emotions. She could be connected with Amanda, as this girl is the only teen in the film, I think, and the only other time a teen will be mentioned is later in a news article which brings up Amanda having had emotional problems as a teen, but that it was a long time ago and she’d “put it behind her”.

Another interesting thing is Bill doesn’t call the police in response to the seeming pimping of the girl. He seems helpless to do so after having attended the party the previous night. At Nick’s hotel he had to identify himself as not being police, and he won’t call the police about Nick. He also won’t call the police about this girl, or later about Mandy, and Kubrick leaves us to struggle with whether it is less a moral failure than his recognizing that things are not as they seem and his questioning of the reality of the situation on, at least, the every day, mundane level.

The Second Visit to Somerton

Next shot, a business area of the city.

Cut to Bill seated in his office, troubled, facing the window, hand to his mouth. But he’s not thinking about the girl, he’s envisioning the naval officer having intercourse with his wife. There’s a knock on the door and an employee enters with black coffee in a bag. He asks how his afternoon is looking and she says there’s just Mrs. Akley at 2:30 and Mrs. Kaminski at 4. He tells her something has come up and to see if Miller can see them and if not to apologize and make new appointments. And please call the garage and have them get his car out in half an hour.

Next shot, Bill in his Range Rover crossing the bridge. He passes under the sign for Exit 39 which leads to Glen Cove Rd. Entering a forested area, he passes a sign that reads that 495 East is ahead, in the opposite direction from which he is driving, and 495 West is to the right. He is approaching Somerton from the opposite direction he arrived in via the taxi. He drives up to the gate and the viewpoint of the camera is from the other side of the gate, watching him as he paces.

The Musica Ricercata plays.

He looks up and sees on one of the gate posts a security camera following him. He watches a car approach on the other side of the gate, license plate BQR 213. An older man gets out, advances toward the gate, and slips an envelope through to Bill, then returns to the car, gets in the passenger’s side, and leaves without a word.

The envelope is addressed Dr. William Harford. The note inside reads, “Give up your inquiries which are completely useless, and consider these words a second warning. We hope, for your own good, that this will be sufficient.”

BQR means “to inquire, make search”.

Once again, the gate is closed to Bill. He’s denied admittance. The envelope seemingly having already been prepared for Bill, his return visit had been anticipated.

Next: Marion, Domino, Sharky’s, the Hospital

The Zeigler’s Party
Naval Officer, Marion
Domino, Sonata Jazz, Rainbow
Somerton, Alice’s Dream
Nick’s Hotel, Rainbow, Somerton
Marion, Domino, Sharky’s, the Hospital
Zeigler, Home, the Toy Store

Bill Tempted by Domino

Cut to the street and Bill walking down it, a Mexican Cafe and Dry Cleaners in the background.

A pizza shop. Cars passing. The streets are wet. He looks at a woman and man passionately kissing next to a green shop, a Santa in the window behind them and a closed rose in neon above their heads. The shop number is 280, the name of the shop is “Nipped in the Bud”.

His thoughts return to his wife in bed with the Naval officer.

The woman in the sequin dress had said she’d half of 5th Avenue in her eye when Bill helped her with a clean handkerchief. Bill is now going to get a taste of the same via all the signs in the street assuming meaning via their foreshadowing of events. We are reminded of the flood that the bible gives the flood as a cleansing of the earth.

And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. There were giants in the earth in those days (the NPhL); and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

Bill continues to walk and behind him we see a jewelry shop and on his left is a neon sign in a window that simply says “Flying”. A sign above reads “Flying Dutchman.”

Curiously, Danny in “The Shining” had worn a jacket that read “Flyer”, which is initially seen by the audience as reading “lyer”. Also, in “The Shining”, when being shown around the lodge upon her arrival, Wendy, Danny’s mother, had made mention of the frenetic activity as everyone made preparations to leave. When she was told that by 5 o’clock the place would be empty, she had replied, “like a ghost ship”. Such as the Flying Dutchman? A ship that sails the seas forever, appearing out of the mist, never finding port.

The Flying Dutchman. We remember the Van Gogh painting in the kitchen. The Van Gogh book that Alice was wrapping up, perhaps as a present for Bill.

Bill slaps one hand against the other. Passes the Pink Pussy Cat Boutique. Rounds a corner.

“Listen to this. She had a red rose in her mouth. She was doing a Mexican lap dance right in my face,” a man in a group of people advancing from the opposite corner is going on loudly.

The side of a building is painted with “Everything electronic for less! 555-1121 Thank you. I Love you!” One is reminded of Marion’s declaration of love to Bill.

The green and white striped awning decorates a building that will later be dark and in the neighborhood of Domino, then a little later will be “The Rainbow” shop, and even later will…well…have a quadruple life…as Sharkey’s.

“I’ve got scars on the back of my neck,” the man continues, then seeing Bill yells, “Hey, hey, hey, what team’s this switch hitter playing for?! Looks like the pink team. Faggot!” And slams into Bill as they pass, knocking him into a car.

Things Bill had seen, actions he had made, are being played out in this altercation. He had just passed a Mexican restaurant, a couple making out under a rose, and at the Nathanson’s the maid had been Rosa, and his own babysitter a Roz. He had pounded his own fist as he passed the Pink Pussy Cat Boutique. It’s as if that aggression, Bill pounding his own hand, is now being played out by these individuals who slam him against the car and who had spoken of a Mexican lap dance performed by a woman with a rose in her mouth.

I hesitate to belabor the riddling sphinx, having just finished writing about it in relation to “The Shining”, but the scratches on the neck reminded me not only of the strangling sphinx (who makes an overt appearance in “Clockwork Orange”, two statues of the sphinx outside the house where Alex is temporarily blinded by his buddies with a smashed milk bottle), but of Marion with Bill, her hands on the back of his neck as she made her confession. And we have here an association with the feline being raised via the Pink Pussycat. But the sphinx is all to do with enigmas, isn’t it, a polymorphic creature presenting the face of a human.

“Merry Christmas, Mary!” they yell (a variation of Marion, Mary meaning bitter waters) and continue to taunt him as they walk off saying they make dumps bigger than him. “Prime cut of meat! You want to take a ride on this?” Slapping their asses. “C’mon macho man! You wanna piece of this? Exit only, honey!” They yell to him to go back to San Francisco where he belongs.

Two are wearing what look like college jerseys under their jackets but the only letters evident are AL.

Stunned, Bill continues walking down the street.

Shot from above of a another corner.

