Eyes Wide Shut: Virtually Immersive Storytelling Yasser Owino College

As we race toward more sophisticated forms of virtual reality, its worth considering the work of Stanley Kubrick. He spent his career probing and solving the questions of immersive storytelling in ways that still remain unique. More than any other director, it's easy to imagine Kubrick's films as worlds that we could explore as games or even virtual reality rides. Where we glide through narrative spaces, intensely involved but never in control. This is because Kubrick was as much concerned with the way audiences engaged with his films as he was with the ideas that they were trying to convey. In fact, for Kubrick, these two things were inseparably linked. We often think of Kubrick as a highly stylized director, which he was. But crucially, Kubrick never lets us forget what the purpose of style actually is. Style is a lens that gives the viewer a point of access to the material. It's about the audience, not the director, something that new filmmakers should keep in mind.

Here, it is worth taking a closer look at Eyes Wide Shut, Kubrick's final film, and the ways it immerses us in the story of Alice (Nicole Kidman) and especially Doctor William “Bill” Harford (Tom Cruise). A married couple going through a difficult time in their...