Day One – The Shining / Day Two – Full Metal Jacket / Day Three – Eyes Wide Shut
Day Four – A Clockwork Orange / Day Five – 2001: A Space Odyssey Mesage Board Discussion
BUY IT AT AMAZON: CLICK HERE
STUDIO: Warner Bros.
MSRP: $79.98
RATED: Unrated
RUNNING TIME: 159 Minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES:
- Theatrical trailer
- TV Spots
- The Last Movie: Stanley Kubrick & Eyes Wide Shut
- Lost Kubrick: The Unfinished Films of Stanley Kubrick
- Interview Gallery
- Stanley Kubrick’s Director’s Guild Speech
The Pitch
Three years in the making, the movie that went from being a cypher to a troubled and polarizing punctuation mark on the career of Stanley Kubrick. Was it a period, an exclamation point, or a giant question mark.!?
The Humans
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Cast: Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Sydney Pollack, Todd Field, Rade Sherbedgia, Fay Masterson, Leelee Sobieski, Vinessa Shaw
Writers: Stanley Kubrick, Frederic Raphael
The Nutshell
Is it real or is it a series of dreams? Either way, this tale of marital strife, temptation, and regret is one of Stanley Kubrick’s most debated films, partially because of its dreamy sense of place and partially because the director died before having a chance to spend a lot of time talking about it. Tom Cruise plays a wealthy doctor who embarks on a series of erotic and dangerous misadventures ranging from benign to considerably obtuse. All the while, his distant wife (Nicole Kidman) experiences her own doubts and erotic experiences, leading the couple into the unknown.
The CHUD.com Staff Ruminates on Eyes Wide Shut:
Some people went nuts over The Phantom Menace during the summer of
1999. I was on a Kubrick kick following his death in March of that
year. I wanted to get deeper into film and as a high school senior�I
latched onto the nearest master director that was floating in the
ether. I remember seeing the final trailer premiere to the sounds of
Chris Isaak. They were good times.
Then, I got to listen as a general audience tried to make sense of a
sex drama/fantasy about the boredom of monogamy in the Modern Age. I�d
go around and ask people what they thought of it and I was stunned.
There�s the whole issue of hitting a target audience, but everyone
enters into interpersonal relationships at one point of their life.
Yet, people couldn�t understand the frustration of having no adventure
anymore. The dangers of complacency and an open market to chase all
matters of freaky tail didn�t entice anyone into giving this a shot.
So, when the Academy Awards rolled around�I wasn�t surprised to see
that the film got snubbed.
It�s an amazing thing to revisit this film after so many years.
Watching the recent release on DVD, I�m dumbstruck by the fact that
this film didn�t breakthrough to a mass audience. There a ton of people
out there watching �Tell Me You Love Me�, yet they can�t make the time
to give this film a shot? I could go around in circles trying to figure
out where the appeal was lost. But, I want to leave anyone that reads
this with something to consider.
Nicole Kidman is a passive vessel for the duration of this flick,
except for the tale of her lustful dream of a sailor from long ago. She
uses this story while high to taunt her husband and provoke him into
action. But, as a broken vessel, Cruise can�t process the instigation
in the proper way. As we watch Cruise�s trek through the nocturnal
world, do you buy that he wants to go back to the monogamous safety of
a life with Kidman? Or was it a fear of something like AIDS, violence
from outside forces or the eventual exposure of his sexual desires that
pushed him to the safety of his wife? I appreciate that I can have
these questions and I wish more filmmakers were interested in the
journey and a lot less about a grand finale.
– Troy Anderson
Eyes Wide Shut is the girl in high school with the bad reputation. You
hear rumors about how much of a slut she is, so you decide to find out
for yourself. You cozy up to her at the kegger. You converse with her a
bit. She tells you some gobbly gook about philosophy or human nature or
something. You don’t really know what she’s talking about. But you
smile and nod, trying not to stare at her tits. All in the hope that
the inevitable action will be worth the boredom. Then she goes to
refill her cup and never comes back. So you go home, disappointed and
frustrated. Eventually you end up spending more time with her. Maybe
you are in the same study group. Or you end up talking to her at
another party. This time, you actually listen to her while she’s
talking. You begin to notice things. Her sense of humor. Her style. Her
confidence. You begin to appreciate her for who she really is.
