1290 Eyes Wide Shut

[blindside8zao]

Here's another thing I find weird about people's reaction to this film. Why do people seem to find this movie so uplifting (or at very least un-bleak)? I wouldn't go so far as to call the film cynical, but it seems fairly pessimistic about love and sex in general, and downright nasty about male sexuality in particular.

I was by a professor that I would want to go home and screw after this film and by a friend that I would get to see a lot of nudity. As arrousing as the orgy scene was I found my male sexual hormones bashed and beaten down by other notions and found that the implications the film seemed to have for an attempt at a monogamous relationship/marriage threatening, leaving me curiously unarroused and dismal. The last thing I felt doing after this movie was screwing. Sort of how I felt after reading and watching Carver/Altman's Short Cuts.

[marty]

I heard that in pre-production of Eyes Wide Shut, Kubrick grilled Cruise and Kidman separately and let them confess their deepest sexual desires and fears and out of this Kubrick used in the film. Hence, Kidman's desire to have sex with an older man and a man in uniform. The gay hotel clerk comes on to Cruise and a gang of young men harass Cruise and call him a faggot.

[blindside8zao]

Hence, Kidman's desire to have sex with an older man and a man in uniform. The gay hotel clerk comes on to Cruise and a gang of young men harass Cruise and call him a faggot.

I know that the man in uniform was included in Schnitzler's novella and the gang harrassment also may have been included (though I'm not as sure on this count) so it's very possible that could be myth."

[postmodern-chuck]

The gay hotel clerk comes on to Cruise and a gang of young men harass Cruise and call him a faggot.

I remember when the rumor mill was speculating over everything revolving around Eyes Wide Shut when it was in production. Next to Keitel spooing in Nicole Kidman's hair, my favorite bit of rumor lore was a supposed sex scene between Alan Cumming and Tom Cruise.

By the way, the homoerotic subtext was purely Kubrick's, as the novel only makes fleeting hints that the main character's sexuality isn't up to par - there's never anything out and out, well, out about the novel.

[David Ehrenstein]

Kubrick is merciless in his taunting of Cruise and Kidman. No surprise that notlong after the film's premiere they announced the divorce.

Alan Cumming plays the hotel clerk. He's quite a character, both on screen and off. He had great fun doing this bit, over and over and over again as Kubrick always requires. He's even better in Urbania and The Anniversary Party (which he co-directed with Jennifer Jason Leigh)

[HerrSchreck]

When I first saw the movie, I suspected it might have been a calculated effort by Kubrick to ruin Tom Cruise's career by systematically dismantling his charisma. I'm still not entirely sure that that interpretation isn't correct.

yeah, me and another co-worker both felt cruise and kidman were (brilliantly) cast by kubrick because of their void personalities and lack of chemistry.

I second (or third, etc... still haven't read down all the way) this sentiment. I sniffed this possibility myself.

[Oedipax]

While we're all speculating, I figured I might as well ask: does anyone know why Keitel was dropped from the film? I think we've all heard stories, but they all seemed apocryphal.

[justeleblanc]

While we're all speculating, I figured I might as well ask: does anyone know why Keitel was dropped from the film? I think we've all heard stories, but they all seemed apocryphal.

Keitel was unavailable for reshoots so they just an entirely different actor.... right?

[leo goldsmith]

But Nicole stinks

I simply don't understand this reaction at all. Her "fucking hysterical laughing fit" is really weird, but there she's supposed to be stoned. Her two monologues, however, are utterly mesmerizing and central to the film. I can think of few examples of better acting anywhere at all.

[devlinnn]

Seeing this again a while back after the initial release was like watching a reality show from the cosmos as we witness first hand the destruction of a long-term relationship and marriage. Tom and Nicole are unsympathic in the same way most long-term couples are boring and unsympathetic (especially if children are involved). The very long shoot on this one (which I really think was the reason for Keitel's leaving) can also lead one to presume what K had in mind at the start evolved and changed dramatically as he probed, picked and tore apart the poor bunny rabbits in front of his lens.

[Barmy]

So whatever happened to Stewart Thorndike?

[leo goldsmith]

If her performance is as K intended and shaped it

Ugh -- come on. Fixating on this will get you nowhere! She's a sentient being. It's possible she had some part in it, too. I dare say the same could (could) be said for Mr. Cruise.

then I simply don't understand his conception of the character within the overall movie (obviously sexual hysteria and stoned-ness are both elements within it. But she unbalances things and is - by intention? - entirely unsympathetic.

