Eyes Wide Shut

Rating:
Summary: one of the best from Kubrick
Review: It's no surprise to me that 'Eyes Wide Shut' was instantly rejected by mainstream audiences, who were probably expecting a soft porn movie along the same lines as 'Basic Instinct.' There is nudity and sex in the film, but it is Kubrickian nudity and sex - in other words, it's cold and vaguely off-putting, and we suspect that it is not a celebration of the procreative act. Kubrick is far to classy a director to allow a movie 12 years in the making to be a piece of erotic titillation.

This is a very rich, visually lavish, and deep film; Kubrick shows an expertise with expressive colors that we haven't seen so full-blown since his 'a Clockwork Orange.' The giant ballroom, with its bright red carpet and robed occupants, is destined to become a legendary Kubrick set piece, along the same lines as the Korova milkbar, the War Room, and the deep space victorian bedroom.

Kubrick's use of music here is unusual but compelling nonetheless. He masterfully uses Ligeti's minimalistic piano music to set the mood and heighten the tension, and the ceremonial chants of the orgy sequence are sublimely haunting.

Perhaps the only drawback is Nicole Kidman's performance; a limited actress in the first place, it doesn't help that she's required to act half asleep or stoned through most of her screen time. She pauses, draws out sentences, stammers, uses body language excessively, and in general annoys the heck out of me. Surprisingly, I have no complaints about Tom Cruise. He has proven, in Magnolia and Eyes Wide Shut, that he is a real actor.

Kubrick's final film is the work of a filmmaker who knows everything about film; watch it and be awed by his effortless command of the camera.

Rating:
Summary: a real spine tingler
Review: another gem in the bracelet that is the stanley kubrik discography.this was his 13th film.3 bad things happened.one-it was his last film because 2-he died and 3-nicole kidman and tom cruise[the stars] divorced shortly thereafter.anyhow,tom and nicole are hitched.they dont spend much time together and thier marriage is on the rocks.tom is given someone elses invitation to a very sexual and wierd party.thats when everything begins to unravel.this has way too many female parts in it for the kiddos.this movie is a psycological thriller.i was very involved in it.any guy whose staight will like it.at the party i was as confused as a baby in a topless club.it is also very emotional for the chicks if thet can get past seeing thier own parts.chicks are so silly about stuff like that!this is tom and nicoles best movie ever.hands down.bar none.it is very long but worth every second.

Rating:
Summary: Why all the raves?
Review: I'm not sure about everyone else, but Stanley Kubrick has never been one of my favorite directors. Granted, I have not seen too many of his films, but those that I have had the "privilege" of seeing make me wonder if his other movies are even worth the time. For instance, "The Shining" was a complete hack as well as a far cry from the brilliance of the novel by Stephen King; there were so many things they changed which made no sense.

Perhaps the most confusing film of 1999, and of Kubrick's career, "Eyes Wide Shut" is nothing short of a complete and utter failure. While most critics see past the confusion and read into the hidden themes, I myself found it quite idiotic to place such a great message within a whirlwind of plot twists, sexually charged scenes that make no sense to the overall plot, and the patented Kubrick filming techniques of tracking shots, brilliant colors and pacing.

Real-life couple Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman play William and Alice Harford, a wealthy New York couple who enjoy the lavish surroundings of William's occupation as a doctor. One night at a party thrown by a friend and colleague, both William and Alice are put into compromising situations, yet both of them are shown to have enough self-control not to submit to advances from others. The next night, a marijuana trip leads to Alice's admissions of past sexual longings for another man, which sends William into a cavalcade of fear, doubt, and near-infidelity. This includes a near-tryst with a hooker, long walks in the streets and rides in taxis, all the while thinking of his wife with another man, and an invitation to a party of nothing but orgies where each guest must where a mask.

Sound lucid? Think again. The movie makes the fault of setting itself up to be something really interesting, then flatlines into confusion and insanity. William is seen in so many different situations, yet we never really understand why he feeling so down. Is it because he is angry with his wife for her admissions, or because he has had those same feelings and wishes to act on them, later regretting the thought?

Then there are the very unnecessary scenes of sexually explicit acts which add nothing but an R-rating to the film. The party that William attends is nothing but orgie after disgusting orgie, most of which are computer-generated to keep the rating low. I did pick up on Kubrick's evocation of the feeling that William is seeing this and wanting to take part in it, but ultimately deciding against it. But was it really necessary to have to see every last person getting themselves off?

There's just something about "Eyes Wide Shut" that leaves you grumbling and unpleasant. Maybe its the more-than-confusing plot, or the fact that the movie is 158 minutes too long, or that it just seems like a big waste of time. For me, it was all of these factors, and more, which make this one of those movies that remains at the bottom of the barrel.

