Cognitive Value and Imaginative Identification: The Case of Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut

Abstract

A decade after its release, Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut (1999) remains an enigmatic film, with respect to its meaning and, especially, its value. Undoubtedly, through the years, much of the disagreement on the film's overall quality has faded, and few would still subscribe to Andrew Sarris's strong reservations about its alleged artistry. 1 Yet the precise source of the value of Kubrick's last film still remains mysterious, at least judging from the disparate interpretations it continues to receive. More importantly, it is certainly not an uncommon reaction—among my acquaintances for example—to experience a certain sense of puzzlement when viewing the film, one that none of the standard interpretations seems to dissipate fully. 2 In sum— certainly modified since the time of its inception, but also strengthened by the decade that has passed-some enigma regarding Eyes Wide Shut does persist, and it is one that is worth identifying and trying to answer. These just seem to be questions for film criticism. Yet they are also of great philosophical interest, for Eyes Wide Shut may work well as a case study for claims on the possible contributions that cinema can give to knowledge and on the forms of imaginative engagement that filmic narratives can promote. Indeed, carefully examining Eyes Wide Shut, in the attempt to sort out what this film accomplishes, turns out to be an excellent opportunity to look at both of these issues at once. Much has been written recently on film's possible cognitive merits and on spectators' imaginative engagement. 3 Here, my own approach to the former issue is somewhat novel, precisely because of the link it suggests—paradigmatically in Eyes Wide Shut-between a film's cognitive merits and the experiences of imaginative engagement a film promotes. Indeed, in the course of my discussion, I also raise some general concerns with respect to a widespread tendency of locating a film's possible cognitive contributions just in what the work conveys, while disregarding the experience it invites the spectator to have. I start by presenting a number of possible interpretations of this film and show how they all do not quite explain the film's enigma (Section I). Then I argue that those interpretations all fail, to an extent—and for reasons that are general and instructive—to fully account for the film's cognitive value (Section II). Hence I offer what seems to me the best explanation of what the enigma of Eyes Wide Shut amounts to, and of how, once properly identified, the source of viewers' persistent puzzlement coincides with one important source of the film's value (Sections III-IV). Eyes Wide Shut, I maintain, rather uniquely exemplifies a kind of imaginative engagement, roughly speaking, a form of identification, that cinema is capable of bringing about.