In Kubrick’s last film, Eyes Wide Shut (1999), an introductory sociology textbook appears on screen for a relatively long time. The analytical framing of this textbook yields an insight that helps us understand Kubrick’s filmography, as the framing suggests that humans and their civilized societies cloak some dangerous cultural motivations, acquired throughout a long process of evolution. With this framing in mind, we researched 11 of Kubrick’s 13 films and extracted 15 general themes and 25 crime-deviance related ones. We suggest that Kubrick’s films indeed present a critical perspective that challenges viewers to contemplate the contrast and implications of crossing symbolic-moral boundaries of human civilized societies into criminal and deviant—many times extreme—infringements. We also present a critical perspective vis-à-vis Kubrick’s views that emphasizes choices.
