(USA 1999 159m) DVD1/2
Fidelio
p/d Stanley Kubrick w Frederic Raphael, Stanley Kubrick novel “Traumnovelle” by Arthur Schnitzler ph Larry Smith ed Nigel Galt m Jocelyn Pokk (including “Jazz Suite” by Dimitri Shostakovich) art Les Tomkins, Roy Walker cos Marit Allen
Tom Cruise (Dr Bill Harford), Nicole Kidman (Alice Harford), Marie Richardson (Marion), Sydney Pollack (Victor Ziegler), Rade Scherbedgia (Milich), Leelee Sobieski (Milich’s daughter), Todd Field (Nick Nightingale), Alan Cumming (desk clerk), Vinessa Shaw (Domino, the hooker), Faye Masterson (Sally), Sky Dumont (Sandor Szavost),
Stanley Kubrick’s final film must surely qualify as one of the most misunderstood of recent times. Much of the blame for that, of course, must be laid at the late master’s own feet due to the laborious shoot, beginning in late 1996, going through cast replacements and all sorts of delays before the final release, and then Kubrick’s untimely death in post-production. This in addition to a frankly awful marketing campaign helped the film to its modest critical reception and decidedly cold box-office performance.
Bill Harford and his gorgeous wife are about to leave for a Manhattan Christmas party at their friends, the Zieglers. There he runs into an old friend from medical school and helps Ziegler deal with a woman ODing in his upstairs room. Soon after, while sharing a marijuana joint, Bill and Alice share a long, painful discussion about their sexual desires, and Alice reveals a dream in which she had an affair with a sailor. The illusion of the perfect marriage shattered, Bill goes off into the night to see to an emergency call from another of their friends, and his evening has only just begun.
A decade on and it still hasn’t gone away. The break up of its two stars barely a year after its release conjured up theories about life imitating art, with the strain of the shoot even brought up as an excuse for the marital break-up. Thankfully, the Cruise-Kidman sideshow is now but a memory and one can look at the film in the cold light of day. It’s easy to see where the critics were so turned off. Cruise’s performance was criticised for being flat, and the erotic orgy sequence seen as risible. The main problem was that Kubrick was revelling in ambiguity as he had in The Shining, which also received mixed notices at the time (most audiences and critics must have everything explained, not left to interpretation). Is the entire plot of the film from the moment Bill goes out that evening to the finale all a dream in his head? Certainly some sequences have a surreal edge to them that evoke a dream, such as the encounter with the costume hirer Milich and his Lolitaesque daughter and, indeed, the orgy itself. Just as in a dream, Cruise’s Bill is not acting so much as reacting to what is going on around him and, as such, his performance is quite perfect. The escalation of potential murder conspiracies in his head are worthy of not only a dream, but one fuelled by recreational drugs. As he wanders the streets of New York, though we see little of Kidman, she’s always in his thoughts, either his imagining of her illicit sex or coquettish close-ups. Indeed, it has been suggested by some that the film may have worked more obviously with Kidman playing all the women he meets on his travels, thus showing how, in his mind, he couldn’t’ escape his wife. It would have been a touch worthy of Buñuel, but the ambiguity would have been dissipated, the entire plot then seen by everyone as a dream.
Whatever one’s thoughts on Kubrick’ intentions, one cannot help but admire the visuals, Kubrick’s mise-en-scène, the lighting and the sets all combining seamlessly to create an illusion within an illusion (we believe ourselves in New York, but apart from a few 2nd unit shots, we know it’s in a British studio). As Bill, Cruise gives a fearless performance while Kidman is simply out of this world. After watching this for the first time, one is puzzled, irritated as if by an itch you cannot scratch. You just know you have to come back to it, and find yourself arguing internally for days. Any film that raises such discussion, such polarised opinions, has to be a powerful piece of work, but it’s more than that; it’s the final masterpiece of a director who refused to conform to expectations.
Fantastic review of a film I’m not able to embrace completely, even when SK is one of my favorite directors…
Yes JAFB, I know the feeling here, and in good measure I share it, even while loving some individual sequences.
