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Gosh, if the mask is to signify that she was there, that is some clumsy storytelling, and it was right of Kubrick to leave it ambiguous. Why would Kidman's character, with what we know about her active fantasy life that hasn't been acted upon, be at a secret orgy full of prostitutes? Quite frankly, I always took the mask's presence as a threat by the folks behind the party - because it's followed by Cruise coming clean to Kidman, who was visibly shaken by the admission.

Again, the most logical explanation for Cruise's mask to show up on his pillow is that Kidman placed it there herself. Kubrick is careful to show that Cruise hides the bag with the costume in the apartment and, then later, retrieves the bag to take to the rental store. In between these two moments, it's possible that Kidman found the bag and removed the mask. Cruise finally breaks down when he realizes that Kidman knows about the costume rental and is "confronting" him by placing the mask on his pillow.

Roger Ryan wrote:Again, the most logical explanation for Cruise's mask to show up on his pillow is that Kidman placed it there herself. Kubrick is careful to show that Cruise hides the bag with the costume in the apartment and, then later, retrieves the bag to take to the rental store. In between these two moments, it's possible that Kidman found the bag and removed the mask. Cruise finally breaks down when he realizes that Kidman knows about the costume rental and is "confronting" him by placing the mask on his pillow.

Indeed. Clumsy and Kubrick are not words that really go together once he got past his 'student' film period (Fear & Desire and Killer's Kiss). If the mask is there it is for a good reason.

I was 15 when I saw it and really haven't revisited it, but I thought it was the other scenario I posited back then really until watching some Kubrick docs lately on YouTube. It's too much of a bad thriller cliche that someone from the party put it on the pillow as a threat to him and his family.

I think Alice found the mask and placed in on the pillow. I don't think the powers behind the curtain would've placed it there, but I think that it's actually a great sign of Kubrick's genius in ambiguity that not only might it occur to Bill but it certainly has occurred to some viewers (myself included) whether it was actually placed there as the final warning. Kubrick beautifully refers to things that are not there (that were there or might never have been there in the first place) throughout the film, and it's one - if not the greatest - motif that runs throughout the film. It's like we're seeing not one but multiple films at the same time, each complementing one another but still swerving to unexpected directions.

I can see Alice finding the mask, realizing it is Bill's, placing it on her husband's pillow as a token of her then realizing there is something in Bill she is not aware of. Of course it'll come as a surprise (or not?) to Alice as to how far Bill actually went.

greggster59 wrote:Look again.
The mask on the pillow was part of the costume Cruise's rented costume which he stashed in his apartment the next day.

Well spotted. I read the book when the movie came out. The human mind is a strange thing, and my mind obviously played a trick on me...

Anyway, I dug out my copy of Dream Story by Arthur Schnitzler (trans J Davies). Here is the final chapter:

**********************************************

He [Fridolin] hurried home through the dark deserted streets, and a few minutes later, having undressed in his consulting-room as he had done twenty-four hours earlier, he entered the marital bedroom as quietly as possible.

He could hear Albertine's [his wife's] calm, regular breathing and see the outline of her head silhouetted against the soft pillow. A feeling of tenderness and of security he had not expected overwhelmed him. And he resolved to tell her the whole story quite soon, perhaps even tomorrow, but as if everything he had experienced had only been a dream - and then, when she had felt and acknowledged the insignificance of his adventure, he would confess that it had indeed been real. Real? he asked himself - and at that moment became aware of something very close to Albertine's face on the other pillow. on <i>his</i> pillow, something dark and quite distinct, like the shadowy outline of a human face. His heart stood still for an instant until he grasped the situation, and, reaching out, he seized the mask he had worn the previous evening, which evidently had slipped out without his noticing that morning as he rolled up his costume, and which the chambermaid or even Albertine herself must have then found. So he could scarcely doubt that after this discovery Albertine must suspect something, and conceivably worse things than had actually happened. Yet the way she had chosen to let him know this, the idea of laying out the dark mask on the pillow next to her, as if to represent his, her husband's face, which had become a riddle to her, this witty, almost light-hearted approach, which seemed to contain both a mild warning and a willingness to forgive, gave Fridolin reason to hope that, remembering her own dream, she would be disposed not to take whatever might have happened all that seriously. But then suddenly, feeling utterly exhausted, Fridolin let the mask slip to the floor and to his own surprise broke into loud, heart-rending sobs, sank down beside the bed and wept quietly into the pillow.