Then down on street level with Bill again as he passes a man getting off a pay phone who says, “Oh, I see, I’m taking care of it baby” and glances at Bill as he passes. As Bill approaches the corner a seeming prostitute in gray fur hat and black and white stripe fur jacket takes notice of him. She wears a short purple dress, knee high black boots and lace stockings. He is stalled at the corner by traffic and she approaches, asking him what time it is. Ten past twelve he answers, and we see behind them a hardware store, the word PAINTS in different colors. But then different neon sign colors have been ablaze everywhere.

This hardware store will later be revealed as having painted on it the words Manning and Bowman. Just a couple of doors down from it a store that will later be revealed to be the Rainbow costume shop, but for now it’s dark, none of its lights lit. It is the same building that had been decorated with the green and white awning in the previous scene. So, here we have Bill walking past a double of that street and having a second eventful encounter.

The woman (we don’t find out her name until later) asks if he’s going anywhere special? No, just taking a walk. She follows along and they pass the Original Josef Kreiber Knishery, building 269, then a shop with a Lotto sign in the window. She asks him, next to a green neon hotel sign, if he’d like a little fun, if he’d like to come inside with her. “It’s a lot nicer in there than it is out here,” she says, pointing to double red doors up a short flight of stairs.

Nervous, in a curiously choking voice Bill points at the doors. She lives in there? By herself?

No, with a roommate. She tells him she’s gone though and it’ll be all right, no one will bother them.

They enter building 265, the audience perhaps thinking that after being called faggot, maybe the shocked Bill is resolved to prove he’s not, or perhaps he’s taking up with the prostitute in response to his wife’s confession.

Also, directly after Bill having been pushed into the car by the men who accused him as being a “switch hitter”, a faggot, he has met this supposed prostitute who is inviting him into her apartment next to a building in the windows of which Lotto was advertised. One could be reminded of Lot of Sodom and Gomorrah. LT, though meaning bitumen, with different vowel points means covered, private, secret, incantation, and appears to be related to a word meaning to cover or veil. The sin of Sodom is considered by some to be gross inhospitality and greed, so it’s interesting that Bill is eventually going to insist on giving the woman money for nothing. Her invitation to go inside for fun, it being nicer inside than out, will also later be echoed at the orgy where a woman in a mask peculiarly edged with black striping on white (Domino wears the black and white striped coat) approaches Bill and asks him if he would like to go somewhere more “private”.

Bill follows the woman into a hallway of beige tile and green paint. A blue stroller rests next to her door, which reminds of the painting of the pregnant woman. Not to mention it’s Christmas when the birth of the solar deity is celebrated.

They enter the woman’s apartment where is, just inside the door, the ubiquitous Christmas tree. Bill remarks on it, saying it’s nice.

The tree in Domino’s apartment

The woman leads him into the kitchen, apologizing for the mess, “Maid’s day off,” moving a dirty pan, and as he stands in the doorway Bill’s expression is one of barely concealed horror of the small, dirty apartment. A tub is in the room filled with presents with an odd, single gold shoe resting on one of them. Red and white bras hang from a bar above. Dirty dishes and an open peanut butter jar sit on a table. Christmas cards hang on the walls.

She begins removing her hat and coat, revealing under her coat a purple dress cut so it has a choker piece for a neck attached to it. “Cozy, cozy place,” he says, sitting on the edge of the tub.

In “The Shining”, Jack Torrance shown the rundown suite in the huge lodge that he and his family would be staying in, had remarked, “Cozy.”

I had brought up the sphinx earlier, her strangled her victims, whose name was believed to come from the word “sphincter”. Curiously, from the beginning of this evening’s events, all the women (exempting Alice) will wear chokers. Marion wore a choker, Domino wears one, all the women at the “orgy” will wear chokers.

The conversation Bill has with the woman is presumed to be a transaction between a prostitute and client, but it’s actually pretty ambiguous.

“Do you suppose we should talk about money?” he asks.

She says, “Yeah, I guess so. It depends on what you want to do.”

I mean, they could have just a conversation about money. After all, it’s a big subject here. Money clearly both divides and unites their two worlds.

“What do you want to do?” she asks.

“What do you recommend?”

She laughs about this, disbelieving. “What do you recommend? Uhm, well, I’d rather not put it into words,” she says removing her gloves.

“I’m in your hands.”

“Okay,” she laughs. “How does one hundred and fifty sound?”

“Sounds wonderful.”

She says, “Don’t worry. I don’t keep track of the time.”

Cut to Alice at home, sitting at her breakfast table, eating chocolate snack cakes, drinking milk, smoking, watching television. On the screen we first see pigeons then a waiter in white jacket and black tie serving a table, the customer saying “Thank you”, the waiter replying “Prego, prego,” the man replying, “Grazie.” the waiter replying, “You’re welcome sir,” a voice over saying, “If I was Italian he would have answered me in Italian.”

The white coat and black tie remind me of Nick Nightingale. The transaction reminds of Bill who is in the meanwhile being serviced (well, not quite) by the supposed prostitute. The film being watched is “Blume in Love” about an impotent divorce lawyer, who finding himself divorced from his wife, and still being in love with her, ventures to win her back.

The scene played here from the movie concerns language, communication, the man, who is American, being waited on by a man who is Italian. The man addresses the waiter in English. The waiter replies in Italian, but when the American responds in Italian the Italian responds in English, reluctant to converse in Italian with a non-native speaker.

I’m reminded of the language of the signs Bill passes, certain subsequent events which happen playing out those signs. If Bill notices, in some respects it is a conversation, but one sided, it right now seems it’s a conversation in which Bill is powerless to take part. Such as the men on the street who talk about the woman with the rose in her lips, who call Bill pink and slam him into the car. What was he to say in response, if he recognized in their actions the preceding signs?

So did the emperor carry on a secret conversation with the nightingale. “I only ask one thing,” the nightingale said to the emperor at the story’s end; “let no one know that you have a little bird who tells you everything. It will be best to conceal it.” Which was an odd request as in the Anderson story the bird simply sang to the emperor, its songs dispelling the faces of death looming and returned him to health.

Dissolve to Bill facing the prostitute. Tinkly piano music reminds, again, of Nick the pianist. They kiss. He looks at her as if he’s not sure what to do. “Shall we?” she asks.

Domino and Bill or Dave Bowman and Frank Poole

Well, no wonder the woman was reluctant to put it “into words,” her profile reminds distinctly of Dave Bowman conversing with Dr. Frank Poole in the pod as HAL looks on, reading their lips in “2001″.

And lo and behold Bill’s cell phone rings. The camera pulls back to show him sitting on the bed. He rises, turns down the music, gestures for the woman to be quiet (his finger to his lips), answers the phone.

