Eyes Wide Shut
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| Eyes Wide Shut | |
|---|---|
 Poster for the film | |
| Directed by | Stanley Kubrick |
| Produced by | Stanley Kubrick |
| Written by | Arthur Schnitzler (novel Traumnovelle (in Eng. Dream Story) Stanley Kubrick (screenplay) Frederic Raphael (screenplay) |
| Starring | Tom Cruise Nicole Kidman Sydney Pollack Sky Dumont Todd Field |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
| Release date(s) | 13 July, 1999 |
| Running time | 159 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $65,000,000 |
| IMDb profile | |
Eyes Wide Shut is a 1999 feature-length motion picture directed and co-written by Stanley Kubrick, based on the novella Traumnovelle (in English Dream Story) by Arthur Schnitzler. The film stars Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Kubrick died shortly after editing the film, and while the distributor presented it as fully completed by Kubrick, a number of critics and fans argued that he would likely have continued to make changes had he not died. The film was released to a mixed critical reaction.
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[edit] Synopsis
The storyline, set in and around New York City, follows the surreal, sexually charged adventures of Dr. William "Bill" Harford (Cruise), who is shocked after his wife, Alice (Kidman), reveals that she had contemplated having an affair a year earlier. Throughout, there are suggestions the film exists on the plane of dream or reverie, though there is never any clear resolution of where "reality" ends and "dream" begins.
The film begins in contemporary New York City in the apartment of a wealthy, happily married couple: Bill and Alice Harford. They are getting ready to go to a Christmas party at the home of Victor Ziegler (Sydney Pollack), a friend and patient. At one point, Bill is summoned by Ziegler to his private bathroom where he finds a completely naked woman, Mandy (Julienne Davis) who has passed out, possibly due to an excess of drugs. During the party, Alice and Bill are seduced by different couples, Alice is seduced by a sexy older man (Sky Dumont); Bill by two younger women. Alice and Bill both resist their respective temptations.
Bill also meets an old friend, Nick Nightingale (Todd Field), a former medical student who is now a pianist with the band. Nick gives him his card and tells him he is currently appearing in a jazz club.A few nights after the party, Alice and Bill smoke marijuana and get high. They discuss their encounters with the other people at the party. This discussion escalates into Alice telling Bill about a man she saw while they where at Cape Cod. She tells Bill that she met a young Navy officer, and she says that she would be quite willing to give up Bill and their daughter Helena, just to have a night with this man. Bill, reeling from Alice’s confession, gets a telephone call summoning him to a deceased patient's home. Bill goes to the apartment of the patient and the daughter, Marion (Marie Richardson), says she is willing to give up her current life to be with Bill (which directly mirrors Alice’s temptations of the naval officer). Bill also resists Marion’s offer, remaining faithful to Alice.
Over the next few days, Bill begins exploring his own clinical detachment from sex. He happens upon a sign outside the jazz club where Nick is the feature piano player. As the two discuss things, Nick describes a strange party he played the night before and which he is to play again tonight. His interest piqued, Bill gets Nick to divulge that the party requires a black robe, hood, and certain style of mask. He also learns the location and most importantly, the password: Fidelio. Bill goes to the costume shop of an old friend only to find it has a new owner, Milich (Rade Serbedzija) . Since it is late, he bribes Milich to get him a costume immediately. Another sexually charged situation involving Milich's teenage daughter (Leelee Sobieski) and two Japanese men follows, confronting Bill with evidence that a decadent attitude to sexuality is not confined merely to the super-rich or white people.
Afterward, Bill travels to the party in a cab and gives the cabbie half of a hundred dollar bill, asking him to wait on the roadside in front of the foreboding mansion. What he find inside is a rather odd sexual ritual which turns into an orgy involving beautiful women clad only in masks and G-strings while the men are masked and clad in black robes. His blindfolded friend Nick plays the somber organ notes that dominate the ritual's sound. As it turns out, one of the women turns out to be Mandy whom Bill had helped to revive earlier at the Zieglers' party. She informs Bill that he is in great danger, and urges him to leave immediately while there is still time. But he refuses. Thereafter, his party-crashing is discovered and the movie unfolds around him having to take off his mask to reveal his identity in the presence of the entire assembly. The master of ceremonies demands that he disrobes, but his apparently pending "punishment" is "redeemed" by one of the women.
