Eyes Wide Shut

Identify one major difference between Kubrick’s and Schnitzler’s work.

One major difference is the setting: Kubrick moves the story from early 20th-century Vienna to late 20th-century New York. That shift changes the social world around the characters, especially the mix of consumer culture, modern wealth, and urban anonymity. Kubrick also leans harder into visual atmosphere and psychological unease. So while the basic structure is similar, the mood and cultural frame are different.

How does Kubrick adapt Viennese pre-WW 2 society’s sexual life to New York’s end of the 20th Century Society? What are the parallels and what are the differences?

Kubrick keeps the central themes of jealousy, fantasy, secrecy, and marital instability, so the emotional core is very similar. In both works, respectable society hides a world of erotic performance and unequal power underneath. The difference is that New York feels more modern, commercial, and visually saturated, while Vienna feels more tied to formal social codes and old-world respectability. Kubrick’s version suggests that even in a supposedly freer modern society, desire is still shaped by secrecy, class, and control.

How do you interpret the motif of the masks in the film. Masks. What roles do the play?  Who wears what masks. What do they mean and how do they effect the relationships between the main figures?

In the film, masks symbolize hidden desire, role-playing, and the split between public image and private fantasy. They are worn most literally at the secret ritual, where anonymity allows people to act outside their ordinary identities. But the main characters also wear emotional masks in their marriage by hiding fear, jealousy, and insecurity. The masks damage relationships because they make intimacy harder; people can be physically close while still hiding who they are.

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