It’s Alice. He asks if everything’s all right and she says yes, she was just wondering if he was going to be much longer. He says it’s difficult to talk right now (he had choked and stuttered as he stood with Domino in front of her building, Domino had said she would prefer not to put it into words) but it could be a while, he doesn’t know how long, they’re still waiting for some relatives to arrive. Back at the Harford apartment, on the television screen a woman in a yellow coat and white boots walks off into the night with George Segal. Alice says she’s going to bed.

“Introducing Sociology”, the study of human behavior, is one of the books on the prostitute’s dresser. The other book, viewed directly under a mirror, is “Shadows on the Mirror”. Pastel colored Christmas lights drape the walls around her windows.

Bill hangs up. Cut to the prostitute reclining on her bed which is covered with what may be a Tree of Life spread, a stuffed tiger in the background (we will see a number of stuffed tigers in the final scene of the movie at the toy store, Bill discussing the possible meaning of the events with Alice before them). “Was that Mrs. Dr. Bill?” she asks. He nods his head yes. “Do you have to go?” He says he thinks he does. “Are you sure?” “Yes, I’m afraid so.” We notice that there are tribal masks all over the walls. There had been one at the Nathanson apartment. Now there are at least five, three beside the bed and two on another wall. Bill offers to pay the woman anyway and pulls out $150 (which will later turn out to be the cost of his costume). She says he doesn’t have to bother. But he says he wants to. He takes her hand and folds the money into it.

It should be pointed out that Domino means mask, coming from the Latin (let us praise) the lord. Domination, of course, derives from the Latin.

Before going further I’d like to note that Brian De Palma’s film, “Hi, Mom!” has a kitchen/bedroom set-up pretty much exactly like this one, which is one thing, but what’s interesting is his use in the film of a “red eye” effect that reminds of “2001″. I give images here showing the similarities. In De Palma’s movie, he sets up a camera in the window of the apartment, rigged with a red light (which recalls HAL’s red light in “2001″), by which he intends to film an encounter with a woman in an opposite apartment.

The Sonata Cafe and Rainbow Fashions

Back out on the street. Bill passes by Mancini’s cheese shop (I read that the name Mancini’s origin is from a word meaning “left handed”). Another man on a pay phone, this one in a red jacket. A couple passes and their voices are raised in the mix but I can’t tell what they say. Then James Tobias Lomas Inc. Rentals (real estate). An eatery named Gillespie’s. And sees the Sonata Cafe, a 3 above its door.

Sonata comes from a word meaning “singing”, which could have some correspondence to the name, Nick Nightingale.

A sign is above the Sonata cafe of a neon guitar with its neck pointed to the right. Now there walks into the scene a man from the left carrying a guitar case which doubles the sign, and he continues on. When Bill later returns to the Sonata, again an individual will pass carrying a guitar.

So again we pointedly have the doubling, a sign then being physically represented.

The Sonata Cafe

Hearing piano, Bill stops to look at Nick Nightingale’s picture on the marquee, the doorman eying him. He enters the club, goes down a red painted stairway lined with mirrors. A sign reads “Please present receipt when exiting” and another reads “All Exits Are Final.” I’m reminded of the men on the street shouting exit only.

He coughs. Is greeted by the maitre’ d who asks he’d like a seat at the bar (a football game plays on the tv above, perhaps the same game that had been playing when he was with Alice earlier in the evening) or at a table. He requests a table. The nightclub is nearly empty. He takes a seat at one of the tables, all of which are illuminated with a globe light in the middle, reminding of a crystal ball in which fortunes are told.

The band is shutting down for the night, Nick introducing its members, “On the bass, Mr. Larry McVay, on the drums, Kip Fleming, and on the guitar the one, the only Mr. Bobby Berman.” Nick leaves the stage and is called over by Bill. Nick says the band sucked anyway that night, asks what brings Bill out? A patient in the neighborhood. Oh, does Bill live in The Village? No, they have an apartment on Central Park West.

“You married?”

“Nine years” With a seven year old daughter.

Nick says he has a wife and four boys in Seattle.

“You’re a long way from home.”

“Yeah, well, you’ve got to go where the work is.”

Bill asks if this is Nick’s band and he says it’s a pick-up band, reminding that Bill had just been picked up. Bill asks who he normally plays with and he says anybody, anywhere, divulging he has another job that night that starts around two. And believe it or not he actually doesn’t know where it is. The party’s in a different place every time and he only gets the address about an hour before.

“What’s the big mystery?”

Indeed.

“Hey, man. I just play the piano.”

“Is there something I’m missing here?”

The two women at the Zeigler party had stated that there were things Bill was missing.

“I play blindfolded…And the last time, the blindfold wasn’t on so well. Oh, man, Bill, I have seen one or two things in my life but never anything like this, and never such women!”

No, certainly, ever such women.

Bill laughs. Nick’s phone rings. “Yes, sir,” he snaps to attention. “I know where that is.” He writes a word on a napkin and Bill holds the napkin for him, stabilizing it on the table. Bill asks what it is. “The name of a Beethoven opera, isn’t it?” Nick replies.

FIDELIO.

I have already commented above on the word fidelio and its relationship to the (rain)bow of the covenant. The screenplay actually gives the password as “fidelio rainbow” making itself the link between rainbow and fidelio.

Nick confesses it’s the password and says he has to leave. But Bill presses and says he knows there’s no way on earth he’s going to leave without taking Bill with him. Bill asks for the address, says he’ll go there by himself and there won’t be any connection between them whatsoever (recollect the nightingale’s request to the emperor that he not divulge to anyone that the nightingale tells him everything). Nick says Bill couldn’t get in anyway because the people are costumed and masked and where’s he going to get a costume?

Cut to the street. “Sewing Thread” is painted on a building.

The taxi pulls up before a costume shop, a neon rainbow sign hanging above the door and under it painted the words “Under the Rainbow”. Above is a window displaying men in tuxes. The number on the awning is simply 10.

Bill goes up the stairs next to the shop and rings the bell.

“Peter, this is Bill Harford!” Bill says to a man with a foreign accent who answers on the intercom. He realizes it’s not Peter he’s talking to and says he’s looking for Peter Grenning, the owner of Rainbow Fashions. He says he’s Peter Grenning’s doctor.

As already mentioned, Bill uses his credentials as a doctor as his own password everywhere he goes, and here’s where we begin to become aware of it, after the introduction of the password “fidelio”. We see in the window of the door the reflection of the street behind and it is the Sonata cafe’s neon sax and the Gillespie Diner sign. Though he had ridden up in a cab, turning right onto this street, it seems Bill has only crossed the road, which will not be an error, an oversight. Bill apparently must arrive there by cab, at this point, just as he will arrive at the mansion later in a cab, which is one of the things that ends in distinguishing him from the other party goers.

