Bills daughter is the key to this movie
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demenu — 9 years ago(May 07, 2016 04:12 PM)
Maybe I'm just connecting the wrong dots, I just always get that pedophilia vibe with the Somerton crowd but it's not directly addressed in the movie outside of few hints.
The sole concept of selling Helena (from the Greek as the most beautiful girl) to the elite just to keep the dream pumping struck me as an interesting thought.
Nothing is wrong. Everything is on track -
Barbed_Wire_Strawberry — 9 years ago(May 07, 2016 06:53 PM)
I think a lot of people get that vibe as well - but I don't think, as I said, that it is literally happening. I think that it's more metaphorical but Bill realises his choices involve his family, one way or another. And that he isn't quite rich enough to be beyond the law as Zeigler and Co are.
Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride -
christomacin — 9 years ago(May 10, 2016 06:08 PM)
It's also worth noting that Ziegler's wife is named Ilena (a variant of Helen), so maybe Kubrick is suggesting Helena will grow to be a "trophy wife" of some rich guy like Ziegler. I'd also point out that in Homer's
The Iliad
Helen of Troy was "abducted" (rather willingly it seems) by Paris, which started the Trojan War. This would lend credence to the notion that Helena is "abducted" at the end of the movie. I don't think she is abducted, but I do think her appearing to follow after the two old bald men (who seem to be taking no notice of her or her parents) out of the toy store does suggest that she may get lured away into that life at some point in the future. The point is that she chooses that life willingly, not that she is abducted. That's my take, at least. -
christomacin — 9 years ago(May 10, 2016 08:16 PM)
I suspect the Kubrick's losing their daughter to Scientology probably factored into this film as well, although I think only Kubrick and his wife (only his wife now) probably ever knew the answer as to exactly how.
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klondike99 — 9 years ago(May 08, 2016 09:22 PM)
I got the vibe toward the end right after the scene where Bill starts sobbing like hell and says "I'll tell you everything", then the next scene has them both sitting in the kitchen and Alice has her eyes all red from obvious crying. Why are they crying so hard?
Then Alice says rather ominously that thy have to take Helena shopping and Bill looks disheartenedas if they are taking their child to be sacrificed or whatever.
Then of course at the store they let Helena go off in the crowd by herself and stare at each other for a few minutes not paying any attention to their kid(knowing what's happeningthat is Helena being abducted) and saynow what are we going to do. the whole last few scenes show me that they were willing participants in allowing their child abduction. -
Beau_nz — 9 years ago(May 22, 2016 10:25 PM)
Then of course at the store they let Helena go off in the crowd by herself and stare at each other for a few minutes not paying any attention to their kid(knowing what's happeningthat is Helena being abducted) and saynow what are we going to do. the whole last few scenes show me that they were willing participants in allowing their child abduction
This makes sense to me.
The title eyes wide shut isnt only referring to Bill and Alice its also the audience who has their eyes wide shut.
Then again you could also read that its a metaphor for the daughter one day becoming like all the women in the film .. sex objects. Alice pretty much is grooming her in every scene they have together. -
dirtbunny199 — 9 years ago(November 15, 2016 04:14 PM)
Then of course at the store they let Helena go off in the crowd by herself and stare at each other for a few minutes not paying any attention to their kid(knowing what's happeningthat is Helena being abducted) and saynow what are we going to do. the whole last few scenes show me that they were willing participants in allowing their child abduction.
So it's not a definite fact that the little girl was abducted, just a possibility? -
christomacin — 9 years ago(May 19, 2016 11:01 PM)
- Phony sacrifice. What phony sacrifice? The chick died.
She's says "take me" and "I will redeem him". Later, Ziegler specifically using the words "sacrifice". He says something like "that whole phony 'take me' sacrifice thing" to Bill in the billiards room. - How is that the sacrifice of Helena, metaphorically.
Some people have said Helena was "sacrificed" or physically abducted in the toy store. I don't see that either, however, I do think it's possible Kubrick was hinting that Helena is metaphorically abducted or stolen away from her parents and may end up like Alice or Ziegler's wife Ilena, who shares the same name (more or less) as Helena. This would parallel with Helen of Troy's (sort of) abduction by Paris in Homer's the Iliad, and also with Alice's story about running of with the naval officer. The Helena abduction thing is similar to the "Jack raped Danny" thing on The Shining boards. I take a similar position on that one as well = weird, creepy metaphor for deep societal issues. - How does that translate to selling his daughter to the elite?
I think Kubrick's point is that one way or other we are all "selling ourselves to the elite", even if we aren't consciously aware of it. Kubrick hints at the kind of life she is being groomed for when we see Alice tutoring her daughter in a school math problem involving which of two men has more money. - He never told her his name, but she never told him her's either.
