Dream Story

The psychiatrist and playwright Arthur Schnitzler (1862–1931) was a daring pioneer in studying the murky, complex roots of human sexuality, much like his Viennese contemporaries Sigmund Freud.

The play La Ronde, which was too scandalous to be published or staged during Arthur Schnitzler's lifetime but whose daisy-chain of couplings served as the inspiration for both Max Ophuls's classic film and David Hare's modernised version, The Blue Room, which played to sold-out crowds in both the West End and on Broadway, is probably the play for which the author is best known. In the equally erotic novel Dream Tale, a married couple first experiences pain before coming to a deeper understanding of one another by sharing their sexual fantasies, surreal encounters, and what-might-have-beens.
Schnitzler masterfully reveals the brutality and depravity lurking behind the surface of civilised life by taking us on a tour of Vienna's dark cafés, red-light district, opulent houses, hospitals, and mortuary.

Eyes Wide Shut, co-written by Stanley Kubrick and Frederic Raphael, was inspired by Dream Tale.