We had seen this building just beyond the hardware store when Domino had approached Bill, but it had been dark then. In another shot of Bill and Domino, we’d also seen the opposite side of the street, and there was no Gillespie’s, no Sonata. We had also seen this building, though at that point with a green and white stripe awning, in the encounter with the frat boys who slammed Bill against a car. Kubrick isn’t simply reusing the set. He has left obvious clues. The most obvious one is that we’re able to see here the reflection of the Sonata Cafe and the Diner in the window. Also, Kubrick has left in all these versions of the street the fenced in area to the right of the building next to that one which holds the Rainbow and later Sharkey’s (in which there will also be a bow). He makes no attempt to disguise it.

Again, QShTh being the bow of the covenant, QShT or QShVT means fidelity, truth. Bill has crossed the street from the Sonata Cafe, from where he’s just received the password, fidelity, and told he needs a costume. He’s arrived by cab though it’s only across the street, the Sonata Cafe clearly reflected in the windows of the entrance to the Rainbow.

The bearded man who comes to the door is coughing, and when Bill had entered the Sonata Cafe, just across the street, he had coughed, so we are having a sort of mirroring here just as we had a mirroring of the Nathanson apartment with the apartment of Domino. The bearded man reminds of the Hungarian because of his accent and his age, but his appearance is not at all slick. He says Grenning moved to Chicago a year before hand. The man introduces himself as Mr. Milich and yes he is the present owner of Rainbow Fashions.

Bill at the Rainbow

Bill pulls out his medical board card to prove who he is and says he must have a costume, offering to pay $100 over the rental price for the inconvenience. No? $200? Ok.

MLCh means sailor, coming from a word meaning salt, as to pulverize, rub away, disappear as dust.

Bill is let into the shop by the coughing owner who admits him through a security cage, saying that one can’t be too careful these days. We notice that the arrangement of the mannequins has changed from the exterior view of the shop. The positions of the mannequin in a white coat and the mannequin with the top hat have been switched.

Entering the Rainbow

The next time Bill is in the shop, where these shirts are will instead be shoes, and a second counter will be also located here instead of just the one before the wall case of suits.

The shop owner asks him if it’s a special costume he’s looking for. Bill replies he wants a tux and a cloak with a hood and a mask. The owner directs him through a door into a room at the rear of the store, its windows filled with black tuxes.

White lights hang on the wall much like at the Zeigler party on the wall behind the stairs. Mannequins in costumes surround. “Look like alive, huh?” the man says, though they don’t, especially. Bill says, yes. The shopkeeper asks if he’s sure he wouldn’t like something more colorful? Clowns, officers, pirates? No, just the tux, the black cloak with hood and a mask, Bill says, eschewing the suggestion he go for something more rainbow colorful.

The light curtain at Rainbow reminiscent of the light curtain at the Ziegler party.

“You are medicine doctor, yes?” We expect the owner to ask about his cough. Instead he says he’s suddenly lost a lot of hair in the past two weeks, it’s falling out too fast, and leans over to point out a bald spot on the back of his head. Bill, uncomfortable and eager to be elsewhere, not too keen on the idea of giving out free advice, says it’s not his specialty, that he needs to see a tricologist and presses for the costume.

The bald spot reminds of the type of tonsure belonging to the monks in the Hierophant card of the Tarot, who are presented before the Hierophant on his throne, who wears red. The Hierophant will be soon appearing in the film.

As the shopkeeper looks for a cloak for him there’s a sound. “Did you hear something?” he asks and goes to the door to another room separated from them by windows, over which hangs the sign “Rainbow”, “Tuxedos”, “Fancy Dress”, sees Chinese dinner boxes spread over a coffee table in front of a purple sofa, enters the room and turns on the lights. He picks up a piece of lingerie off the sofa, hears a sneeze, parts the costumes on a rack behind him to reveal a Japanese man in red thong and whiteish make-up, snatches off his long black wig revealing gray hair underneath. “What on earth is going on here?!”

“Milich, I can explain everything!”

He looks behind the sofa, a young blond girl in bra and panties standing, and another oriental man in a blond wig which Millitch snatches off and hits him with a pillow. “I promise I’ll kill you,” he yells at the girl. Yells at the men, “Have you no sense of decency?”

“Milich, have you gone crazy? We were invited here by the young lady!”

Milich says it is his daughter. “Can’t you see she’s a child? You’ll have to explain to the police!” He calls her a whore and she races from the room as he grabs for her. She takes refuge behind Bill and looks at him seductively, her face made up to have a porcelain doll like transparency. She grins as the men continue about how this is preposterous as she invited them there. “Can’t you see she is deranged,” the shopkeeper says, locking them in the room, promising to bring the police. He apologizes to Bill and asks if he wanted “Blick”. “Black,” Bill corrects, the shop owner yelling at them to be quiet for the moment, can’t they see that he’s “trying to sell my customer!” As he goes back to the rack on which are the cloaks he calls his daughter a whore again, yells at her to go to bed at once, that he’ll deal with her as soon as he’s done with Bill. The girl whispers something in Bill’s ear and then slowly, invitingly, backs off.

The astonishment that the Japanese men exhibit at Milich’s response to them, it seems as though they really are surprised. The feeling is of Milich putting on a show for Bill, behaving this way because of Bill’s presence.

I have the feeling that the pair of Japanese men has an association with the twin Chinese dragons in Victor’s bathroom, and the twin Chinese jade sculptures at the Nathanson apartment. “But one of those statues ended up missing,” I think. Then realize that one of the Japanese men was hiding behind the clothing and brought out first, while the other was hiding with the girl behind the sofa. It just seems to me there must be a connection.

As with certain windows in “The Shining” which couldn’t possibly exist, one realizes that the windows facing the street on this very rear room at the costume shop shouldn’t exist. The layout of the shop is such that this room should have no opportunity at all for windows in this wall as it would be shared with the neighboring building.

Next: Somerton, Alice’s Dream

The Zeigler’s Party
Naval Officer, Marion
Domino, Sonata Jazz, Rainbow
Somerton, Alice’s Dream
Nick’s Hotel, Rainbow, Somerton
Marion, Domino, Sharky’s, the Hospital
Zeigler, Home, the Toy Store

First off, it’s not my intention to provide an overall meaning for the film, what actually happened. What I’m doing is taking into consideration the invitation to the end of the rainbow (which seems to have been largely ignored by most who write on it) and riffing on that, introducing the possibility of certain keys that are fairly esoteric in nature and which function as keys in that they may provide an opening to interpretation of at least some events on a level beyond the basic storyline, an approach which the film invites, and if I’m in error, no harm done. After all, Kubrick once said that he never argued with interpretation of his films.