Maybe this says more about my understanding of women than anything of (either) K's devising, but I think lack of understanding is the key here. She is so beautifully a chameleon in this film -- goofy, sinister, flirtatious, malicious, motherly, fragile, bored -- that no one (least of all poor ol' Bill) can make heads or tails of her. As such, she is the absolute center of the film, and is in it for all of 30 minutes. Her gaze into the mirror during lovemaking says more than Cruise does for the duration of the film.

And how does she find the mask in the locked cabinet?

And did she really have that dream?

Sorry for all this cinephilic eructation, but I really think hers is one of The Great Performances. If not f'evah-evah, then at least of the last decade or [insert arbitrary time period].

I encourage you to view this in Von Stern-O-Vision, David. What is that last, incriminating, melancholy, spectral line from Anatahan? "And if I knew anything at all about Keiko, she too must have been there."

[leo goldsmith]

surely Keiko is an accumulation of the men's images/fantasies of her, of Sternberg's image of her, of our image of her, the Queen Bee, not merely who she is or might be - just as Dietrich is steadily made into and then makes herself into an inconographic image of woman, of actress, of personal reinvention, of desire.

I think the same could be said of Kidman's character. The film flirts with the ideas that she is both victim and manipulator. Most of these interpretations seem to be projected onto her through Cruise's character.

(Shhhhh!! Secret! Leo's got a crush on the Nickster!)

Yech, no! Have you seen her recently? She looks like a bulimic Miss Piggy. And most of her (many) films since this one have been dreadful. She is, however, slated to play the Rita Hayworth role in the "remake" of The Lady from Shanghai directed by ... Wong Kar-wai.

Yeah, I don't believe it either.

[leo goldsmith]

I was hoping that we could just retitle the thread "Eyes Wide Shut: Hot or Not?"

[Oedipax]

Speaking of orgy scenes: Just announced by Warner Brothers for this year:

dvd.ign.com says:
Kubrick Special Editions: Four films - 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining and Eyes Wide Shut - all mastered in standard and high defintion (released in both formats on day & date). Eyes Wide Shut features the international cut of the film, fully restored and mastered for DVD.

What they mean about high definition is HD-DVD with Blu-Ray available whenever it is finally available.

thedigitalbits.com says:
Look for 4 new Stanley Kubrick SEs including 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), A Clockwork Orange (1971), The Shining (1980) and the original unrated version Eyes Wide Shut (1999). Each will include new documentaries and never-before-seen footage blessed by the Kubrick Estate (although don't look for deleted scenes - Stanley himself never wanted them released).

So we have SE announcements, but for me the burning questions would be first, what aspect ratios can we expect on the non-2001 releases, and second, what features will be on the new editions?

[Jun-Dai]

I actually prefer the full-frame image of Eyes Wide Shut over the theatrical one, and for basically the same reasons you gave.

[marty]

Just finished watching Eyes Wide Shut again and it is without a doubt one of Kubrik's finest achievements. Although I believe every film he made was just about a masterpiece. I loved the look of EWS - for example, the deep golden hues against the piercing blue background in the pot-smoking revelatory scene. I also love how the film depicts every aspect of the human form - as sexual object, an inert slab, casual nakedness, submissive, aggressive, ritualised, functional. I also loved how Kidman's character's desire were fulfilled in her dreams while Cruise's were never fully realised in reality (ie potential threesome, potential sex with hooker, potential orgy at mansion). Finally, the film ended the only way it could with both Kidman suggesting they should just fuck and get over and done with. Brilliant!

[Magic Hate Ball]

I just finished, and immensely enjoyed, Eyes Wide Shut. Immediately after pretty much any movie I have nothing but praise for it (thus, the embarrassing evening when I said I enjoyed this year's The Eye), but I do have the feeling that it'll stick into my top five. Watching it made me think that, if I had to choose anyone to direct a J.D. Salinger book, it'd be Kubrick.

The odd lighting that he employed, similar to that of the lighting in every one of his movies from Barry Lyndon and onwards, the "natural lighting" style, is striking, and it makes me wish that more directors would utilize the technique. A few things stick in my mind; the wall of lights at the Christmas party, the hooker's apartment, the lighting in the mansion. It's nice to see, for once, a film that isn't white-balanced.

I'm going to have to agree with many critics on the pacing of the film; it's a bit too slow. The idea that the slowness helps the dreamlike quality of the film, and increases the suspense is a valid argument, but there was a point when the suspense began to break. Many of the scenes could have benefited from a slight trimming.

There's something about the film, and I'm not sure what it is, a quality that appeals to me. Right now, it's my favorite Kubrick, a mixing of all of his trademarks into a non-kitschy and terrifying film (the sequence with Cruise being asked to remove his mask gave me the same feeling of being chewed out by the principal when I was in fourth grade).

