How 'bout that coat adorned by the hooker, Domino, in Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut?

And how 'bout that other prostitute in the story, the daughter of the proprietor of Rainbow Fashions.  She resides on the level that is over the rainbow.

Likewise... Austin Powers:

LMFAP:

Messed up, ennit?

EWS...is a 'tour de force' of a movie...one of Kubrick's best...the lighting is stunning.  Its the Kubrick movie that I would've loved for Lynch to make...if Stanley hadn't.

Am I the only one who thinks Alice (Nicole Kidman) was one of the 'sex slave' girls in the circle at the ritual party...please say I'm not?

This was not posted for gratuitous purposes!!!!

There is a song called "The Nightingale" in the TP soundtrack.  The name of the pianist in Eyes Wide Shut is Nick Nightingale.  The nightingale symbolizes impending death.   

An episode of TP is titled "Masked Ball".  This is also the title of the song that plays during the sex rite scene in EWS.

And to circle back on my first post about the over the rainbow homage to Judy Garland, this is enforced by the fact that the name of the business under the costume shop in EWS is "Under The Rainbow".  We are left to deduce that the costume shop is indeed over the rainbow.

EWS was met by poor reviews from most critics and the general audience.  That's because it takes analytical skill and patience to peel back the layers of the story and discover its brilliance.  I strongly encourage both fans and naysayers of EWS to view the following film analyses by Rob Ager:

http://collativelearning.com/EYES%20WIDE%20SHUT%20analysis.html

The text version available on the above page goes into greater depth than the three movies.   

BlueFrank, in a sense, Alice was there at the sex rite, metaphorically, but not physically.  This is dictated by the dream logic that structures the story of EWS - similar to the dream logic that is prevalent in the works of David Lynch.

BTW, Rob Ager also has a great analysis of Mulholland Drive, among others...

http://collativelearning.com/MULHOLLAND%20DRIVE%20ANALYSIS.html  

The Rainbow Bridge....Over The Rainbow

Whislt you're on the Judy Garland tip....

Alice Bailey a popular Occultist/Godmother of the New Age and Esoteric Astrology was part of the same Occult Science Society as L Frank Baum at the time The Wizard of Oz was written. These two popular figures no doubt were aware of each other and were in the same esoteric circles. Bailey received communications from a Being she called D.K.- whom was an Astral being, DK communicated astrological Doctrines to Bailey and these teachings Included that of the Rainbow Bridge or the Antahkarana which connects Heaven to Earth, with souls working on boths sides to build it, Bailey also claimed that the Dog Star Sirius was a major guiding force in building this Rainbow Bridge between worlds. Now Bailey and L Frank Baum were both Theosophists at the time of the Wizard of Oz and the D.K. communications.

Alice Bailey in her Esoteric Astrology and Initiations to her new Age spiritual Approach beleived that The Earth and the Souls of the Earth are connected to and constantly building a Rainbow Bridge called the Antahkarana between Heaven and Earth, as well as an internal Rainbow Bridge of the Soul and the Chakras. And accoring to Bailey, the Dog Star Sirius is one of the most influential energies affecting our Solar System in guiding the process of building this Rainbow Brige.

So now Over The Rainbow & Toto make perfect sense.

Toto being 'Canine' the dog....The dog star 'Sirius'.

I still like to think that Alice was there...I know its not a certainty, but its still possible.  And if she is not there at this one, she has been present at another/other one(s)...this is why Harford is Ziegler's Doctor (one of the reasons at least imo).  The same people are present at both parties... Ziegler's party at the start and the other being the Ritual party...they are even comparable in length...both these party scenes...they mirror each other.

(Nuala Windsor is definitely at both, as is Ziegler & Wife...Nuala, she's the one who says 'where the rainbow ends' when she is with Bill and another model. She tries to lead Bill away from the ritual party at Ziegler's request but fails.)

Any thoughts about the mask on the bed and how it got there etc????

"No dream is ever just a dream"

"The important thing is we're awake now and hopefully, for a long time to come"

                                     Alice Harford

Sorry Alice...I beg to differ and think the exact opposite...you're not awake, 

you've just gone further into denial.

The character Alice seems to sexually pent up to me to be an orgiast. She and her hubby, both. They both tiptoe around the shadow side side, but as soon as they feel they are losing control, the shadow side spits them out. They're like children, innocent but immensely curious. But, like children, the adult world of kinky parties, elaborate deceit, and drugs, is something they can only be on the periphery of because they don't belong there.

Committing yourself to marriage is something like a pre-erotic state; sex and desire becomes a pure, sanitized thing, and any transgression, even just in the mind, is taboo. This is why a real married couple, especially one with a neuter energy like Tom and Nicole, were the perfect casting choice.

I'm a Lacanian, like Zizek (author of that Lost Highway piece, Art of the Ridiculous Sublime.)