When Bill arrives home he collapses in weariness and stress. He decides to tell Alice what happened but can only stammer some words about people and sex. Bill is further troubled when he finds out (1) that Nick has apparently been brutalized for informing Bill about the party and password and (2) the woman who "redeemed" Bill winds up dead, ostensibly of a drug-overdose behind a locked apartment door. Bill returns to the mansion, but is warned off; he is unable to definitively establish that the woman did indeed die simply of a drug overdose. Victor claims nothing further was done, but does warn Bill off investigating further as apparently some of the masked participants were extremely powerful men.
A great deal of personal intrigue occurs in the wake of Bill's trespass as those involved seek to warn him of further meddling where he is not wanted.
[edit] Comparison to Traumnovelle
The film's puzzling narrative has inspired several interpretations, many of which see the film as a psychological allegory, often as a dream, rather than as a straightforward drama.
Eyes Wide Shut is a fairly faithful adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler's Traumnovelle (or Dream Story), but it omits one important piece of information that might serve as the key to understanding it. In Schnitzler's novella, Fridolin, the Bill Harford equivalent, is told by his wife that she began to fantasize about infidelity while they were on holiday in Denmark. When Fridolin goes on his strange journey and arrives at the masked ball, the password is "Denmark." Schnitzler does not resolve whether Fridolin's journey is a dream or is meant to be interpreted literally.
In Eyes Wide Shut, the password is changed to "Fidelio," a word that points at the theme of marital fidelity, but does not indicate clearly that Bill's journey might be a dream. Fidelio is also the name of the only opera by Beethoven, which tells how Leonore, disguised as a prison guard named "Fidelio", rescues her husband Florestan from death in a political prison.
[edit] Stylistic features
[edit] Lighting and mise en scène
The lighting style in most of Eyes Wide Shut can be described as 'simulated natural lighting' because it attempts to replicate the way lighting looks in real life more closely than most Hollywood movies do, but still occasionally uses typical studio lighting techniques in order to create this illusion. One method Kubrick used to achieve a greater degree of natural lighting was to 'push' the film negative in processing to increase the speed of the film. Another method, also used in Kubrick's Barry Lyndon (1975), was to ensure that much of the lighting comes from the 'practical' lights (the lights that can be seen in the shots and are meant to be the source of light within the fiction of the story). For example, the scene with the man in the red cloak and gold mask is lit by a practical spotlight from high above that exists within the fiction of the movie. However, the darker shadowy areas are lit to some extent by a diffuse fill light that cannot be ascribed to any light existing within the fictional setting (it was probably achieved with a 'china ball' or helium balloon fixture offscreen).
Kubrick occasionally departs from the naturalistic lighting with overt, unrealistic expressionism, such as the intensely saturated blue light that floods the bathroom of the Harfords when they are arguing, or the same blue light that comes through the windows of Ziegler's billiard room.
[edit] Theatricality
Michel Ciment has related Eyes Wide Shut to theatre, saying that Kubrick creates "a trompe-l'oeil universe", where what seems real is fake, and where everything is ambivalent, deceitful. Dr. Bill Harford's shifts from a well-established world that he takes for granted to an unfamiliar, hidden world that reveals his own as false. He finds that Ziegler leads a double life (betraying his wife by trying to cheat on her at a party and by attending the masked orgy at Somerton); and that Nick Nightingale, his jazz-playing friend, also plays the piano at the mysterious night gatherings at which Ziegler participates. The film is full of characters who play one role while hiding a covert one: Militch, the owner of the costume shop, who is in fact a pimp for his own daughter; the two Japanese men who amuse themselves with the daughter, who wear wigs and make-up; and the important men ("I'm not gonna tell you their names, but if I did, I don't think you'd sleep so well," Ziegler tells Bill) who attend the masked orgy. Even Marion Nathanson, the daughter of Bill's dead patient who unexpectedly reveals her feelings for Bill, shows a sudden duplicity when her fiancé enters the room.
Jonathan Rosenbaum has noted that Kubrick's artificial New York is a collage of anachronisms (such as the Sonata Café where Nightingale plays, which has 1950s decor), and references to the original novella's setting of Vienna (such as the Viennese-style café where Bill reads a newspaper). This simultaneously modern and bygone New York is just another facade in a world represented as entirely deceitful.