Still have never seen it, although I frequently hear it’s not as bad as people have said.
I’ve seen the nude scenes, though, so that shows you where my priorities lie.
�Fuck.�
That�s the last line of the last shot from the last film from one of
cinema�s greatest directors, and it�s a line that drips with hope. Hope
isn�t a sentiment often tied to Stanley Kubrick, and it�s not evident
in all of his films. But for every bleak critique he crafted, dripping
with derision aimed at humanity and our thirst for violence, hypocrisy
and self-destruction, there�s the star child in 2001: A Space Odyssey, there�s the
French song at the end of Paths of Glory, there�s a couple coming to
terms with their marriage at the end of
Cruise spends about two and a half hours on a sex odyssey (everyone he
encounters during his wild night on the town reacts to him sexually),
he comes home to his wife, whose confession sent him reeling and
searching in the first place. They wander around a toy store, there
kids picking out presents, and they discuss their future.
Kubrick thought they had a future, or at least thought they deserved to
try to have one. So if some find that last line ironic, crass or in
poor taste, they�re simply wrong. It showed that despite our faults,
Kubrick still had faith in the best parts of human behavior, the parts
that enable us to set aside our differences, figure something out and
come together (even if it is coming together in its most primitive
form; sexually). I know not everybody loves this movie, and to be
honest, it�s not nearly my favorite of his films. But I think it�s a
fitting end, worthy of sitting alongside his other giants, and a
fantastic capper to one of the most consistent resumes of auteur cinema.
Perhaps the biggest lesson to be
learned from Eyes Wide Shut is ‘Don’t die before your movie is released because
some asshole at Warner Bros is going to Photoshop in Darth Maul all over the
place.’ This is a corollary to the rule ‘Don’t die.’
I have seen Eyes Wide Shut twice,
once in theaters and once on DVD so that I could jerk off to it, which I
couldn’t do in theaters, as Paul Reubens has taught us all. I didn’t really
like the film either time, although I was intensely interested in it for a
couple of minutes the second time I saw it. As a professional movie writing
about guy I should probably revisit the film, as it’s turning into one of those
movies that makes everybody pretend like they didn’t slag it when it first came
out, and I’m feeling that tingle in my legs I get when a bandwagon needs to be
jumped upon. The truth, though (and I am only telling you this halfway through
the whole Kubrickpalooza because I was afraid you would hate me), is that I’m
not really a huge fan of Kubrick’s work. I’ve always admired it, and I even
kind of like some of his movies, but I’ve never fallen in love with them, with
the exception of Dr. Strangelove. Which we’re not even fucking writing about,
so whatever. But anyway, with the exception of this, his final film, I’ve been
able to basically enjoy all of his work and see the incredible merit within
each of the movies (and I have now seen every movie he’s made from The Killing
on up, and seriously, who’s talking about Fear and Desire (although it stars
Paul Mazursky… and the tagline is “Trapped… 4 Desperate Men and a
Strange Half-Animal Girl!” and “The Story of a French Prostitute…
and The Male Brute”. Maybe I should see this movie after all) in the same
breath as Barry Lyndon?).
Maybe one day I’ll revisit Eyes Wide Shut and I’ll finally figure it out and come to love it. But with my general
coolness towards Kubrick, I think I’ll probably settle for being one of the
unwashed masses with this one.
I also challenge the notion that this was Kubrick’s finished cut (naughty-blockers at the orgy scene or no); there is a very rough transition early in the film – cutting from “Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing” to the second Shostakovich cue (a book could be written on Kubrick’s adroit ear for classical music – that would’ve surely been tightened in further editing. Even if that was intentional, I refuse to believe Stanley Kubrick had settled on a finished cut four months prior to release. This is the man who excised the epilogue from The Shining after the film had been in theaters for five days. He would’ve tinkered. And yet I can’t imagine the picture’s themes being more lucidly explicated.
– Jeremy Smith
(And you could write a book about what Sydney Pollack does for the film; I’m always so happy that he ended up replacing Harvey Keitel as Victor Zeigler.)