His quote sums up how I feel about their foray. Married, they can't be animals. Alice says they should fuck, meaning:

"let’s fuck as soon as possible in order to stifle the thriving fantasies, before they overwhelm us again. Lacan’s quip about awakening into reality as an escape from the Real encountered in the dream holds more than anywhere apropos of the sexual act itself: we do not dream about fucking when we are not able to do it – rather, we fuck in order to escape and stifle the excess of the dream that would otherwise overwhelm us."

http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0107.html

bluefrank- i gotta ask where youre getting your info. yes, baum was a theosophist. and bailey was too before she was ex-communicated from the society when she started to communicate with d.k. and publish the contents, after which she started her own schools. but the wizard of oz was published in 1900, bailey didnt even come to america until 1907, and she didnt become a theosophist until 1917. and baum died in 1919, the same year bailey started writing the d.k. material. when exactly would they have had the chance to get together? there's no denying the similarity in symbolism with the wizard of oz, but to call it theosophical is stretching it. and i think it should be said bailey's teachings seem to instead take parts from many eastern and western mystery schools, just the same as blavatsky did in creating theosophy, and then maybe alone she wrote the texts for this teaching or maybe she was told by an interplanetary alien being all the universe's truth and wisdom and put it down in words. her husband had long been a mason, and there are elements of that in her work as well. honestly, i think she was more influenced by the wizard of oz than the other way around. and that book was much more heavily a satire and fantasy on american economics and politics than a theosophical mandala(not that there arent a few used). been a long time since i read the book, but i do remember there are specific figures of the day pariodied and lampooned. so any connection of lynch and the original baum creation and alice bailey i have to call into question. i would question the film more specifically than in its orgins as story if we're going to talk about how lynch may have been influenced by the elements of theosophy or other mystery schools that are represented in the film. altho doesnt he pretty much own up to being of a vedic nature? again, it seems the influences would be reversed, as the veda greatly influenced the creation of theospophy, so the idea of lynch using theosophy is looking at it upside down. if im not off in my public impression of the man, it seems he's going to the same source that (before mainland asia became readily acessible) the people who would start the major western esoteric schools of the 20th century have gone to when western life has been found wanting, then stole a thing or two, and(combing with other ideas, some of them their own, some borrowed) slapped a new name on it, and then people flocked. for awhile.
i still think frost and the other major writers were the forces involved in putting the occult references in TP, the exception being of course the original red room scene in ep.2 and the vast majority of the lodges in ep.29(tho lynch did not receive a writing credit for the episode). anyone know any specifics on the film version of the wizard of oz, like who was responsible for the production design? and which parts have been left out from the book? i dont believe i have a copy at my disposal.

this may be off topic, but shouldnt we be also asking about kubrick's usuage of these similar visual cues and sometimes explict esoteric reference and content? ager also has a reading of a clockwork orange which he contends is all about secret societies. some of his stuff can be a little too searching for something that isnt there, altho he would contend the unconscious visuals(the aspect of the image that we accept without looking at too much while we most quickly look for faces of people or representations of them) which in he would include things like set design and lighting, can be as much a voice in the film as the actors and language, or you could say as the conscious but ignorant. but for the most part he's got some interesting and original ideas about (mostly)modern film. Intuition gave some links of his at the beginning of this topic.

and the mask? why couldnt alice have found it and placed it there while bill was out trying to find out about what he saw that night at the mansion? in her dream she was seeing what bill was seeing that night of the ball/ritual, except she was a participant, not a watcher as bill was, altho he was the one physically there. she knows what time he got home, as he woke her. i think she has reason for suspicion and i think the mask put in his place in bed is alice saying she knows bill has had his own infidelites too, real or imagined or impeded. and he needs to own up to them and her so they then can 'fuck' and move on as a family.

I recently heard an interview with Evan Schwartz (author of Finding Oz) on Tom Ashbrook's On Point radio show, discussing this very topic.  You can hear it here:   http://www.onpointradio.org/2009/04/frank-baums-oz 

There's a review of Schwartz's book in the L.A. Times, here:  http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/arts/la-ca-leguin-schwartz10-2009may10,0,4378363.story

A few pertinent passages:

In "Finding Oz," Evan I. Schwartz's appropriately speculative, wide-eyed biography of Baum, one learns the curious fact that "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" was greatly influenced by a Theosophy volume the Baum family reportedly passed around religiously (like Zooey Glass' prayer book), "The Astral Plane: Its Scenery, Inhabitants, and Phenomena." Love that title.....According to Schwartz -- and he makes a good case for this in very consciously embellished language -- Oz represents an occult, intuitive realm where the human mind must give up its control, not to a higher power but to a more Eastern vision of Totality, represented by . . . Toto? This interpretation makes sense as rendered by Schwartz, who has meticulously researched the spiritual, cultural influences on Baum. 

that is very interesting, rigpa. tho within the society, its not that surprising, as The Astral Plane is one of the cornerstones of theospophic writing. its one of the oldest texts still popular, and being published in the 1890's, it makes much more sense to have had an influence on baum. its basically a guidebook for "astral projection", and the wonderful wizard of oz can be read that way. dorothy travels to oz without leaving her body, which is still in kansas, and that is a simplistic description of astral projection. there is also theosophic symbolism in the tin man, scarecrow, and lion, and in what they lack then receive after helping dorthoy find the wizard. but i dont think that the spiritual ideas in the wonderful wizard of oz are mutually exclusive to the satire. at least thats my memory of the book. dammit, now i gotta find my copy or get a new one. thanks for the info.