If you’re not heavy duty into Kubrick you’ll want to bypass this analysis. Even if you are heavy duty into Kubrick you’ll probably find you want to bypass.

Opening

Credits. A sensuous and lyrical jazz waltz with sax riding over. The Concertgeboux Amsterdam’s “Jazz Suite 2 Waltz 2″.

A dressing room. Against the opposite wall are two tennis rackets in the left corner beside a lamp, shoes lining the wall under a window draped with long red curtains which are drawn open with gold pulls, the slats of the venetian blinds underneath open on neighboring skyscrapers. To the left is a mirrored closet formed of several mirrored doors, one of them open. Classical columns separate us from the tableau as, back to the camera, Alice Harford (Nicole Kidman) nonchalantly slips off a black dress (a surprise to the viewer that she is nude underneath) and kicks it into the corner. Exterior the room, on the left is a circular table.

The drapes of the window are reflected twice in the mirror of the closet, and the two tennis rackets against the wall give a blurred doubled effect.

Alice in the dressing room.

EYES WIDE SHUT

The music takes on a circusy tinge. A busy New York Street at night, cabs passing the upper class apartment building in which Alice and Bill Harford live.

The dressing room. Now there is Dr. Bill Harford (Tom Cruise), the room unlit, a lamp that had been in the corner behind the tennis rackets is no longer there, instead there are several long slender objects sheathed in black casings (can’t tell what they are), and we are further in the room, beyond the columns, bookcases to the right which had not been previously viewed. Whereas Alice’s shoes had lined the floor under the window before, now many pairs of Bill’s black shoes do. Bill is reflected in the mirrors of the closet on the left as he appears to gaze out the window into the street below. A framed picture now rests upon the sill of the window and some other articles which hadn’t been there before. Beneath the window is a heating vent. There is a rug on the floor. The audience is going to assume, is intended to assume, that the first scene showed Alice dressing for the same party for which Bill is now dressed, but that can’t be so. And it isn’t a matter of there being two dressing room. As we subsequently follow Bill around the bedroom, we see no other dressing room, at least not accessible from the bedroom. There is only this and a door leading to the bathroom and a door to the hallway.

The book shelf is clearly observed in this view of the dressing room when the background focus was more on the mirrors with Alice. Bill will also be observed in a library in two other major scenes, one at the orgy and the other at Victor’s home in which events are reviewed.

Bill turns and we see he’s dressed for a party in his tux and bow tie. He exits the dressing room into the bedroom, stops at a small round table on the left. The table and its chairs rest under a pastoral picture of perhaps a garden with an arched entry through which leads a grassy lane. The table is littered with the general debris of life, another framed picture, notepad, advertizing circulars, books, small boxes. The lamp on it is painted with a pastoral scene. Bill takes several objects off the table and pockets them, his pager probably being one of the objects, and keys.

“Honey, have you seen my wallet?”

Alice (off screen, sounding weary, bored), “What, isn’t it on the bedside table?”

A wallet contains personal identification. As we shall see, throughout the movie, Bill uses his physician ID as his calling card everywhere, it shows who he is, he uses it as a password, really, in nearly every situation in which he is trying to gain confidence and admittance.

The camera follows Bill past an entertainment center to the other end of the room where he stops at a dresser upon which are 4 red candles in a candelabra, a framed pastoral scene hanging above of a tree which appears to be bare, sports equipment resting against the dresser (some type of sheathed racket). His wife’s dressing table is to the left, covered with sundry make-up items. To the right is a window with venetian blinds slightly drawn to reveal high rises, a greeting card and other articles resting on the window sill. The camera revolves to follow Bill past the entertainment center on which rests a television on a high shelf. Revolves, following him to the left bedside end table again which is again covered with the general debris of life, phone, books on a shelf underneath. Tasteful pictures of fruits hang above it and the bed. Pumpkins. Squashes.

I’ve read that “The Rain Man” is one of the videos on the entertainment center, which I can’t tell on my small screen.

“Here we go.” Finding his wallet on the table he slips it into his jacket, circles around the bed to the bathroom. “Now, listen, you know we’re running a little late.”

He goes to stand before the sink in the nicely detailed bathroom which is again littered with the general debris of life, bottles of products, kleenex boxes, loofahs, blue shower curtain in a freestanding old style tub. Alice, dressed in a black gown, her glasses on, sits on the toilet.

“How do I look?” she asks.

“Perfect.”

She asks how her hair looks and he says “Great” as he adjusts his suit in the mirror, and Alice, standing, tossing toilet paper in the john, comments he’s not even looked at her. So he faces her and tells her she’s beautiful, always beautiful, kisses her neck and exits as she washes her hands and asks if he’s given Roz the phone and pager numbers. Stockings hang on a towel rack beside a blue towel that has been used, isn’t fresh.

“Yeah, I put it on the fridge. Let’s go, ok?”

Alice removes her glasses, says all right, checks her face one last time in the mirror. She enters the bedroom to pick her black coat and purse up off the bed, the spread of which matches the drapes, Bill turning off the circusy music which it turns out had been on the stereo. They exit the room, he cutting off the light.

Well, well, well to do by most people’s standards. The couple advances toward us now in the foyer in which is a large blue floor stand holding umbrellas, the walls lined with more art, again various pastoral scenes and fruits on tables. A table to the side holds greeting cards. It’s Christmas, a poinsettia also rests on it. Shoes are underneath. He helps her on with her coat and asks what the name of the babysitter is (though she has just asked him if he’d left the pager numbers for her and he’d said yes) as they advance pass a huge picture of a calico cat and through classical columns into a large living room, walls lined with bookshelves, the dominant color again red, red sofa, red Oriental rugs covering hardwood floors. “Roz,” Alice says. And we hear the babysitter remark on how amazing Mrs. Harford looks. A beautifully appointed Christmas tree stands to the rear. In a scene of idyllic sweetness, the red-haired daughter (Helena, who briefly peculiarly reminds of a young Linda Blair in The Exorcist) wearing a white angel/fairy wing costume and tutu over her pink pajamas, seated now next to the babysitter, requests to stay up and watch “The Nutcracker” when her mother asks her if she’s ready for bed. What time is it on? Nine o’clock. Then sure. Can she stay up until they get home? No. Mr. Harford kisses his daughter as they all laugh. The coffee table between the two red sofas is covered with pens and paper. Now, Mrs. Harford kisses her daughter and tells the babysitter the number’s on the fridge, that there’s plenty of food and they’ll be home by one. Dr. Harford says he’ll hold the cab for her.