I knew it, I knew it, I KNEW IT!!!!! Bravo!!!! High time someone, anyone, gave Kubrick and company their due on this AMAZING final film. How well do we really know the people we choose to spend our lives with??? This is the key question amongst other philosophical queries that Kubrick brilliantly explores. That he was qetting older and interested in exploring aspects of his own relationships is bold, brave and, considering the masters penchant for visual brilliance, an absolute stunner. Like so many of Stanley’s films, this one was misunderstood at initial presentation. But, like all of his movies, they grow on you till they finally present themselves as a masterwork. Great essay Allan! I have this at No. 10 on my own list. Stanley is still missed.
Oh man…you’re just begging to start an argument by ranking this one at number eight. (Not by me mind you…I like the film…maybe not ‘Eight Best of The Decade Like It’, but I like it nonetheless.
On your marks…get set…
Mad Hatter, I will be at your side here. As a team we cannot and will not fail!
I think the reason the film turns off some people is that, like almost all of Kubrick’s post-Lyndon work (and some that went before as well) it’s peculiar in ways one suspects Kubrick did not intend. Yet he was so controlling it’s hard to imagine anything slipped through his grasp – still, the occasionally tone-deaf dialogue, the unconvincing sets (pre-winter Overlook in Shining, Vietnam in FMJ, NY streets in Eyes Wide Shut), the exhausted performances…it’s hard to square them with Kubrick’s at times arrogantly on-top-of-everything persona that he burnished in interviews. Some critics couldn’t resist the bait.
Yet the fact is he’s so brilliant (sometimes I’m not sure if he was brilliant in the exact ways he thought, but brilliant nonetheless) that what he does just works, almost miraculously. This odd, sequestered film which seems to fail in its attempt to be a Lynchian dream, nonetheless achieves…something. I’m not sure what. But it’s stuck with me ever since I saw it. The man may be frustrating at times, for his diffidence, his coldness, his brainy know-it-all persona, but goddamnit, he WAS a genius.
The last line of your essay might say it all. I will also say that you are the first person I have ever come into contact with that finds Cruise’s performance on the money (I totally agree, Tom’s second best moment on screen, only his work in MAGNOLIA is better). But, with Stanley’s brilliant camera all over her, it’s Kidman that burns the screen. Intelligent, logical, daring and manipulative, her performance here is so hot and sexy she could reduce a man to flop sweat. Kubrick saw the spark in her, he had an eye for great performers. Kidman knew an oppurtunity to work with one of the ten greatest American directors only comes once in a lifetime. Her turn proves it, she gave it everything she’s got and, like the film itself, its a powerhouse!
Kidman is great to be sure, but do me a favor and rewatch the scene where she is high.
It’s downright laughable. One could almost wonder if she’s ever seen someone high or smoked weed herself. It’s terrible.
LOL Jamie!!!!!!!! That’s quite an excellent point! hahaha!
I generally found Kidman annoying in this film, and she rang completely false to me. Actually preferred Cruise’s performance…and usually I only like him when he’s playing callous a-holes.
I remember the SISKEL & EBERT end-of-the-year show in 1999. Gene Siskel had died. Roger Ebert’s guest critic was none other than MARTIN SCORSESE. They counted down the top films of the year. BOTH of them resoundingly chose EYES WIDE SHUT as the No. 1 film of the year. Scorsese said it wasn’t fair to other directors to compete in a year that Kubrick would release a film. He also said that the quips about the backdrops of NYC looking fake was all part of the point of the film. The movie itself was based on a “dream” novel by Schnitzler and, if we’re intelligent movie-goers, should have picked off the settings as NYC of a dream. No less than a Kubrick authority than Scorsese, calling us not intelligent enough to wrestle with a genius like Kubrick. Fact was, Scorsese was right. This is a great film.
Perhaps. Again, as a control freak, Kubrick must have known the sets looked fake and thus had a reason for them. But the fact that it dovetails so neatly with his refusal to leave his sequestered English studio makes me a bit suspicious; were justifications constructed ex post facto? Sometimes I get that sense with him – and yet, as I said, the film is so captivating in other regards that I find my skepticism largely seems irrelevant. Fact is, with Kubrick I can see where both the skeptics and the acolytes are coming from, at least to a certain degree. Because many skeptics go overboard and claim themselves completely and always un-affected by Kubrick’s work, though, my sympathy only goes so far. Whatever my reservations, I’m always hypnotized and fascinated by the mood he instantly evokes, so I can never really “get” the “Kubrick is boring” argument. But I guess I’ve discussed this elsewhere.
