The Jealousy Movie: Stanley Kubrick and the Root of Eyes Wide Shut

Filippo Ulivieri focuses on pre-production by tracing the origins of Kubrick’s love for the story behind Eyes Wide Shut but also what influenced him along the way in making the film. Ulivieri illuminates Kubrick’s long-standing interest in Arthur Schnitzler’s Traumnovelle. He shows how Kubrick longed to make a film dealing with marriage and jealousy since his youth, how marital infidelity was a deeply felt topic, and how Kubrick engaged with the work of other filmmakers who made films on the same subject. He concludes that, among Kubrick’s films, Eyes Wide Shut does stand out as a very intimate film. To do so, Ulivieri employs a fascinating reverse-time structure in presenting the history of Kubrick’s various attempts to bring Traumnovelle to the screen—much like the process of researching history itself.