[Magic Hate Ball]

So the element of surprise in EWS for me is replaced by the even more unnerving sense that I don't know what's going to happen next. Regardless of the pacing.

That is true. I have rarely so wanted to see what happened next, and so rarely have I been unable to guess accurately.

One interesting aspect of Eyes Wide Shut is its dream quality. Things are mismatched here and there; missing/moving furniture between cuts, the disappearance of the Rainbow Costumes sign, etc. Even the release of the film created a dreamlike atmosphere; it was released in June, and the whole movie glimmers in Christmas lights.

As well as that, the plot is not so much in a normal three-act structure, at least not in the kind you'd expect. The dramatic climax is right in the middle of the film, for one thing. Any normal film would probably have him return to the orgy to wreak havoc or be killed or something, but instead, it just moves Bill back into place with his wife. The structure is triangular, almost; everything he does before the orgy, he "revisits" afterwards, only now it's in a different light (the asian men at Rainbow Costumes, for one). It's kind of fascinating, and, in a way, reflects sleep itself, in that we descend into nothingness and then rise up again (sleep cycles).

There's some controversy over whether or not Kubrick really oversaw the creation of the final cut of the film, and what hand he had in the advertising before he died; the oddly uncreative titles (in blatant Centuria) make me wonder if the studio heads just went with that after he died. Of course, I'm probably wrong.

[Tom Peeping]

The scene at the party when the two models-mermaids try to lure Cruise over the rainbow is one of the scariest I know in all cinema. And I'm damn serious.

[Wittsdream]

The scene at the party when the two models-mermaids try to lure Cruise over the rainbow is one of the scariest I know in all cinema. And I'm damn serious.

The more and more I come to grips with the maddening social climate of our times, the more I cherish this film, and Kubrick's motivations behind making it. It is growing in stature by leaps and bounds over some of his more lauded films, and is beginning to take on the shape of a movie for the ages.

I came across this website devoted to Kubrick, and there are a number of articles written about EWS ( it contains Tim Krieder's well-known contribution). While other pieces written about the film by the likes of Bill Krohn, Michel Chion and Jonathan Rosenbaum are interesting, I find the article contained in this website, although poorly organized at times, to embody Kubrick's ultimate intentions in updating Schnitzler's novella.

To say that EWS is just a provocative examination of the forces behind post-modernism would be understating its value, IMO.

[Antoine Doinel]

When Kubrick originally got the rights to Schnitzler's novella, he was considering Woody Allen to direct it.

[Darth Lavender]

I kind of understand that. Kubrick was a big fan of Woody Allen (I seem to recall hearing he never missed an Allen film in the theatres? Same with Scorsese and Spielberg movies)

Thematically, there's a lot that would appeal to Allen (although, based on personal lifes, I suspect the most fundamental themes of monogamy and marital fidelity would be more suited to Kubrick) and Allen has certainly shown an occasional aptitude for visually creative and/or period films. (Haven't watched much of Allen, but Manhatten certainly shows his ability to make a film that actually *looks* great, instead of just being good performances, dialogue, etc. shot in a series of standard mid-shots (which so many of his films are. (Although, that approach does work for him.) Also, seeing Shadow & Fog recently (not one of Allen's 'classics,' but a pretty successful film on its own terms) Allen was able to handle the film's distinctive look quite well.

Perhaps I'm trying to convince myself that Allen could handle the visual aspects of Traumnovelle as well as he'd handle the dialogue. But, in the end, that question can be resolved with two words... Gordon Willis

'nuff said?

[Nothing]

When Kubrick originally got the rights to Schnitzler's novella, he was considering Woody Allen to direct it.

Ah, surprise, the Pulvernilia doesn't like Eyes Wide Shut... Kubrick considered Allen to star in it, not direct.

I just finished, and immensely enjoyed, Eyes Wide Shut.

Wow, that's the first time I've truly felt old

[Antoine Doinel]

Caught this on a movie channel last night, well the latter half of the film anyway, and something struck me about it that I never noticed before. Maybe I'm reaching here, but for a lot the film Kubrick has central characters - particularly Tom Cruise - enter or stand on the right hand side of the frame. Traditionally in films, character entrances come from the left and they stand from the left. But by "flipping" it, the mood is really disorienting -- almost like watching the film in a mirror.

Another technique he uses is a tremendous lack of closeups. Many of the conversations, particularly between Cruise and Pollack and Cruise and the hotel clerk are shot so we see them standing or from the waist up.

As for the lighting, I love that Kubrick forgoes "natural" lighting. It is so dreamy, plastic and fake that it's wonderful. I was particularly struck by the washes of blue coming in through the "nighttime" window of Pollack's pool room (particularly against the hard red of everything else). Great stuff.