“Fidelio”: the significance of the password in ‘Eyes Wide Shut’
Some might argue that Stanley Kubrick’s final film, 1999’s Eyes Wide Shut, starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, is one of his best, although there are indeed so many masterpieces attached to the legendary director’s name. Kubrick’s last effort is an adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler’s 1926 novella Dream Story, an exploration of the nature of sexuality and promiscuity.
Eyes Wide Shut is an examination of the kind of repressed sexuality and corporeal dissatisfaction that occurs in the wealthy, though, in those who have everything they could ever desire and yet are left feeling empty. Cruise plays New York City doctor Dr. Bill Harford and Kidman, his wife, Alice.
Following an affluent party, one evening, the pair discuss their unfulfilled sexual desires, which leads to a certain degree of jealousy arising in Bill, and though he initially resists the urge to act unfaithful, eventually, he starts to let his physical need take control of him. Bill soon finds his way into an orgiastic party run by the New York City elite, and he discovers an entire fetishist underworld lurking in the shadows of the country houses and opulent mansions.
Bill first catches wind of the masked party through an old medical school associate, Nick, who now works as a jazz pianist. Nick is often invited to the parties to perform, though he must play blindfolded, obscuring him from the event’s action. Bill is naturally curious about a party with sexual potential, given his newfound jealousy of Alice, so he asks how he might also gain access, and though Nick is initially reluctant, he eventually learns that he must give a password at the door: “Fidelio”.
That’s the narrative, but what is the symbolic significance of the password? Well, for starters, the passwords show that the orgy is not just for anyone but is an exclusive event with an element of mystique, especially so, given the taboo occurrences that take place. The party is a secret world, only accessible to those “in the know”, which aligns with Kubrick’s treatment of the kinds of desires that lie beneath our usual perceptions, the types of fantasies we were once unaware of, wrapped up in the banality of work, family, faithful love and the everyday.
A password is, of course, a key, but it’s also important to point out that it’s not tangible and is thus impermanent. In that light, the very nature of a password is parallel to the fact that the kinds of desires that the party momentarily satisfies can only be appeased for a fleeting moment, just as the password could change or even be forgotten at any given moment.
There’s also the actual password: “Fidelio”, which immediately makes us think of the word “fidelity” – faithfulness – which is evidently not at the top of the list of priorities of the party’s hosts. Here, narratively, the audience is thrown off the scent somewhat; knowing that Bill is growing increasingly likely to act unfaithfully to Alice, we might expect the party to contain but one instance of infidelity, but we learn (as Bill does too) that something far more sinister lies beyond the now seemingly humble act of a one-night-stand or an affair.
Fidelio is also the name of an opera by Ludwig van Beethoven, which premiered in Vienna in 1805. Knowing Kubrick, in whom every facet of the work has intention and meaning, it’s likely that this, too, bears significance. Beethoven’s only opera also focuses on love, fidelity and sexual liberation, which aligns perfectly with the personal quest of Tom Cruise’s character, as he longs to remove the supposed shackles of his thus-far faithful marriage to Alice.
It’s also perhaps worth noting that the password itself just sounds peculiar, full of mystery and intrigue and, ultimately, sexiness and alluring provocation. A dreamlike quality haunts Kubrick’s final movie, and by using a password as one of its central narrative proponents, the director simultaneously creates a metaphor surrounding the secretive nature of unfaithful sex and a key to reveal the darkest side of the financial elite.