[edit] Narrative structure
The story follows a dramatic structure of leaving the familiar world, entering a strange and mysterious otherworld, and returning to the familiar world. In the third part of the movie, Bill revisits the scenes of the adventures he had the night before. This is reminiscent of the structure Kubrick used in A Clockwork Orange, in which the character Alex revisits each of the locations at which he performed violent acts in the first part of that movie. In each location, Bill's mystique is stripped from the locations that had previously been full of sexual temptation.
[edit] Critical response
Critics objected chiefly to two features of the film. First, the movie's pacing is slow. While this may have been intended to convey the nature of dreaming, critics objected that it simply made actions and decisions laborious. Second, several reviewers commented on the fact that Kubrick had shot his NYC scenes in a studio and that New York "didn't look like New York."[citation needed]Lee Siegel, writing in Harper's, felt that most critics responded mainly to the marketing campaign and were unable to address the film on its own terms.
Notable Australian film critics Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton (The Movie Show/At The Movies) both gave the film five stars. [1]
[edit] Claims about Kubrick's opinion of the film
R. Lee Ermey, the actor who played the menacing drill instructor in Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket (1987), controversially claimed that Kubrick phoned him two weeks before the director's death to express his despondency over the film. "He told me it was a piece of shit," Ermey said in an interview with the online Radar magazine, "and that he was disgusted with it and that the critics were going to have him for lunch. He said Cruise and Kidman had their way with him -- exactly the words he used." Ermey did not explain what he thought Kubrick may have meant by the expression, except to remark, "He was kind of a shy little timid guy. He wasn't real forceful. That's why he didn't appreciate working with big, high-powered actors. ... He would lose control." [2]
People that knew the director well, however, claim otherwise. Jan Harlan, Kubrick's brother-in-law and executive producer, reported that Kubrick was "very happy" with the film. [3] According to Todd Field, Kubrick's friend and actor in Eyes Wide Shut, Ermey's claims are slanderous lies. Field's response appeared in an October 26, 2006 interview with Slashfilm.com: [4]
| The polite thing would to say 'No comment.' But the truth is that... Let's put it this way, you've never seen two actors more completely subservient and prostrate themselves at the feet of a director. Stanley was absolutely thrilled with the film. He was still working on the film when he died. And he probably died because he finally relaxed. It was one of the happiest weekends of his life, right before he died, after he had shown the first cut to Terry, Tom and Nicole. He would have kept working on it, like he did on all of his films. But I know that from people around him personally, my partner who was his assistant for thirty years. And I thought about R. Lee Ermey for In the Bedroom. And I talked to Stanley a lot about that film, and all I can say is Stanley was adamant that I shouldn't work with him for all kinds of reasons that I won't get into because there is no reason to do that to anyone, even if they are saying slanderous things that I know are completely untrue. |
[edit] American censorship controversy
Citing contractual obligations to deliver an R rating, Warner Bros. digitally altered the orgy scene for the American release of Eyes Wide Shut, blocking out images of graphic sexuality by inserting additional figures into the scene to obscure the view, thus avoiding an adults-only NC-17 rating that might have limited distribution of the film, as some large American theaters and video store operators have a policy that disallows films with that rating. This alteration of Kubrick's vision antagonized many cinephiles, as they argued that Kubrick had never been shy about ratings: A Clockwork Orange had an X-rating.
The version released in Europe and Australia was completely unchanged (theatrical and DVD release) with ratings mostly for people of 16 or 18 years of age. In New Zealand and in Europe, the uncensored version has been shown on public television without controversy. In Australia, it was broadcast on public television with the alterations in the American version for people of 15 years of age and older.
[edit] Controversy regarding the chanting of Hindu prayers
While American censorship attempted to control the level of sexuality in the film, complaints came from offended members of the Hindu community. The American Hindus Against Defamation sent a formal letter to Warner Brothers requesting they change the voice-over chant that plays as Bill Harford wanders from room to room at the mansion. According to the letter from the AHAD, during the offending scene "the background music subsides and the shloka (scriptural recitation) from the Bhagavad Gita, one of the most revered Hindu scripture is played out."