It is indeed nice to see this in the top 10. It’s my #1 of the 90s. It’s one of my favorite films, period.
Ari, I remembered you had it at #1. I like it too but it didn’t make my Top 25.
MOVIEMAN-YES! He WAS a genius. But, and I say this politely, I disagree with your view that this film is peculiar in ways that Sanley DIDN’T intend. If we are talking about FULL METAL JACKET, LOLITA, SPARTACUS or, hell, even THE SHINING (really his most under-appreciated masterwork after LYNDON), I’d say you were right. Those films took on lives of there own that I don’t think he saw coming. EYES WIDE SHUT and paticularly CLOCKWORK, its easy to see, are absolutely intentional. The un-realistic quality of EYES WIDE SHUT is in keeping with a dream, the fake setting, over-pronounced dialog etc. are essential to this effect. The mask on the pillow finally reveals the dream as a nightmare. She was there all the time.
I agree with this comment. But I wonder what the general consensus is about his version of ‘Lolita’… I revisited it about 2 months ago after just finishing the book and I came away thoroughly unimpressed–almost enough to say that it’s a bad film.
Off the top of my head I can think of several films of similar subject matter that easily trump it. What Kazan (another master) was able to get away with and show in ‘Baby Doll’ (an even earlier film then Kubricks) says volumes (and it’s a better made/shot film to boot)… or for all of Kubrick’s celebrated intellectual abilities (he was gifted sure) Rohmer out thinks him in ‘Claire’s Knee’.
Oh Gee, Jamie I am not as down as you are on LOLITA, in fact I like it quite a bit. That opening flashback murder sequence is one of Kubrick’s greatest, most satiric set pieces. But I know there is a school of criticiskm that does back your position here.
I agree, Jamie, on Lolita, I actually prefer Adrian Lyne’s version. Now if Kubrick hadn’t got sidetracked and made it earlier while Errol Flynn was still alive to play Humbert…
I expected a few Allan, to line up behind the Lynne which is fair enough. But haveing seen that one more than once, I remain solidly with the Kubrick version myself, which I feel is better-acted and more theatrical in a good sense. But as I said, fair enough.
Interestingly enough I have never seen the Lyne version, but I’ve always thought he’d be a decent director to tackle the subject matter. I’ll bump it to the top of my queue now.
I didn’t know that about a Flynn as Humbert version… that would have been interesting to see for sure.
Sam, this theatrical quality in Kubrick’s version is certainly there; and it was something I didn’t like about it. Since the book was so fresh in my mind I remembered the pathos, angst, and irrationality of Humbert (not to mention the dollop of existential loathing) quite vividly. This, after all the rigidity of the theatrical quality, is what makes it fail to me.
In short Kubrick’s isn’t vile or manic enough. It’s too proper, at the expense of its eroticism. And, most surprising from Kubrick, it’s missing all the intellectual qualities of the Nabokov.
Funny, I feel very differently about Kubrick’s Lolita. I saw it right after reading the book for the first time, and was delighted. Remember too that Nabokov wrote the screenplay and so the changes are largely his – and I think he was right to turn it into a kind of screwball comedy take on his own material. It adds another level of self-consciousness and playfulness to his already elaborately dressed-up novel. I haven’t seen Lynne’s version but from the outside it looks like it takes Nabokov too seriously. The genius of the book, I thought, was the way it addressed its hero’s melancholy, sickness, with a descriptive and structural playfulness.
I think Pauline Kael’s review of Lolita is generally right on the money – it’s one of her supreme moments of getting a film which others didn’t. (Which is another way of saying it’s too late and the film is not fresh enough in my memory – I delegate further arguments to the great lady!)
Just to throw my two-cents in, I’ll go along with Sam and Joel on this one — I quite enjoyed LOLITA when watching it several months back. I can’t speak to how the tone compares to the book, but as far as the movie goes, I thought is was a hilariously look at Humbert’s continuous downfall and furthering insanity at the hands of a young girl (with Mason playing the character perfectly) and a brilliant black comedy.
But, I also understand that Kubrick is fairly polarizing and that even if everyone loves ONE of his movies, it seems to be a different film for each person.