A salient point concerning “The Nutcracker” is that in it a child is given the gift of the toy soldier nutcracker that ushers in a fantasy night in which the Christmas Tree grows, it seems, as big as the world, and in the Land of the Sugar Plum Fairy she and her Nutcracker Prince are treated to a number of gay entertainments.

The Zeiglers’ Party

Dissolve to the street. Cabs passing what is presumably the building in which is being held the party, which is so stately and large that it’s difficult to believe it’s a residence, communicating an imposing wealth. Music in a big band style. “I’m in the Mood for Love”.

A brightly lit interior hallway now and it’s a party mood straight out of “The Shining”, Bill and Alice Harford again advancing down the hall toward the camera, passing glass cases displaying precious porcelain, elegantly framed large paintings in the background which are older than those at their apartment and would have a more distinguished pedigree. The floor is black and white tiled. Other celebrants are observed.

Bill holds Alice’s hand. She looks slightly elegantly disgusted or poshly bored, as she had at home, while he appears fresh and eager. They advance now into a reception area as he, opening his arms wide, calls out, “Victor, hello!”, they passing by a large brightly lit eight pointed star decoration covering the wall to the side of the entrance.

The camera turns to show the older Victor (Sydney Pollack) and his elegant wife, in red dress and diamonds, a palatial staircase to the rear before which is the statue of a figure reaching up to embrace an angelic figure in a kiss, perhaps Cupid and Psyche, the wall to the rear ablaze with strands of white lights, a traditionally lit Christmas tree on the left. Merry Christmas greetings all around as Victor thanks them for coming then remarks on how stunning Alice Harford is, Bill looking proudly on. “And I don’t say that to all the women.” Oh, yes, he does, laughs his wife. Remarking on an osteopath to whom Bill referred him, Victor says that he ought to see his serve now, flexing his arm. “The top man in New York,” Bill says, and Victor says he knew that from the bill. “Go inside, have a drink, enjoy the party.”

Victor flexes his serving arm.

Cut to the ball room, couples dancing, big band in white tuxes to the rear, mile long windows draped with curtains of strands of white lights, chandeliers hanging from the high ceiling. The camera withdraws overhead, giving us a nice overview. “I’m in the Mood for Love” continues.

Lovely interlude, most romantic mood
And your attitude is right, dear
Sweetheart, you have me under a spell
Now my dream is real, that is why I feel
Such a strong appeal tonight
Somehow, all my reason takes flight, dear…

I’m in the mood for love
Simply because you’re near me
Funny, but when you’re near me
I’m in the mood for love

Heaven is in your eyes
Bright as the stars we’re under
Oh, is it any wonder?
I’m in the mood for love

Why stop to think of whether
This little dream might fade
We’ve put our hearts together
Now we are one, I’m not afraid…

Cut to Alice asking Bill if he knows anyone there, she seeming to realize that as well-to-do as they are, they are clearly out of their social element. “Not a soul,” he replies.

Tinkle of piano keys.

“Why do you think Zeigler invites us to these things every year?” Alice asks.

“This is what you get for making house calls.”

Cut to the pianist. It turns out Bill does know someone here (outside of his wife and himself and Zeigler, all of whom he presumably knows though as we get into the film we find that’s not so certain).

“You see that guy at the piano? I went to medical school with him,” Bill tells Alice.

“He plays pretty good for a doctor.”

“He’s not a doctor. He dropped out.”

The band leader announces they’ll take a short break. Bill wants to go over and talk to the pianist. Arranging to meet Bill at the bar, Alice opts to go to the bathroom instead, grabbing a glass of champagne on her way out and downing the contents in a matter of a few seconds as she walks. No doubt she’ll soon be drunk.

A couple of party guests appear repeatedly. One is the white haired gentleman in these shots. Curiously, he is with a woman in purple as he approaches the ballroom door, and in the very next shot as he exits the door of the ballroom she has become another woman in a dark, double-breasted dress. Nearby is a woman in a black dress with many straps who is seen several times, always with her back to the camera (with the exception of a brief half-instance glimpse of her waltzing before the bandstand as Bill first notices the pianist). I remark on this as the faces of others are shown, and the face of the woman in purple was conspicuously displayed as she approached the ballroom door to exit into the hall, she even directly facingthe camera. The hairstyle of this woman in the dress with the black straps reminds of Victor’s wife, who we never see again throughout the party. It could be she is intended to unconsciously bring his wife to mind. Though she’s out here in the hall as Alice takes her drink, she manages also to be concurrently in the ballroom as Bill introduces himself to his old friend, Nick, which should be happening as Alice drinks.

“Nick Nightingale!”

What a name for a musician. And at Christmas! Nick! Will he be a Santa bearing gifts or a devilish sort? Should we think of the Emperor who for a time preferred the song of the mechanical nightingale to the real?

A recording of “It Had to be You” plays:

Why do I do, just as you say, why must I just, give you your way
Why do I sigh, why don’t I try – to forget
It must have been, that something lovers call fate
Kept me saying: “I have to wait”
I saw them all, just couldn’t fall – ’til we met
It had to be you, it had to be you
I wandered around, and finally found – the somebody who
Could make me be true, and could make me be blue
And even be glad, just to be sad – thinking of you
Some others I’ve seen, might never be mean
Might never be cross, or try to be boss, but they wouldn’t do
For nobody else, gave me a thrill – with all your faults, I love you still
It had to be you, wonderful you, it had to be you

Bill and Nick (Todd Field) shake hands. It’s been ten years and Bill comments that Nick hasn’t changed a bit, then comments on his having become a pianist. Nick replies that’s what his friends call him (a pianist), and asks Bill if he’s still in the doctor business?

“Once a doctor, always a doctor.” Except in Nick’s case, Nick remarks, never a doctor, never a doctor. Bill asks him why he walked away, saying he’d never understood it.

“It’s a nice feeling. I do it a lot,” Nick laughs, Bill taking two drinks from a server and handing Nick one. And speaking of walking away, a servant (or whatever you call him) advances, calls Nick by name and tells him he’s needed a minute. One wonders for what and why he’d be known by name. Nick tells Bill he’s playing for two weeks in the village at the Sonata Cafe. He invites Bill to stop by.

As Nick serves somewhat as an agent of “temptation” for Bill, I am reminded of something else, that in the book of Job, Satan is given as, “‘From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.”

Crossfade to Alice in another similarly decorated room, standing before a long white draped table, bar to the rear, somewhat drunk, alone. With the crossfade, she is briefly positioned so that she appears to be standing next to Bill who is in another room, Nick having just left him.