A few seconds later he felt a soft hand stroking his hair. he raised his head and from the bottom of his heart cried, "I'll tell you everything."

At first she gently raised her hand as if to prevent him, but he seized it and held it in his own, both questioning her and pleading with her as he looked up, so she nodded her consent and he began.

By the time Fridolin had ended the first grey light of dawn was coming through the curtains. Albertine had not once interrupted him with curious or impatient questions. She seemed to sense that he had no desire to conceal anything from her, and he was indeed unable to. She lay there quietly, her hands behind her neck, and remained silent a long time after Fridolin had finished. At last - he had been lying stretched out by her side - he bent over her and, gazing into her impassive face and large bright eyes, in which the day now seemed to be dawning too, asked hesitantly yet full of hope, "What should we do, Albertine?"

She smiled, hesitated briefly, then answered, "I think we should be grateful to fate that we've emerged safely from these adventures - both from the real ones and from those we dreamed about."

"Are you quite sure of that?" he asked.

"As sure as I am of my sense that neither the reality of a single night nor even of a person's entire life can be equated with the full truth about his innermost being."

"And no dream," he sighed quietly, "is altogether a dream."

She took his head in both her hands and pillowed it tenderly against her breast. "Now we're truly awake," she said, "at least for a good while." He wanted to add: for ever. But before he had a chance to speak, she laid a finger on his lips and whispered as though to herself, "Never inquire into the future."

And so they both lay there in silence, both dozing now and then, yet dreamlessly close to one another - until, as every morning at seven, there was knock upon the bedroom door and, with the usual noises from the street, a triumphant sunbeam coming in between curtains, and a child's gay laughter from the adjacent room, another day began.

**********************************************

Kubrick's and Raphael's screenplay converts this scene to:

SCENE 132. INT BEDROOM - BILL AND ALICE'S APARTMENT - NIGHT

BILL quietly opens the bedroom door. To his dismay, he sees the mask on the pillow next to ALICE [my note - Bill realises he lost the mask in scene 95, but put it down to an accidental loss]. BILL, emotionally wrecked, walks slowly towards the bed and sits down with tears in his eyes. Finally, he can restrain himself no longer, and breaks down into uncontrollable sobbing. ALICE wakes to see BILL'S complete helplessness as he collapses and lays her head on his breast. She puts an arm around him as he sobs.

BILL - I'll tell you everything. I'll tell you everything.

Etc, etc

"Also, the street signs are for roads that don't actually exist, at least according to Martin Scorsese in a documentary on the EWS blu-ray that I watched the other night."

Yes..yes, I know this. Thank you. But does anyone notice a street with the name "Glover" in it? It's fairly brief. I'm curious to know if it's in the film..real or fictional street..it doesn't matter to me

Antoine Doinel wrote:Vinessa Shaw recalls her time on the set of Eyes Wide Shut.

Very amusing interview. The domino scene is one of my favorites of the film, and her dialogue with Bill cracks me up.

DOMINO: That depends on what you wanna do. What do you want to do?

BILL: Well, uh, what do you recommend?

DOMINO (giggles): What do I recommend? Uhm...hmmm...

EWS is my second-favorite of Kubrick's films, and sometimes I wonder if it will eventually become #1. The process he used for filming EWS should be studied by all directors and filmmakers. He really went to the extremes in terms of time spent, number of takes, intimacy and partnership with actors, and so on. EWS is a master filmmaker at the zenith of his knowledge.

I recently came across this
http://idyllopuspress.com/idyllopus/fil ... d_half.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
In the 2nd half of the film he revisits many places where he went in the 1st half. The above article has the video and describes the actual timings of many incidents taking place at the same time in both halfs, i.e. he sits at the prostitute's table at exactly the same time in both halfs of the film.
The videos:
part 1
https://vimeo.com/123297180" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

part 2
https://vimeo.com/123674318" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

△△△ Illuminati Confirmed △△△ demrifnoC itanimullI △△△

All that makes me think of is how this movie was stupendous enough on LSD when watched normally -- I can't imagine seeing it in such a state with the images overlaid like that.

(sigh) This is like those "revelations" (neqm) found in Room 237

(neqm = not enough quotation marks)

Found this old interview with Vanessa Shaw (Domino, the prostitute) which was done for the film's tenth anniversary, which gives something like a layman's perspective even if Shaw had been an experienced child actress by the time she was cast. For example, some of the mystery behind his methods become a lot more understandable and prosaic. With regards to the large number of takes, she mentions that Kubrick would concentrate on one particular aspect of the scene (like the lighting), then move on to another (like the camera movement), and then another, which could be frustrating for an actor when it's clear it'll be a while before he really pays attention to your performance.

I liked the film when it came out. I had to. I am a huge Kubrick fan. I also loved A.I. just because it was Stanley's pet project. But I rewatched EWS last month and I find very uninvolving. It just lacks life. The only good scenes involve Sydney Pollack and Nicole Kidman. Tom Cruise is his usual semi-rigid self and this really does a disservice to Kubrick's own detached take on the action. The film suffers from such overstuffed mannerisms that it plods along without much gumption or fluidity. Those 69 takes show in the leaden performances. Yes, Kubrick liked a certain stilted delivery, but Sidney Pollack and Nichole Kidman manage to avoid the trap (and the workout in front of the camera) and I think their scenes are better for their resistance to Kubrick's whims. The story is mechanical and Kubrick's tight mise-en-scene smothers whatever salacious pleasures it might have offered. It de-saturates sex and turns it into a Ken and Barbie coupling, Kubrick's lack of flexibility lets people conjoin but only stiffly assume the position without heat. Some say it's a dream story, and perhaps it was Kubrick's intent to suggest that in the odd episodic fleeting encounters Cruise has, but at that same time that six degrees between dream and reality acts as a time-delayed between the audience and the action, and any real sense of urgency or danger floats away. It's just not a very engaging experience other than a half dozen scenes where, as I said, Pollack and Kidman rise out of the manufactured miasma. Anyway, I still love Kubrick, but I just find this film a misfire.

theseventhseal wrote:I liked the film when it came out. I had to. I am a huge Kubrick fan. I also loved A.I. just because it was Stanley's pet project. But I rewatched EWS last month and I find very uninvolving. It just lacks life. The only good scenes involve Sydney Pollack and Nicole Kidman. Tom Cruise is his usual semi-rigid self and this really does a disservice to Kubrick's own detached take on the action. The film suffers from such overstuffed mannerisms that it plods along without much gumption or fluidity. Those 69 takes show in the leaden performances. Yes, Kubrick liked a certain stilted delivery, but Sidney Pollack and Nichole Kidman manage to avoid the trap (and the workout in front of the camera) and I think their scenes are better for their resistance to Kubrick's whims. The story is mechanical and Kubrick's tight mise-en-scene smothers whatever salacious pleasures it might have offered. It de-saturates sex and turns it into a Ken and Barbie coupling, Kubrick's lack of flexibility lets people conjoin but only stiffly assume the position without heat. Some say it's a dream story, and perhaps it was Kubrick's intent to suggest that in the odd episodic fleeting encounters Cruise has, but at that same time that's six degrees between dream and reality acts as a time-delayed between the audience and the action, and any real sense of urgency or danger floats away. It's just not a very engaging experience other than a half dozen scenes where, as I said, Pollack and Kidman rise out of the manufactured miasma. Anyway, I still love Kubrick, but I just find this film a misfire.

Your response mirrors mine very closely, after not having the seen for at least 10 years or so (and having liked it a lot when it first came out), and going through the entire oeuvre once again last year.

My notes after watching it again last year (or very early this year, meaning '16): Kubrick falls from grace on his last film. He was known to wait until he fell in love with a book until he made a film, and he wound up adapting Schnitzler’s novella only after other projects fell through. The story and screenplay simply aren’t as good as previous Kubrick films. There’s still a lot to fascinate – notably how the film recalls many of his previous films in various ways (Clockwork Orange, Lolita, The Shining) – but even the masterly touches don’t come off without a hitch. There are bits that are a bit silly, like the orgy, the direction of the actors, though lauded, sometimes betrays a few bad moments (in the Cruise and Kidman scenes), and the music, for example, isn’t as powerful as in the director’s many masterpieces. It’s still interesting, but disappointing in contrast to the rest of his output.

I also agree with some of the criticism regarding EWS.

BUT your critique of the music I do not agree with. I find his use of Ligeti's Musica Ricercata (2nd movement), though a sparse selection for a movie, is absolutely fantastic.

The atmosphere he creates in this movie is for me arguably the best aspect of it, and the music has as much to do with that as the cinematography.

I think my first post on this forum was in this thread, and years later it's still my favorite film. I love a few other Kubrick pictures but this one is just special. I've analyzed every element of it and know it like the back of my hand, and I really think it may be the most complex and bottomless piece of cinema I'm aware of. But I also continue to be riveted by it on a purely narrative level. There's an incredible suspense to the movie, not a traditional suspense but something else, which just keeps me glued and haunted and fascinated. And of course the use of color and general visual design is spectacular, probably the most beautiful color film of all.

I've seen EWS so many times and it's so familiar that it's difficult for me to look at it with fresh eyes, but one thing I'd say is that part of what makes it unique is its blending of so many disparate genres/modes: 70s paranoid/conspiracy thriller, 60s erotic Euro art-house film, domestic melodrama, Hitchcockian "wrong man" narrative (replete with NxNW Glen Cove reference), Lynchian dream-film, almost Gothic horror in one sequence, etc. And I think the film's nonchalant mixture of banal, quotidian reality with the most surreal, disturbing occultism is incredibly effective and not quite like anything else I've seen. For example, a Lynch film might take you to similarly weird places as Eyes does in its Somerton sequence; but a Lynch film starts off odd, unusually-pitched, not of this world. Eyes starts off perfectly normal, almost "boring" even, and then very suddenly veers into some unfathomably alien territory. The effect is shocking and probably more frightening than a real "horror film" like The Shining.

Barry Lyndon is one of the greatest films of all, astonishing and far more moving than most give it credit for; 2001 is nearly as sublime; and The Shining is not quite as perfect but still a masterful work. But EWS is the most mysterious, rewarding, poignant and interesting of all. With each year it only seems more relevant, and more people seem to realize its greatness.

DarkImbecile wrote: Thu Jun 27, 2019 2:39 pm An oral history of the orgy sequence in Vulture

It was news to me that Cate Blanchett voiced Abigail Good's "Mysterious Woman" character.

Cate Blanchett Had a Secret Role in Eyes Wide Shut | W Magazine

https://twitter.com/mooncult/status/116 ... 36256?s=09

Larry Celona, the journalistic advisor for this film, is an acquaintance of Jeffrey Epstein. He flew on what is being now dubbed as the "Lolita Express". He was also the first one to break the news of Epstein's suicide.

An interesting, and perhaps disturbing, intersection of art and real life.

This year would have been a good time for Warner (or Criterion) to release this film.

It's already been released by Warner, man, it's out there if you wanna pick it up on Blu-ray. No use in pretending it's out of print or doesn't exist, there's plenty of classic films that are actually suffering that fate that are worth your concern.

I think the poor guy meant in terms of a fresh round of extras discussing the film today.

I'm sure both of those companies are scrambling to have conspiracy podcasters do commentary tracks for the film about Jeffrey Epstein, that's something that's 100% going to happen

That's a very strange thing to say.