I hear from people all the time that they won’t watch the film because of their dislike for Tom Cruise. Ironic, since this is the perfect movie for Cruise haters. His Dr. Bill Harford is weak and almost childishly underdeveloped in a psychological sense. All the typical Cruise bluster and bravado is squashed by realizations he’s forced into scene after scene, and he ends the movie like an adult puppy dog, hoping for any little bit of acceptance from the wife he finally realizes is far more worldly than he will ever be.
Doctor Harford has no depth. His bedside manner is trite; the emotions he expresses to his patients are obvious and put on. He buys his way through life, throwing cash around like a proper wealthy New Yorker, but he’s unknowingly using a sexual currency as well.
His wife Alice is bored but committed, very much in love but aware of the simple and direct power a spark of sexual attraction can have over any long-term relationship. She’s also practical enough to have some discretion about following through on that spark, and perhaps finally manipulative enough to realize that talking about it is going to get her more results than actually giving in to it. Kubrick’s films are hardly overflowing with interesting female characters, so it’s impressive that Alice is as real as Kidman manages to make her in a mere handful of scenes.
Alice’s revelation of a phosphorescent yearning for another man kicks off a dream cycle of events for Bill that would be comic if it wasn’t so sad. His night of fantasy sexual non-encounters, which in the film’s unrevealed reality might boil down to an encounter with a high-class hooker who later dies, is pathetically naive. The smart, pretty girl fucking her way through college; the hot and salable daughter of an immigrant shopkeeper; the hidden desire of a patient’s daughter; and the absurd sexual masquerade enjoyed by the wealthy society he serves. All as blatant a fantasy as Alice’s naval officer, but all made pathetic by the fact that Dr. Bill is apparently just having those fantasies for the first time.
The famously artificial New York City street sets work ideally in the construction of the film’s unreality, since we’re seeing the fantasied sexual development of a man who’s really got no idea what fucking is all about.
As much as I like the film, and I like it quite a lot, I get the same sense from that many did from Tom Wolfe’s I Am Charlotte Simmons: that of an old man who’s trying to speak a young and foreign language. Kubrick’s sins in that respect aren’t egregious. He doesn’t sound like a perv trying to horn in on college kids as they get laid. But Eyes Wide Shut could be a more powerful film if it was more conversant and comfortable with the times that occasionally seem to have passed Kubrick by. He’s saved by the film’s fantastic final lines, which bluntly prove that Kubrick might not have been such an old man while he was sitting in the director’s chair.
Eyes Wide Shut is probably Kubrick’s least liked and most widely
misunderstood film. This is a story about coming to terms with our
commitment to fidelity and the temptations that exist right outside it.
The conflict, though largely internal, takes place in a dream-like
world where “the rules” are unclear. Not necessarily material the
director was known for (the abstract 2001 excepted,) or the most
pulse-pounding stuff. Although Kubrick, bless him, tried. It also
happens to be one of his most unfunny films (the only quotable line is
the last one!)
After the initial euphoria of watching a new Stanley Kubrick film had
worn off, I could appreciate the ideas but was most certainly
unsatisfied. The clumsy digital insertions during the orgy scene
annoyed me. Obstructing the main character’s extended POV shot during
the climax (!) of the film to the point where the whole screen briefly
goes black made no sense, especially when the whole point of the scene
is personal discovery.
But the most distracting element had to Tom Cruise, who seemed to be in
a different movie altogether. He’s so out in front of everyone else
with all of of his literal-mindedness. The film finds subtlety in every
detail, from the slightly confusing way all of the women look alike, to
the way Kubrick paces the narrative in a state of waking life. Nothing
is ever announced with flashy technique, and the film never holds your
hand. The other actors are all game too, turning in very unaffected
performances. (Kidman is great.) But Cruise sits grim-faced throughout
most of the film as if he’s fighting a case of IBS. His performance is
all surface. I suppose the disconnect is there to communicate the
alienation his character feels, and perhaps there’s something enjoyable
in watching an actor you don’t particularly care for, being dumped on
for 2 hours. Still, I wanted to relate to this guy and I couldn’t.