Actually, though she’s struck a pose, she is also drunkenly bracing herself against the table. The camera moves to include now in the shot a gray-haired gentleman to the right, taking notice of her, turning toward her. She seems aware of his presence, the languid way she places her champagne glass on the table.

Sounds of milling party conversation have been brought up in the mix. I hear a woman say, “I have a request here.” And the same woman says, the Hungarian turning to Alice and placing his drink down on the table, “To a different bed.” As Alice places her own drink down on the table, we hear the same woman saying, “Oh, I don’t know.” The voices now drop out of the mix.

The man picks up Alice’s drink. “I, I think that’s my glass,” she says, and, moving in on the solitary and obviously bored woman, he oily replies, “I’m absolutely certain of it.” Smiles and downs its contents as Alice leans back against the table and the last bits of “It had to be you” play out.

Another song begins.

He says his name is Sandor Szavost (Sky Dumont) and that he’s Hungarian. He takes her hand and kisses it. I’ve read that Ovid gives as a technique of seduction the same drinking out of the same glass routine that Sandor has just employed, so we have here Sandor going by the book, by formula, in his attempted seduction of her.

The choice of name is significant, as we will later observe.

“My name is Alice Harford and I’m American,” she flirts.

He asks if she’s ever read the Latin poet, Ovid, on the art of love. She asks if he didn’t end up alone and crying his eyes out in a place with a bad climate? He replies yes but that he had a very good time first. Is she with anyone? After a moment’s hesitation she says with her husband. “Oh, how sad, but I’m sure he’s not the sort of man who would mind if we danced.”

As they dance he asks what she does. She replies that she’s looking for a job, that she had managed an art gallery in Soho (which explains the art in her home) but that it went broke. “Oh, what a shame. I have some friends in the art game, perhaps I can be of some help.” Alice purrs, “Oh….thank you.”

Cut to a long shot of Bill standing with two women in a hall, a dark-haired woman in a long burgundy-rose colored lace dress with short sleeves (a snowflake pattern) and an ash blond in a short silver-green sequin number.

A man and woman, seen on the right, dance into the scene, seeming to be in the hall, only they disappear from view (they are only a reflection) and the woman in the dress with the criss-cross black straps enters where we would anticipate the dancing man and woman entering.

Cut back to Alice noticing Bill with the models–and at the same time the woman in the black dress with the criss-cross straps dances behind her. “Someone you know?” the Hungarian asks. “My husband,” she drunkenly replies.

“Don’t you think one of the charms of marriage is that it makes deception a necessity for both parties?” lecherous Hungarian asks and adds, “May I ask why a beautiful woman, who could have any man in this room, is married?”

“Why wouldn’t she?”

“Is it as bad as that?”

“No, it’s as good as that.”

The music that has been playing ends as we cut to the ash blond woman asking if Bill knows Nuala Windsor (Windsor, a highfalutin sort of royal family name) and Bill shaking her hand. He asks how one spells Nuala, which in the screenplay is given as an “agency” name, itself a mask intended to communicate a certain aura. She leans in flirtatiously, her mouth coming close to his, as she spells out her name. The other woman asks him if he doesn’t remember how kind he was to her once. “Only once, that sounds like a terrible oversight,” he flirts. They laugh. She replies she was doing a photo session in Rockerfeller Plaza on a windy day. He remarks, yes, she had something in her eye.

“Just about half of Fifth Avenue. You were such a gentleman. You gave me your handkerchief, which was also clean,” and Bill says that’s just the kind of hero he can sometimes be.

Clean?

The scene brings to mind the following from the Gospel of Matthew, which will not be without relevance..

Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?

Back to the Hungarian asking Alice if she knows why women used to get married? It was the only way they could lose their virginity and be free to do what they wanted with other men, the ones they really wanted. Alice laughs.

Back to Bill walking with the models seductively draped on either arm. The one in silver, who’d had half of Fifth Avenue in her eye, remarks, do you know what’s so fascinating with doctors? Bill responds it’s less than people imagine. She says doctors seem so knowledgeable and he agrees they are very knowledgeable about all sorts of things. She says but she bets they work too hard. Think of all the things they miss. Bill admits she’s probably right then asks, as they ferry him along, “Ladies, exactly where are we going? Exactly?”

“Where the rainbow ends,” says one.

“Don’t you want to go where the rainbow ends?” asks Nuala.

He says that depends where it is.

“Well, let’s find out,” says the model in silver-green as a servant approaches and draws Bill away, telling him he’s needed, reminding of how Nick had been also called away. “To be continued,” Bill says to the women who look quite disappointed.

We are never given the name of the blond woman but the screenplay shows her name as Gayle, recalling Nick Nightingale. The name of the attendant, who is Zeiglar’s personal assistant, is given in the screenplay as Harris, and that he looks “like he stepped right out of “The Godfather”.

Now, I’m going to get into some stuff that will lose 99.9 percent of any readers, but if one sticks with it one may see some correspondences, especially as one gets deeper into the story.

We call it the “rainbow”, the sign that is given as having been placed in the heavens by god as a reminder to himself never to flood the earth again and wipe out all creatures. It is a bizarre sort of story that a god should have to remind itself in this way not to kill again all his creatures, but so it’s said. In Genesis, that rainbow is simply given as bow, the Hebrew for which is QShTh, a bow for shooting (strength)…or the iris of the eye. It is given as coming from the word QShSh, to be severe, and QVSh, meaning to bend, to snare.

14 And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: 15 And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.

The rainbow was set in the cloud, ONN, which is from a word meaning to cover, cloud over, act covertly, practice magic. ONH, in Hebrew, is the eye. The Hebrew letter O, or OYN, is the eye. So what we have here with the cloud is the eye, ONH, which has undergone a change with ONN and is in a sense perhaps a clouded eye.

To where the rainbow ends? Kubrick has called attention to the name “Nuala”, with her spelling it out, leaving out the name of the second woman. The word, NLH, in the Hebrew, means to complete, make an end. If there is a correspondence between Nuala and NLH, it’s interesting that the woman inviting him to where the rainbow ends, has a name meaning “complete, make an end”.

All this has relevance to the mote in the eye.

And, before I lose you, QShTh being the bow of the covenant, QShT or QShVT means fidelity, truth, given as corresponding to QShT, to balance, equity, reality. This is important later.

As for Victor’s arm which he flexes, we will, towards the end of the film, see Victor directly associated with the bow. Thus the flexing of the arm, as in the bow arm.