That's weird, but then this whole problematically movie blurs the lines of reality. This movie is too realistic to be dreamlike, but too dreamlike to be realistic. - What makes you think the Asian guys were wealthy? It doesn't matter
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What makes you think they weren't. Milich seems like too smart a wheeler-dealer to risk jail time unless he was selling his daughter for a pretty penny. Besides, his shop was rather expensive from what we see from his transactions with Bill, plus he was in the heart of a fashionable district of Manhattan. He could afford to be choosy which of his clients he talked up for some fun time with his daughter. - Where is the final scene that Alice talks to Helena about wealthy boys or the scene where "sex" is written above the girls' wall? I have seen this movie several times and never seen either one of these.
I didn't believe that either until I actually saw a screen cap of it. Not only is the word "sex" on the painting above Helena's bed (of all places), but a purple flaccid penis can also be discerned. I didn't believe it, but there it waser, big as life (well, bigger, actually).
I'm sure someone will repost that screen cap in this discussion.
For the other posters, where do you folks get that some of this stuff is happening in his mind? There is nothing to suggest this.
The problem is this film has too many logically impossibilities and improbabilities to be straight up reality, and yet it is too down-to-earth and realistic to be dismissed as a dream. Kubrick intended this to be so for various reasons.
- Phony sacrifice. What phony sacrifice? The chick died.
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christomacin — 9 years ago(May 20, 2016 05:35 AM)
Uh you don't answer a question with a question.
I just did.
You made the assertion, therefore you are expected to support it. I have no evidence either way, thus I wanted to know your's.
I did support it, after asking the offending question, by giving reasons why the Asians are probably well off. There is no logical reason to believe they are poor. Why would two middle income men be hanging around a high end costume shop in Manhattan for kiddie sex when the local playground would do? How did they come to be in this particular shop in the first place? There I go again with questions. Then there's the possible link between Milich and the Somerton maskers, but that's a whole other subject. -
christomacin — 9 years ago(May 20, 2016 06:29 AM)
Uh you don't answer a question with a question.
"I just did. "Just because you are a smart ass, doesn't make you very smart, as duly noted.
Some of the best answers are questions. You'll discover that when you get a bit older.
You made the assertion, therefore you are expected to support it. I have no evidence either way, thus I wanted to know yours.
This is a work of art we're talking about, not a mathematical equation. What sort of "evidence" (other than circumstantial) do you want, or expect from an artist, especially one of the stature of Kubrick?
I did support itNo you didn't. So they were in some costume shop, big deal. What the heck is a high end costume shop? He paid more money for the costumes because of the inconvenience of waking the guy at 1:00am for Pete's sake.
Yes, and Milich wasn't shy about reminding Bill about agreeing to pay more money "for his trouble" the day later. Much like Milich, we see Bill wheeling and dealing to get what he wants by flashing cash and showing his status symbol (the doctor certificate). The difference between Bill and Milich is that Bill still has some limits.
Just because some guy is wearing a tie, does not equate to being rich or well off, that tells me that you are young or poor and uneducated (or perhaps both).
The following day Bill finds out Milich not only didn't call the police on the two guys but actually allowed them to have their way with his daughter, because "we came to some other arrangement". What sort of arrangement would that be, do you suppose, if not financial? Must have been a pretty decent amount, seeing as he seemed to be doing fairly well and considering what he was selling. Milich, if anything, seemed to be a guy who had a pretty good idea of the value of money, and how to extract it from people. You're making Milich out to be some foolhardy idiot. He certainly would work up the market price of his daughter, knowing full well the premium he could command from some Japanese perverts for a fresh, blonde, blue-eyed white girl. Besides, the race of the two gents was very deliberately chosen by Kubrick, I believe, as Japanese do have culturally seem to have a fascination with pre-pubescent girls.
Oh well. This conversation now bores me.
And your denseness amuses me. Must you have everything spelled out for you in a movie? Is there no reading between the lines for you? -
Xav6101 — 9 years ago(May 22, 2016 02:27 AM)
- Ladies, where exactly are we going?
Exactly?
Where the rainbow ends. - Where the rainbow ends?
Don't you want to go where the rainbow ends? - Now that depends where that is.
Well, let's find out.
[At Rainbow Fashions]
So what color cloak?
Red, brown, red? - Black.
The good doctor wouldn't like something more colorful?
-I don't think so.
Clowns,
officers
, pirates?
-No, just the tux, the black cloak
With a hood and a mask.
May I take your coat?
https://merovee.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/rainbow2.jpg
The amount of coincidences conveys a feeling of dealing with a mental construction rather than experiencing reality, doesn't it?
Credo quia absurdum
- Ladies, where exactly are we going?
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Barbed_Wire_Strawberry — 9 years ago(May 22, 2016 07:13 AM)
Reality is a mental construction - that is the horrifying nature of 'reality' as human beings - we will never know for sure and we have only our little comforts to console us.
Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride
