Woman at the orgy who saved Bill - Why did nobody see this?
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Eyes Wide Shut
avalonsutra-18976 — 9 years ago(October 09, 2016 09:18 AM)
The woman at the orgy who redeemed Bill wasn't Mandy and neither Domino. It was Marion!
Marion knew him and she loved him. We saw that planted earlier in the movie.
Also Bill tries to call her later but her BF answers the phone. This tells us she isn't there. Clearly the woman at the orgy wasn't the hooker (Domino). And Mandy, the red haired who died of a drug overdose we saw at the party but was approaching Bill, when the other woman (Marion) approached him and 'dragged' him away to try to save him.
There are several misleads
Domino disappeared supposedly because of HIV.
Mandy's death is made unclear to let us believe that she was killed (but it was a drug overdose).
Why else would Kubrick put the scene with Marion and her father's death in the movie? they are totally irrelevant to the story otherwise. -
countdown-to-zero — 9 years ago(October 09, 2016 03:26 PM)
"The woman at the orgy who redeemed Bill wasn't Mandy and neither Domino. It was Marion!"
Firstly, it's not an 'orgy' (a term implying a free-for-all, an open, albeit crazy, but democratic socius, clearly not the case here), but a rigidly hierarchical neo-paganist ritual in which the women we see are clearly sex slaves being 'handed out' by a criminal, pseudo-patriarchal thug (Red Cloak, masquerading in a parody of civilized authority) to a bunch of elitist wealthy-corrupt hedonist-capitalist scumbags (like Ziegler and Co, the elite to which dumb Bill is so desperate to follow, copy, emulate, become, even though he doesn't even know this, as with most people).
Secondly. the "Mysterious Woman" (later transpiring to be "Mandy" or Amanda Curran) doesn't 'redeem' Bill, unless you want to believe the Lie that is this pathetic ritual of Power based on sexual antagonisms, on sexism, on the invocation of gender as an excuse for the systematic abuse of half of the human population. It is, obviously (and as even the grotesque Ziegler later confirms) a 'charade', a false semblance, an acting-out simulation, as with our everyday reality, but one with nevertheless lethal consequences, with a dead body, a corpse, a murder victim, yet another casualty of the violently corrupt Somerton elite.
It is simply, rationally, logically, obviously ridiculous to fantasize that the "Mysterious Woman" is empirically Marion or Domino or Alice (regular speculative delusions by viewers of the film, the more paranoid the more vehement in their absurdly ludicrous claims). It's totally nuts to fantasize Marion as a participant at the Somerton madness. Marion is in a state of bereavement, of hysteria after the sudden death of her father (the real reason she anxiously throws herself at 'Doctor' Bill, at his symbolic title, not his empirical reality).
"Marion knew him and she loved him. We saw that planted earlier in the movie. "
Alice, Bill's wife, "knew him and she loved him". Helena, Bill's daughter, "knew him and she loved him", and so on maybe they were all Machiavellian, sinister, evil, plotting, conspiratorial, nasty participants in the crazed Somerton hedonist-nihilist rituals that perpetuate consumerist capitalist ideology (ie the ideology - a suicidally destructive one - to which everyone in the current global capitalist economy subscribes while hypocritically denying it). No, Marion wasn't at any deranged Somerton ritual organized by the Zieglers of this world (be they Bill Clintons [Ziegler is a dead ringer for Bill Clinton, and his wife a dead ringer for Hillary Clinton; and their Madison Avenue mansion in the film was actually, historically, the headquarters of the Democratic Club for half a century] or Donald Trumps, or any of those other corrupt corporate capitalists who enjoy oppressing/exploiting everyone and everything).
"Also Bill tries to call her later but her BF answers the phone. This tells us she isn't there."
No, it doesn't tell us that Marion isn't there, but something very different, something very revealing about Bill: Marion's fianc Carl doesn't know who is calling, treats the call as suspicious (as anyone would who is called out of the blue by some unknown caller), and responds accordingly, claiming that she's not there. Why didn't Bill announce who he was (his formal social-symbolic identification), the family's doctor, when Karl answered the phone? This is what is intriguing: he could simply have said to Karl who he was, that it was Dr Bill calling just to check up on how everyone was. But, revealingly, Bill doesn't do this, doesn't engage at all, instead panicking, retreating, refusing all communication. Why? Because he's not phoning up in his formal role as "Doctor", but as an act of libidinal desperation seeking to avoid or escape all of the pressures now bearing down upon him (the fact that the reality he smugly took for granted is an illusion, the fact that his wife is not a domestic, passive sex-slave, the fact that Bill himself is a slave to the Somerton crowd and the Zieglers of the world but is too stupid to be aware of this insight).
"Domino disappeared supposedly because of HIV."
She didn't 'disappear'. Just because she's not in her flat when Bill pathetically appears with a cake - how absurd is that? - and is instead met by her flat-mate, a fellow college student, Sally, who, clearly by the size of their tiny flat, are reduced to selling themselves for money to 'pay the bills' [ pay the insular-sexist "Bills" of this obscenely corrupt capitalist world), something the film's script makes more explicit [Domino in the script is the daughter of a doctor like Bill, is a college student in huge debt, and has been intimidated into prostitution to pay off her debts by scumbag capitalists like Ziegler, Millich and ultimately Bill; a common occurrence, normalized by ideology into being 'ordinary' and 'neutral'].
"Mandy's death is made unclear"
It is made very clear that she died as a result of a drug overd -
avalonsutra-18976 — 9 years ago(October 09, 2016 09:18 PM)
Interesting interpretations, although a bit too heavy on the feminist-inclined side. Also, anal-retentive a little bit? Not capable of inferring the meaning of simple words in my short description?
Please explain to us why Marion suddenly started to kiss Bill and tells him that she wants to be near him and not with her boyfriend, even though she should be grieving about her lost father (an emotion of which she shows preciously few). -
countdown-to-zero — 9 years ago(October 10, 2016 12:58 PM)
"Interesting interpretations, although a bit too heavy on the feminist-inclined."
No, on the film-inclined side, on the side of Truth, which is what the film is about, what it critically portrays, the truth that everyone represses in order to sustain and conform to the misery of their daily existence.
"Also, anal-retentive a little bit? Not capable of inferring the meaning of simple words in my short description?"
All words are polysemous, have multiple actual/potential meanings and significations. It is those who insist on rigid, fixed, simple-minded meanings of things or words who are anally retentive, who are repressed, who are living in denial.
"Please explain to us why Marion suddenly started to kiss Bill and tells him that she wants to be near him and not with her boyfriend, even though she should be grieving about her lost father (an emotion of which she shows preciously few)."
This is absurd. Did you even watch this scene? Because it appears you are having extreme difficulty comprehending it even at the most basic level, seeking to reverse what is actually happening in this sequence. Marion IS grieving, is totally distraught, anxious, hysterical, the presupposed certainties of her world having totally collapsed, and this is why she throws herself at Bill, to temporarily escape, seek brief refuge from the traumatic horror of the real of death.
You seem to be trying to dictate a reactionary morality here, of how a grieving woman "should" behave (even denying what is actually there on the screen), desiring to demonize her, when it is scum like Ziegler, Milich, the Somerton parasites, and ultimately the smug and corrupt 'doctor' Bill Harford who you OUGHT to be questioning, which is precisely what the film is doing, is what the film is about, what the film is exposing, but viewers, as the film explicitly demonstrates on multiple levels, even in its title, have their eyes wilfully 'wide shut' to the truth about themselves and the fictionally constructed world/reality they falsely reside in. -
Barbed_Wire_Strawberry — 9 years ago(October 10, 2016 04:42 PM)
She was about to be married - in typical custom 'given away'. Bad time psychologically for her father to die - and no mention of Marion's mother if I recall. Marion's husband to be is taller doppelganger of Bill, who is now questioning the nature of his marriage (his wife said that having sex with a guy she was attracted to once would be throwing her life away - that means Bill and daughter and home etc) - the marital dilemma is shown to have sexual as well as social/economic implications.
Many situations in the film mirror each other. The scene sets the tone for the rest of the film. Watch the way Bill enters and then the way Carl enters, the shots are mirrored. The colours are also a clue in making associations between characters, settings, scenes, motifs etc. Something about Bill and Alice's relationship (relationships in general, relationships relative to society) is being mirrored with Marion, Carl and dead father (house servant too).
Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride -
keyser_soze_smokes — 9 years ago(November 02, 2016 07:40 PM)
Wrong body type and height so no.
Just like those who claim Red Cloak is Ziegler when clearly he is a very tall and slender man, like say the Hungarian so blatantly foreshadowed early on in the film. Oh, wait, no, there's that actor in the credits and the mask is after his face so it must be him, of course! People are downright dumb.
(___/)This is Bunny! Put him on your
(='.'=)signature to help him gain
(")_(")world domination -
soupsnake — 9 years ago(November 11, 2016 03:23 PM)
Its relevant. Bill's own wife is telling him about how she once fantasized about having sex with someone else, hes listening raplty when he gets a phone call. Its Marion saying her dad has died.
Briefly after he arrives at Marion's, she acts on her attraction for him in a way that very closely mirrors the attraction Alice had described for the naval officer, effectively going further down the rabit hole into how such a thing might actually look and showing that despite how extreme and hard to imagine such a thing might sound, when you actually get to see it its actually not that hard to imagine, and even if we/bill assume that most people never do such things, this interaction demonstrates that many people probably think about it obsessively at some point in their lives. At the end she says not to speak about it, and we see how many of those that do in fact do it could live out their lives telling little to no one else about it.
She serves as essentially a visual representation/demonstration of the attraction Alice described. Alice said she froze when the officer looked at her, barely slept, felt pity for bill. Marion from the get go is trying to, it seems, get validation from Bill by him displaying even the smallest of emotions, she says her boyfriend is coming over, then looks at his face then eventually her expression turns to disappointment, this happens several more times: when she says theyre getting married, when she says theyre moving away, etc. It appears as though something to the effect of her fears having been confirmed has occurred (maybe at least if he had shown some of that same disappointment she could entertain the possibility that he had wanted her, and not felt so negatively about it).
Finally as desperation reaches a boiling point she begins to cry then grabs his face and starts kissing him, then says she doesnt want to marry her fiancee and that she doesnt want to move, that even if she cant be with bill she wants to be near him. This seems to be the last parallel b/w marion and alice, alice had said she was prepared to give the officer everything, and that she didnt care if she lost Bill or her child. Marion is displaying similar thoughts. Finally she says not to tell anyone about it. And as superfluous as that was, due to the obviously sensitive nature of that interaction, maybe it was meant to point out that women may find themselves in this situation far more often than at first one might assume, and that it would be very easy for such a thing to happen in a "vacuum" and never see the light of day. -
dirtbunny199 — 9 years ago(November 15, 2016 03:08 PM)
Damn it, it's been so long since I last saw this movie that I don't remember Marion coming on to Bill. At first I couldn't remember Marion at all but after reading more threads, I do remember some gal whose dad died & she was really upset about it. But I can't remember any sort of interaction with Tom Cruise's character. I'll have to rewatch it again & then come back on here for more info, lol.
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cayuck — 9 years ago(December 10, 2016 01:20 PM)
Why else would Kubrick put the scene with Marion and her father's death in the movie? they are totally irrelevant to the story otherwise.
Cruise goes to visit Marion right after Kidman has just confessed to him about her lusting after the naval officer and the fact that she would have given up her entire relationship with Cruise if she could have had just one night with this other man.
Suddenly Cruise is called in to see Marion's father who has deceased. Marion is engaged and has entire life prepared for her in another city with a man she has had a long relationship with and at the drop of a hat is ready to throw it all away if it only means one night of lustful sex with Cruise.
The point of Marion's aggressive lusting toward Cruise only further confirms what Kidman had just confessed to him in the prior scene. Women do have extremely deep sexual desires and fantasies that are so powerful they will throw away entire relationships just to fulfill these innate desires. That's an extremely troubling concept for Dr. Bill.
Also Marion did not attend Ziegler's party and it has always been my assumption that many of the people at the orgy were the same ones at Ziegler's party whether they were hookers or part of the rich elite. The "both parties" idea does not apply to Marion. -
melchior6 — 9 years ago(December 19, 2016 10:55 AM)
Marion has some sort of foreign accent and not surprisingly Marie Richardson the actress who plays her is from Sweden, whereas the woman at the party did not have an accent. Also I didn't get the impression from the scenes with Marion that she had anything close to the type of voluptuous physique that Mandy had.