Rating:
Summary: Atmospheric And Effective.
Review: "Eyes Wide Shut" was the last visually rich and complex vision given to us by Stanley Kubrick before his death. I have always much preferred Kubrick's films for the look and composition more than the ideas, from "2001: A Space Odyssey" to "Full Metal Jacket," it's more the style than story. But here he was actually saying something. "Eyes Wide Shut" explores the dark corners of a relationship, principally of marriage. It exposes the worries lovers have when they deal with trust and faithfulness. Kubrick brilliantly paints an effective and disturbing picture here. The character in the beginning who tries to seduce the Nicole Kidman character at a party reeks with evil poison and Kubrick just shows us the idea, he knows we're smart enough to figure it out. The performances are also superb. Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman are excellent, which is an achievement because as a married couple, this must have been a difficult movie at times because of the feelings and emotions it raises. "Eyes Wide Shut" is a fitting finale for Kubrick. The orgy sequence is brilliant because it is not meant to turn you on, it's creepy, darkly atmospheric and Dantenean. I only wish a better ending had been filmed. It just resolves too quickly and simply with a little naughty word. Still, this is a good movie, dark, but sharp and intelligent and very complex. I was surprised because Kubrick, as I said, is more about style. He usually doesn't present philosophical genius mingled with brilliant visuales like Oliver Stone. But here there is something that speaks into the hearts of relationships. It shows why Kubrick is one of the lasting giants of filmmaking.

Rating:
Summary: What are we but puppets in this society?
Review: Some films need some resting time to be watched again several years later with wide open eyes to discover new dimensions in them. « Eyes Wide Shut » in one of these. Beyond the discovery by the two main characters that love is not sex, that love is not desire, that love is not passion, that love is all these, plus something undefinable that has to do with stability, with the future, with the transcendance of sex, desire, passion into the realization of a potential that is nothing but an instinct, and especially not the survival instinct, that has to do with going beyond limits not as an adventure, as a transient exhilaration but as an infrastructural building of the psyche, the mind, the soul, the real self, the ideal of the ego. In fact this love can perfectly admit some temporary, short and unconsequential moments of oblivion and excitation that will in return enhance the real love you may feel and experience for one person. Love has nothing to do with survival and everything to do with flying into new strata of being and new skies of imagination that cannot be cut off from what precedes even if they transcend it. This film thus shows how the wife has had a transient fit of desire, satisfied or not, it does matter because it intensifies the present and the future that can come from it because it is founded on the past. The husband discovers in one wild night a rite, a ritual, another side of everyday life, the reality of every-night phantasms that may have to do with something older and more fundamental than just sex in its anonymous garb of nudity and masks that would lead some to thinking that garb is garbage when it is in fact the necessary getting rid of all taboos and limitations that liberates the participants of their constant social acting by coming back to the physical and bodily basic needs in a way. It is devilish, satanic, luciferian, with encense and blind-folded music, and yet it is the only way to be able to play one's part in a society that requires everyone to be schizophrenic just to push this society towards its future. And yet, here, we feel and taste a sense of frustration and alienation in the two main characters. This cathartic trespassing is beyond limits for them. They will never be anything but ancillary servants for those who rule the world, have the real power that commands obedience and respect. The doctor will go on living in luxury because he makes homecalls and answers summons at any time of day and night, because he solves the problems of the superior class without asking questions, without wondering about ethics, without even questioning why he should be that subservient. Is it a denunciation of this ruling class of people who can do, and have to do, what all others will never even know ? Maybe, maybe not. Is it the recognition that there is a superior group of people who have been entrusted with the ruling of the world ? By whom ? Why ? How ? And then the rest of the world, even when they know this exists, have to keep their eyes shut and ignore it. And if by any chance they happen to know or learn about it, they have to forget it and bury it under a thick layer of knowledgeable oblivion. That's probably where the film should have a sequel, an extra development. What happens when this oblivion dissolves and gives way to remembrance, memory, recollection, remembering, and even revolt or rebellion ? Midlife crisis, they call it, but is it really that rejectable ? Why shouldn't everyone have the same possibility ? Why should we, ordinary ancillary servants, who have to be schizophrenic to survive in such a world and to be creative in a way, why should we not have the same need for cathartic trespassing ? The end of the film sounds bitter in the apparently recaptured equilibrium founded on pushing the recollection of what has been discovered into the inferno of forgetfulness. What will happen when these embers start burning again, when the Lucifer of this inferno of oblivion kindles the fire of recollection again ? Who is going to emerge in the husband, Abel or Cain ? Who is going to emerge in the wife, The Queen of Sheba or Phaedra ?

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU



Rating:
Summary: Kubrick's Final Film Stirs Controversy
Review: From his introduction into filmdom's big time with "Spartacus" to the widely discussed "Doctor Strangelove" Brooklyn born Stanley Kubrick was immersed in frequent controversy. It was only natural, therefore, that reacton to his final film "Eyes Wide Shut" sent the brilliant director out in a blaze of controversy.