With the idea that Bill works too hard and is missing much, for which reason the women desire to take him to where the rainbow ends, one may as well take a look at this story being set at Christmas, the festival of lights, Chanukah, appearing around Christmas, and consider a relationship to the rainbow also through the name of Noah. ChNKH means initiation, consecration, coming from ChNK, to initiate or discipline, train up. Its first two letters are ChN, meaning grace, favor. Noah is given as having found “favor”, ChN, in the eyes of the Lord. NVCh (Noah) means to rest, settle down and is essentially the inverse of ChN. I’ve read that when one is presented thus with these inversions it is a matter of symmetrical mirroring, and the opposites of Chanukah concern darkness and light, and the sparking of the light hidden in the darkness.

I don’t think this is without relevance as the movie is a rainbow of colored lights and white lights, trees and decorations everywhere, and where they are not they are replaced with colorful neon signs in the dark streets.

We also saw at Bill’s home the placement of the movie “The Rain Man” which could play in here with the flood story. In the case of that movie, Tom Cruise was a character who was heaving deal with an autistic brother, one who was able to count cards in his head at the casino and calculate what was coming up next.

Bill follows the servant up the stairs.

Cut from the graceful light of the party to Victor in a palatial bathroom (marble floor), zipping up his trousers, otherwise unclothed, a champagne bottle in a bucket behind him, a nude woman in high heeled sandals passed out in a burgundy armchair, light blue lingerie on the floor to the side beside a stack of books. Above is a large painting of a nude pregnant woman resting on Oriental rugs. There’s a knock on the door. Victor gets it and thanks Bill for coming. “Had a little accident here,” he says as Bill kneels next to the woman, attending to her. Bill asks what happened and Victor explains she had been shooting up something like a speedball or snowball. “Whatever the hell they call it, it’s heroin and coke.” He says they’d also had some champagne.

The legs of the woman who has overdosed are posed similarly to those of the pregnant woman in the painting.

Bill, who had just immediately before been deeply engaged with flirting with two lovely women, immediately and easily puts on his doctor persona, takes the woman’s hand, attempts to call her (Amanda, Mandy, meaning “loved”) back, asking her if she hears him, his gaze less avoiding her nudity than overlooking it, as if he simply does not see it as it is of no importance in this context. Can she hear him? She can? Can she open her eyes for him? Look at him. He calls her to open her eyes and look at him.

In the meanwhile the Hungarian dances with Alice to “When I Fall in Love”.

When I fall in love it will be forever
Or I’ll never fall in love
In a restless world like this is
Love is ended before its begun
And too many moonlight kisses
Seem to cool in the warmth of the sun.

When I give my heart it will be completely
Or I’ll never give my heart
And the moment I can feel that you feel that way too
Is when I fall in love with you.

The Hungarian remarks on how much he likes Victor’s art collection, and gazing in his eyes Alice says yes, it’s wonderful. He asks if she’s ever seen his sculpture gallery (no) and tells her it’s full of Renaissance bronzes. “Do you like the period?” Does she like the period? She says she does. He says he adores it and that he can show it to her upstairs, that they won’t be gone long. Long past the point of flirtatiousness, Her mouth drawing close to his as if receptive to a kiss, though also turning him down, she says, “Maybe…not…just…now.”

Later, Alice having told him the Hungarian wanted to have sex with her upstairs, gets in an argument with Bill when he implies that a man’s only interest in Alice might be for her body rather than her mind, as she is a beautiful woman, at which Alice bristles. The Hungarian is not saying here that he wants to have sex so it’s being interpreted that he does through a double language, the suggestion of their going up to take a look at the Renaissance sculpture gallery being understood as an invitation to an affair. It is not, however, explicitly stated. In a sense, it is hidden.

Return to the bathroom. Victor has his shirt on. Mandy is covered with a blue blanket or large towel. He tells her she gave them one hell of a scare. “Sorry,” she says, barely able to speak. Bill asks how she’s feeling. He takes her arm again and tells her she’s a lucky girl, that she’s going to be okay this time but she can’t keep doing this. “You’re going to need some rehab, you know that, don’t you?” Yes. We notice a large fake pearl ring on her left hand.

He taps her arm in a bedside manner and advises Victor to keep her there another hour then have someone take her home. Victor looks somewhat put out, glancing at his watch, but thanks Bill, saying he saved his ass, and says he knows he doesn’t need to mention it but asks him to keep this “just between us”.

“Of course.”

Blue Chinese dragons flank the fireplace in the bathroom.

Back to Alice and the (definitely hungry) Hungarian still dancing, her eyes shut, they are at the point of kissing when the song ends. And she backs off now saying that she’s had too much champagne and needs to go find her husband.

“I Only Have Eyes for You” starts playing:

My love must be a kind of blind love
I cant see anyone but you
And dear, I wonder if you find love
An optical illusion, too?

Are the stars out tonight?
I dont know if its cloudy or bright
cause I only have eyes for you, dear
The moon may be high
But I cant see a thing in the sky
cause I only have eyes for you.

I dont know if were in a garden
Or on a crowded avenue
You are here, so am i
Maybe millions of people go by
But they all disappear from view
And I only have eyes for you

The Hungarian attempts to keep her with him saying her husband will be all right on his own a little longer, and she says yes, but will she? No, she really has to go, she says, and when he says he must see her again she says it’s impossible. Why? Holding her hand up in what seems a rather desultory way, she displays her wedding ring. “Because…I’m married.”

Cut to Bill and Alice’s bedroom. She’s nude, standing before her dressing table mirror upon which rests a framed picture of her in her wedding gown. The painting above the dresser is full of squashes and sunflowers in a seeming renaissance styled setting, an elegant ivory colored arch in a garden.

The music is modern, Chris Isaac. She removes her earrings, her glasses on, and sways to the music. Bill, nude, comes up behind her, looks at them both in the mirror, nuzzles her neck.

“Baby did a bad, bad thing. Baby did a bad, bad thing,” the song goes.

They kiss.

You ever love someone so much you thought your little heart was gonna break in two?
I didn’t think so.
You ever tried with all your heart and soul to get you lover back to you?
I wanna hope so.
You ever pray with all your heart and soul just to watch her walk away?

And as Bill kisses her, Alice appraises them in the mirror, at first seemingly aroused, if distant, then almost dispassionately.

There may be some allusion here to Alice and her journey into the looking glass where things become backwards. As we shall see, the next time we view the bedroom the white phone that was on the left of the bed, will be now on the right of the bed and black. Also, later in the film, directly before a mirror, we see a book “Shadows on the Mirror”.

Next: Naval Officer, Marion

The Zeigler’s Party
Naval Officer, Marion
Domino, Sonata Jazz, Rainbow
Somerton, Alice’s Dream
Nick’s Hotel, Rainbow, Somerton
Marion, Domino, Sharky’s, the Hospital
Zeigler, Home, the Toy Store