I began writing this piece thinking the subject matter was what turned
most people off from this film, and maybe it’s true. But the main
reason I have trouble with this film is because it is the prime example
of how Tom Cruise’s limits as an actor could ruin an otherwise great
film. A role this complex should not be performed by someone who made
his career overacting. Kubrick’s adult fantasy (in the best sense of
the term) exposed Cruise as a movie star in over his head and not a
thespian of meditative film.
It’s for these reasons I haven’t revisited this film, even though I’m
fully prepared to watch it again with fresh eyes. In fact, I can’t wait
to buy this boxed set. It wouldn’t be the first time I had to play
catch-up with a challenging work of art and considering how well
Kubrick’s films age, I might even be a little disappointed if I didn’t
grow to love this eventually.
There�s something very geometrical about the structure of Eyes Wide Shut that I�ve always enjoyed. Here we have a story that, in the broadest of
strokes, takes Tom Cruise�s character from his home, to Sydney
Pollack�s house for a party, to a mysterious overdosed woman, to a
prostitute, to his piano player friend, to a costume shop, and then
finally to the famous orgy mansion. But after the good doctor is
unmasked and sent home, the movie plays out this exact same sequence
again, only this time in reverse: He goes back to the mansion and is
chased away. He goes to the costume shop to return his outfit. He
checks up on his piano-playing friend. Then the prostitute. The
mysterious overdosed woman�s fate. Back to Sydney Pollack�s house. And
finally, home again to the wife. It�s a perfectly symmetrical movie:
mirrored, you might even say. Given the importance of mirror-imagery in
Eyes Wide Shut, this couldn’t possibly be a coincidence.
Okay, but to what end? Beats me. Eyes Wide Shut is a movie that
simultaneously fascinates and baffles me. Here�s a film that almost
literally seems to be trying to hold a mirror up to sexuality in the
modern world, and the picture it paints is not a pretty one. In this
world, sex is not just impersonal, not just anonymous; it�s ritualized
to the point of abstraction. But is this bizarre orgy we see in the
film intended to be a reflection of modern sexuality on the whole? I
don�t have a clue.
But whatever. On a purely narrative level, Eyes Wide Shut
works. The first half of the film, showing the slow descent of Cruise�s
Dr. Harford into the sexual underworld, is flawless in its execution,
managing to be simultaneously exciting, intriguing, and unnerving all
at once. And the second half, while going through the motions of a
thriller, is refreshing in that it never feels obligated to tie up
loose ends. A lesser director would have gotten caught up in a
murder-mystery plot, but Stanley Kubrick knows better. If there�s one
thing he understood, it�s that a question is always more interesting
than an answer.
For a long time, Eyes Wide Shut was more important for what it
represented than for the film itself. I don�t know how many of you
remember, but it became a flashpoint for criticism against the ratings
board. The MPAA requested digital alterations to the centerpiece of the
flick, the creepiest orgy you�ll ever see, and the film community went
up in arms. �How dare could they censor Kubrick�s last film,� they
cried, and critics all over the country called for a new rating to
replace the too-restrictive NC-17. I liked to fancy myself an activist
for that cause, but who am I kidding? I was thirteen when the flick
came out. I had to see it on fucking video.
Well, all that fervor has died down now. We still have the NC-17. The
uncensored version of the flick is now available on DVD in this
country, although certain people are now upset that the new DVD doesn�t
have the censored version too (I don�t get this world, sometimes. I
really don�t.). And all that really stands for the first time, quietly
and with its dignity intact, is the film itself. It�s not Kubrick�s
best. That�s to be certain. Nicole Kidman is terrible, for starters,
and so much of the last hour seems hell-bent on debunking all that was
mysterious and interesting in the ninety minutes that preceded it. But
it is, without a shadow of a doubt, a Stanley Kubrick movie through and
through. It�s provocative, subtle, and effortless in the filmmaking
craft on display. Tom Cruise and Sydney Pollack are incredible, and the
opening ninety minutes really is pretty fucking fantastic. Also? The
orgy scene? So much better uncensored. More than anything else, it
sticks with you long after you see it. That�s a quality that only two
types of movies have: great ones and Stanley Kubrick ones.