British screenwriter Frederic Raphael, who secured an Oscar for the 1965 drama "Darling" with Julie Christie and Dirk Bogarde, recounted in his book "Eyes Wide Open" which dealt with his relationship with Kubrick, recalled how he got a call from the director one day about a potential project. The novel he was sent as an adaptation possibility he guessed to be a work by Austrian Arthur Schnitzler, a friend of Sigmund Freud. Like Freud, Schnitzler was interested in exploring the sexual side of humanity as a clue and index to the species as a whole.

That initial call resulted in close collaboration with Kubrick sending a cab to Raphael's South Kensington flat near Gloucester Road and transporting him to his suburban London mansion in quiet and leafy St. Albans. Kubrick was a man of privacy and after he was satisfied with Raphael's adaptation of Schnitzler's novel "Traumnovelle" he undertook a vigorous 400 day shooting schedule that saw him succumb to death before the film could be completed. The setting was moved from 1920's Vienna to 1990's Manhattan.

Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, then married, developed such a close bond with Kubrick during the filming that he ultimately became a surrogate father of sorts to the attractive couple. They were compelled to juggle their schedules and eliminate other work opportunities as the production was extended while perfectionist Kubrick insisted that as much time as was necessary would be taken to finish what he hoped would be a fitting masterpiece to culminate a brilliant career.

Cruise and Kidman play a highly successful yuppie couple. Cruise is a doctor while Kidman runs a gallery. One night after coming home from a party, while Kidman is particularly high on marijuana, she picks an argument with him on the subject of sex. She tells him about a Cape Cod weekend in his company when she observed a handsome young naval officer. Kidman confesses that at that point, had the officer been willing, she would have given up her marriage to have sex with the stranger.

Kidman's revelation results in Cruise exploring sex in Manhattan. He observes an instance of child molestation in which an angry father berates the men seeking to take advantage of his young daughter, who begins flirting with Cruise when she shows up to rent a costume. The costume is needed to crash a sex party at a Long Island mansion that features costumed participants wearing masks. Before they engage in sexual activity a cult ceremony is performed. Cruise looks out of place, is discovered, and told to leave. Patient and friend Sydney Pollack, who was also an attendee, later warns Cruise of the dire consequences of ever crossing such powerful people.

During Cruise's wild night of adventure he meets and befriends a prostitute. He pays her following conversation without exacting sex. Cruise later learns that she had terminal aids, recognizing how he had barely dodged a sexual bullet.

Eventually Cruise realizes following his sexual exploration how much Kidman means to him. At film's end they are seemingly closer together than ever. The resulting irony is that following this film the couple in real life terminated their own marriage.

Rating:
Summary: An amazing misconception
Review: It amazes me that some people just didn't get this masterpiece. It's definitely one of Kubrick's best. I'll watch it endlessly.

Rating:
Summary: Well hey, Kubrick was getting old...!
Review: It is a tendency of us Kubrick fans that we rate form at least as high as content if not higher. We tend to deny this, but, hey, let's be honest, okay?

Then came this, his last picture. And we learned: even the most polished form cannot save a stupid, annoying content. Eyes Wide Shut is nice to look at, no doubt. But the question looming over everything isn't just: what's the plot? It's: what the heck is the problem of all its protagonists?

It shows that the story relies heavily on a novel from a century ago. Today we just have other sorrows. After all, the wife of Tom Cruise's character didn't even cheat him, she (the movie's only highlight: Nicole Kidman) just t h o u g h t about it. While they were smoking some dope (they hid it, how sinful...!).

So what does he have to do? Run off to some prostitute, doing nothing (well, he kisses her, in a very sexy manner, granted), and sneaking into an orgy that looks like a crossing between Venezian Carnival and a Robert Palmer video clip (no offence, Robert). Not once does some sense of danger or urgency arise.

And yes, it's all very nice to look at. But now I understand some of my colleagues that never felt my enthusiasm for "2001", "Shining" or "Full Metall Jacket". It's all form, they say, and they are right - about this movie.

But the most painful thing to bear is the morale of "Eyes Wide Shut": Nicole contemplated sex with another man, Tom did the same in reverse and went to some strange party. But in the end they realised that they still had their marriage, and that it was good. Better than all this sex caboodle. And they realise this - in a super market...!

Well, there he goes, one of the best directors ever. De mortuis nihil nisi bene, as they say. So let's just think he was getting old. But let's not pretend that this is a masterpiece.

Rating:
Summary: Instantly forgettable
Review: Being a big Stanley Kubrick fan, I was very dissappointed w/ this, his last & final movie. It's too bad, because I was definately looking forward to it at the time it came out.

Definately rent it before deciding whether or not to purchase it.

