TRAUMNOVELLE (1925) by Arthur Schnitzler was the basis of Stanley Kubrick’s film EYES WIDE SHUT (1999) staring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Vienna in the early 1900s: At a nightly and highly sexually arousing masquerade ball, the young doctor couple Fridolin and Albertine swear to tell each other about their dreams and temptations. But Albertine’s confessions make Fridolin feel insecure, and when he is visiting a patient the subsequent night, he cannot make himself return home. He embarks on a journey through the night of Vienna, leading him to the extreme limits of both the city and the conscience until he gets to the point when the masks fall and lust as well as death is let loose. However, this also opens up a door for Albertine. This dramatisation is true to the erotic and surreal universe of the original work.