I don’t see how folks find this erotic. Part of what makes this film a bit of an enigma is how hollow and cold the nudity is. This is not a sexy film at all, in fact it almost treats sex like Irreversible treats violence. There’s not a moment of joy in this whole film and I think it really is a nice look at Stanley Kubrick the filmmaker as he watched his business get more and more inarticulate and lowest common denominator driven. The cynical side of the man is in full effect here, boldly going [and oftentimes failing] deep into his artistic subconscious. This film more than any of his others has that duality so present in his work that allows two people to get two entirely different experiences from it. Is it some brilliant lucid dream that will only be appreciated in a dozen more years or is it the last raving madness of a filmmaker facing his own end? Fuck if I know.
All I know is that I appreciate the film a lot more now. The things that bothered me in the past are things I look forward to and time has been kind to a lot of the stuff in here, primarily the work of the then-husband and wife team. Kubrick did some terrific stuff with Cruise and Kidman here, things that obviously run against the grain of their own actorly instincts. Their performances are uncomfortable, fearful, and Kubrick was always a master of pulling the net out from under his actors. It’s no coincidencethat Cruise turned a corner after this and moved towards riskier and more meaty work in Magnolia and Vanilla Sky. Everything else must have felt like high school plays in comparison.
Eyes Wide Shut is a weird film that I don’t really like, but somehow the magic of Stanley Kubrick elevates it from a highly anticipated dud to a curiosity that’s somewhat infectious to watch. Not many films in my collection get the same mixture of puzzlement and odd fascination from me and I think it’s good to be of such an uncertain mind about a film after so many viewings. Maybe it’s a piece of shit I’m willing myself to like or maybe it is a great film that my feeble mind is just starting to warm to.
I’ll let you know in ten years.
Let me rerun my very shitty and superficial review from 1999 just to showcase this site’s growth since then and how a knee-jerk reaction to a film can paint it in such a different light, a time when our reviews were quite limited in depth to say the least. You know, before stuck up curmudgeons like Devin, Russ, and Jeremy showed up.
Don’t hold the text that follows against me. I was younger. Virile. I hadn’t realized the crushing power, responsibility, and risks of the Internet. It was before I realized that just puking text onto a site wasn’t enough. For shits and giggles, as they say, my 1999 theatrical review of Eyes Wide Shut:
In many circles it doesn’t matter what this film is like. It’s untouchable. It’s a Kubrick. His signature resides on every frame of his films just like Picasso embedded himself into every stroke. Be that as it may, three years of buildup coupled with the fact that this is the coda to an amazing career do not have any bearing once the curtain opens up and the dancing Milk Duds have done their thing.
Long a goal of Kubrick’s to film, this adaption of Arthur Schnitzler’s novel “Traumnovelle” can be looked at on a variety of levels and a lot of depth can be found in it if you go looking. On another note, I argue you can “find” depth in anything if you’re looking for it regardless of the subject matter. Call me shallow, but I think there’s a fine line between “deep” and “pretentious”. I’ve seen too many films that trade surreal footage and detached, pointless conversation for actual dramatic integrity.
Sadly, I have to lump a good portion of Eyes Wide Shut with the former.
As a fan of Kubrick and Tom Cruise it pains me to say that this film about a husband and wife dealing with a crisis of infidelity (or implied and imagined infidelity) is far beneath the both of them. While possessing some inventive use of the camera and an assortment of beautiful women, it seems very detached and a film like this should be intimate. What was a very personal project feels very wooden and impersonal, and nobody seems sure of themselves at all, from the stars to the director to the person putting filters on the camera (“this room is red…this room is blue…this room is orange..”).
What the film did have going for it was mystique. The dreaded NC-17 rating was narrowly averted (and with virtually no violence isn’t it a shame how our ratings board thinks? Sex is VERY BAD, but a few beheadings and rapes are swell!) and the fact that Kubrick died shortly after completing his edit of the film made it a combination of all the right hot buttons. Plus, you put a star who is only equaled by Tom Hanks and Mel Gibson in worldwide bankability in an ultra sexy film with his wife (whom some debate he’s never laid hands on before this film) doing nastiness onscreen and you’ve got a license to print money!