Rating:
Summary: Stanley Kubrick's Last Judgment
Review: Stanley Kubrick spent the last years of his life working on this film. And by the time Eyes Wide Shut went into general release in the United States, the director was already deceased, giving his final project the cachet of a farewell gesture-or perhaps a Last Judgment, since the Dies Irae from the Mozart Requiem can be heard at one point on the soundtrack. Yet its long awaited appearance turned out to be something of an anticlimax when most of the pre-release gossip turned out to be unjustified. No dazzling spectacle in the vein of 2001: A Space Odyssey nor even A Clockwork Orange, Eyes Wide Shut (made available here as part of Warner Home Video's excellent set of Kubrick's films) was first of all a fable for the approaching millennium, directed with a breathtaking désinvolture that still seems astonishing several years later. One day, I hope, Eyes Wide Shut will be recognized as one of the most beautiful works in the history of the cinema.
Only in bad works of art or the artifacts of pop culture is it possible to make a facile distinction between the periphery of a work and its core. In an imaginative creation like Kubrick's last film, the limits of the core extend to its furthermost boundaries just as what could at first glance seem peripheral penetrates to its innermost recesses. Already, the opening shots of the Harfords in their stylish apartment getting ready to go out for a soiree go far beyond simply establishing a setting. The least that could be said about these powerfully iridescent, Ophulsian compositions set to music by Shostakovitch is how much more than functional they are: rather than simply establishing a particular locale, they serve to introduce us to a perversely enchanted world. The mise en scène is incantatory, but the spirits it is calling up are those of high-tech consumerism.
In these images, the décor glows with a maleficent radiance, making of the Harfords themselves little more than the props of their own property. Small wonder that such a culture finds the culmination of its most refined pleasures in the celebration of a Black Mass at a mansion on Long Island--movie trivia buffs will not fail to notice a visual allusion to Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest--attended by the crème de la crème of the rich, famous, and powerful, a ritual which blasphemously travesties the Christmas festivities taking place at the same moment and which has striking parallels to the events of de Sade's The 120 Days of Sodom in both its literary version and its much later screen adaptation by Pier Paolo Pasolini, Salò o le 120 giornati di Sodoma (1975).
In the milieu in which the Harfords move, reified to the last degree, success is all a matter of remaining on the surface of things, and Bill Harford has thoroughly mastered that skill. But the surface begins to crack open one evening when his wife relates a fantasy about sleeping with a Naval officer they had briefly glimpsed at a resort. Bill reacts violently to this confession, insisting that he has never had similar fantasies of his own. But he cannot exorcise the images she has planted in his mind and they soon begin to take shape on the screen. Moreover, this fantasy which increasingly obsesses Harford opens up to a larger world of collective desires underlying the beautiful realm of surfaces in which Bill wishes to remain happily imprisoned. Forced to confront that underworld by series of encounters involving the daughter of a patient, a prostitute, and ultimately a Satanist coven, he can only reject it as a mystery.
The phrase "eyes wide shut" is virtually an etymological gloss on the word "mystery." In the words of Carl Kerényi (in his essay "The Mysteries of the Kabeiroi"), "The source of the term 'Mysteria'--as also of 'mystes' and 'mystikos'--consists in a verb whose ritual significance is 'to initiate' (µυeΐν), developed from the verb µύeιν, 'to close the eyes or mouth.'" He goes on to add, "the Mysteria begin for the mystes when, as sufferer of the event (µυούµeνος), he closes his eyes, falls back as it were into his own darkness, enters into the darkness." And is there anything less enigmatic about an audience sitting in a darkened theater, an audience which also could be said to fall back as it were into its own darkness, to enter its darkness--to borrow Kerenyi's formulation--watching this spectacle being enacted on screen?
It is Bill's friend, the musician Nick Nightingale who tells him of playing at an event whose specifics are unclear to him, since he has to play blindfolded. Nevertheless, the few details he has been able to spy upon after the blindfold slightly fell from his eyes the last time he performed rouse Bill's interest, and he demands to go along to the event. When Harford, the non-initiate, violates this mystery, he not only disrupts its performance, but commits a crime which can only be atoned for by a human sacrifice--that of the young woman whom Harford has previously rescued from a drug overdose at the fancy party the evening before.
Yet there is little mystery about this mystery, which continues in a perhaps more explicit vein the theme of archaic regression that recurs throughout Kubrick's work--perhaps most arrestingly in 2001: A Space Odyssey, in which modern technology is presented as an outgrowth of the anthropoids' fetishization of the black obelisk which has descended to them from the heavens like the stone given by Gabriel to Abraham enshrined in the Kaaba. Civilization is constantly haunted by the specter of the barbaric past it has never been able to overcome, and the cult in Eyes Wide Shut is only a final incarnation of this key motif which Kubrick employed here for last time. After that death had the final word: Acta est fabula!