When Warners did not immediately concede, the American Hindus Against Defamation threatened to protest. Eventually, Warner Brothers came to an agreement with the Hindu community of Great Britain and edited the recitation of the passage out of the scene, replacing it with a different chant of similar dramatic tone. These changes were not made in the North American version.
In an inteview at alt.movies.kubrick, Stanley Kubrick's daughter, Katherina, indicated it was a simple mistake and had Kubrick been notified of said mistake prior to his passing, he would have undoubtedbly changed it.
[edit] Music
- The film's opening title music is "Waltz 2 from Shostakovich's Suite for Variety Stage Orchestra", for years misidentified as the composer's Jazz Suite 2, recorded and released under the latter, incorrect, name by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.
- In the scene with the ritual, the incantations heard in the background are in Romanian, played backwards. The piece, named "Masked Ball", is an adaptation by Jocelyn Pook of her earlier work "Backwards Priests." When first contacting Pook in regard to providing music for the film, Kubrick asked her if she had anything else like Backwards Priests - "you know, weird."<ref>[5]</ref>
- One of the recurring pieces of music in the film is the second movement of György Ligeti's piano cycle "Musica Ricercata." The piece is unusual in that transitions between successive notes are exclusively either half-steps, augmented fourths, or octave intervals. The fact that the piece uses only three tones, that the intervals between these tones are considered inappropriate in classical music theory, and the unyielding performance indication of Mesto, rigido e cerimoniale adds to the unsettling nature of the piece.
- In the morgue scene, Franz Liszt's late solo piano piece, "Nuages Gris" ("Grey Clouds") (1881) is heard.
- "Rex tremendae" from Mozart's Requiem plays as Bill walks into the Viennese cafe and reads of Mandy's death.
- The background score during the orgy scene (where Tom Cruise walks from room to room) is a Tamil song sung by Manickam Yogeshwaran who is a well-known Carnatic singer. (Tamil is a classical Indian language spoken by over 74 million peple worldwide today. Carnatic music is one of the two styles of Indian classical music that is popular in South India.)
[edit] Trivia
- Christiane Kubrick, Stanley's wife, had an uncredited guest role as a woman sitting behind Dr. Harford at Café Sonata.
- Kubrick considered casting Steve Martin in the role of Dr. William Harford eventually given to Tom Cruise.
- During the very long shooting schedule, actors Harvey Keitel and Jennifer Jason Leigh could not return for reshoots due to other projects. They were replaced by Sydney Pollack and Marie Richardson, respectively. Their scenes were completely reshot.
- Woody Allen claimed that Kubrick had considered him for the role of Victor Ziegler, but says that Kubrick "came to his senses".
- Director Stanley Kubrick died just a week after presenting Warner Bros. with what was reported to be a final cut of the film. However, to this day fans argue that the cut presented to Warner was actually a very early cut and that Mr. Kubrick specifically told them this.
- The last name of the protagonist, Harford, is an amalgamation of Harrison Ford.
- When Harford returns to SoHo, a sign on the side of a building reads BOWMAN. David Bowman was the protagonist of Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey
- One of the patients that Harford counsels is named Kaminsky, which was the name of one of the hibernating crew in 2001: A Space Odyssey
[edit] References and external links
- Official Website at Warner Bros.
- Eyes Wide Shut at the Internet Movie Database
- Review at Rottentomatoes.com
- Reviews at Metacritic.com
- Introducing Sociology: a review of Eyes Wide Shut by Tim Kreider
- ArchivioKubrick's Copies of several articles involving the concerns of the Hindu community of Britain
- Eyes Wide Shut - Shot by Shot: an deep analysis by Jeffrey Bernstein
| Stanley Kubrick |
|---|
| Films: Fear and Desire • Killer's Kiss • The Killing • Paths of Glory • Spartacus • Lolita • Dr. Strangelove • 2001: A Space Odyssey • A Clockwork Orange • Barry Lyndon • The Shining • Full Metal Jacket • Eyes Wide Shut Shorts: Day of the Fight • Flying Padre • The Seafarers Productions: A.I.: Artificial Intelligence Kubrick in Popular Culture: Spartacus • Dr. Strangelove • 2001: A Space Odyssey • A Clockwork Orange • The Shining |
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