But in a year of disappointment (You can’t deny more than a few folks took Star Wars to task, and don’t even get me started on Spike Lee’s latest “joint”) this ranks as the biggest. While neither Spike Lee or George Lucas are in the same league as Stanley Kubrick, they have more ahead of them, this is it for the old master. Like I said, however, the film is the ultimate testament. After all the surrounding hoopla is peeled away, what you have is the work itself.
Cruise is a very successful doctor in Manhattan. He has a beautiful wife (Kidman, whom I have never found all too attractive is quite alluring in this), a lovely child, and a nice apartment in upscale Central Park West. He has powerful friends, clients, and his looks make him a good target for the ladies as well. But at a party one night, as he exchanges teases with two young models his wife dances with an exotic older stranger (I don’t know his name but his eyebrows did his entire performance for him). While harmless, they kickstart feelings within them which lead to a conversation about infidelity where his wife reveals there was a handsome stranger she would have given all she had away to be with him. Obviously, things are shakier than they appear, and when Cruise is summoned away to console the family of one of his former patients he embarks on a nighttime journey of uncertain lust.
It leads to several situations, most of which have some bearing on the final outcome. It is here that the film meandered a good bit and rang sour notes. Eventually winding up at a masquerade/orgy, Cruise confronts the fear and is swept away in an intrigue that is reminiscent of a foreign film in that the characters are a lot more vague than in most mainstream American films. The fact that Kubrick shot the film in England builds on that, and you’ll see a variety of “New Yorkers” possessing shifting accents and mostly European traits. Kubrick recreated the city with sets and footage shot in London, which is pretty astonishing in its own right.
When the payoffs come, they are telegraphed and don’t have the sharpness Kubrick’s other work did. There is no mystery in it all, and there’s no right or wrong. To make matters worse, none of the characters are likable and lack personality.
It becomes a series of scenes tacked together with Cruise entering a new environment, interacting with it, and moving on. Almost like a game.
Like a dream as well, and since the novel it’s based on is translated “DREAM NOVEL” some of these bizarre circumstances can be interpreted that way and since the whole film feels detached I’m sure many folks can spend hours in coffee shops twisting their goatees speculating on what’s real and what’s not and so on and so forth.
Also annoying is aspects of the film which seem pointless. Time wasted on blank stares, pauses in conversation, and other filler make a long film feel much longer. An easy 40 minutes could have been trimmed without loss. Plus a scene involving two Japanese men and a young girl is pointless, and later on it is referred to again and is even more pointless. The issue of HIV is dealt with at one point and it seems only for the reason to mention the disease. Plus, the orgy sequence, which was to be the high point of the film is hampered by too much time wasted on details (did we need to see the guy in red tap the floor, and nod with a masked woman THAT MANY TIMES?).
The performances are all fine, but nothing comes out really strong. Kidman has some really strong moments and some really weak ones, while Cruise seems on autopilot. Technically, the film is up to Kubrick’s standards, except for a shot where you feel the cameraman’s presence (it’s near the end at Pollack’s home, when they pull back from a pool table) which I found distracting.
Is it worth seeing? Yes, because of the historical value. Is it good? Not really, and for the amount of time spent on it I for one am very disappointed. 6 out of 10.
The Package
Of the DVDs in this set, Eyes Wide Shut boasts the second best special features. It’s a really nice second disc they’ve put together, especially the two sizable documentaries about both the making of the film and the films Kubrick was never able to make, primarily his Napoleon film and A.I..
They’re extremely informative and well done and it makes you want Eyes Wide Shut to have a more profound impact, though the finished film is made a little better having seen all of the featurettes. Plus, this new cut features no CGI cock-blockers, which is a good thing.
The other features are quicker and interesting but not nearly as resoundingly watchable as the two main features. That said, the included interviews with the stars showcase people who are truly driven and in awe of the filmmaker. Say what you will about Tom Cruise, the guy puts all he has into his work and that’s evident here. Regardless of your opinion of Eyes Wide Shut, this is a really solid little DVD.
8.0 out of 10