Yes indeed Troy, the great man is indeed polarizing, and the two LOLITAS have fervant admirers, thoough in spite of Jamie’s claim of being overly sedate, I stick behind the Kubrick, which contains some of the greatest lines and performances Kubrick ever directed. (yes I do quite agree with what you say there about Mason’s downfall, superbly played, and that it’s a brilliant black comedy, with that masterful turn from Sellers.)
Well Loel, I don’t think it comes down to his seclusion. I think it comes down to what he so possessively thought was right in creating that MOOD you speak of. I once heard a story, true because Mathew Modine told it, that Kubrick flipped over the jeep he was driving in and banked it into a ditch. Seems he was so excited about a spot he could mold for a set that he lost control of the vehicle. Supposedly he jumped on top of the over-turned vehicle and continued talking about the set while the other riders writhed out of the car. My point on this, is that I believe eveything you see and hear in a Kubrick film is intentional, and they all add to the emotional and psychological whollop. With the exception of LOLITA, I think everything he set up and recieves back is on purpose. EYES WIDE SHUT is meant to be the way it is, including the responses of the viewers.
Interesting, the meaning I’d read into that anecdote is that Kubrick can get so fixated on an idea he can end up in a metaphorical ditch…but also that his stubbornness persists and he keeps plowing on, ultimately redeeming whatever mistakes he’s made just by the sheer forcefulness of his personal vision.
A good review here as usual. I am also an admirer of this film, I’ve really wanted to see the newest edition which supposedly recuts the film to Kubrick’s original wishes. Can anyone speak on this version? Is it that different/better? I’d think it is, or if anything is a more accurate telling from Kubrick which is what most around here would seek as serious film fans.
Much appreciated in advance.
Jamie, good question, but I didn’t myself see any significant change.
Looks like my earlier comment about an argument was wrong. Good to see I’m not alone in diggin’ it.
I’ve always wondered about something though…
Alice had feelings of infidelity, never acted on them, but confessed them (with gusto). Bill felt vengeful, and actively went out seeking to be unfaithful.
Which of these two hurtful actions is worse??
Heaven knows, I’m no moralist, but I would say the second is unquestionably worse…but if it’s largely a dream?
Clearly the second is, and I’ll leave it at that as I’m always quick to condemn ‘moral authority’ posts.
One should be allowed to dream or think anything morally free…
The second one? Even after she admits that she would have totally run off with some buff soldier? Forsaking her daughter and husband for a fling??
‘she WOULD have’ is a little different then ‘she DID…’ I hope we all can see the difference. Thought crime is about as dangerous as one can get. We should be allowed to dream, wish or think anything we want free for moral trappings. it’s when we act that is the problem.
Weren’t we just speaking about ‘Lolita’ above? hmmm…
The biggest flaw with this otherwise engrossing film is that the fin-de-siecle to 1990s NY (post-fall-of-Berlin-Wall triumphant capitalism) doesn’t quite work. It is not that there isn’t a correspondence between these two ages (even if Vienna’s ‘high’ in that period isn’t really analogous to a turn of the century NY that wasn’t really going through a golden age in any sense). The larger point surely is that Schnitzler’s story relies on a certain Freudian framework which structure is a bit ‘passe’ at least in that traditionally defined sense (I have otherwise the greatest respect and admiration for the Freudian corpus and I am all for interpreting him more boldly as many have down the ages) when it is ‘re-posted’ to ‘contemporary’ NY. Now I have come across some very persuasive readings of the film, particularly one by Zizek, but a the end of the day it still seems like a ‘dated’ film to me. Oddly enough not so in the usual sense of a film acquiring this quality over time but one that always begins life as such.
Of course it might also be argued that in many ways Kubrick was always a bit ‘late’ on every one of his major films. Which is to say a bit after the fact. His films do not thematically define new frontiers as much as strive to give new visual form to cutting edge ‘thought’ established elsewhere. This argument could be made even for 2001 in many respects. Kubrick it seems to me (and I have said this elsewhere in a somewhat different sense) is strongest when approached for his visual grammar. Whether one finds him a great on this score or not (and it’s the latter for me for the most part) one can at least judge him fairly. But if one expands the focus and takes in more of a widescreen view (pun intended) one is always disappointed by the fact that his thought can just about never match up to his visual experimentation. Not that a filmmaker needs to be a thinker but such are the stakes Kubrick raises.
Sure the argument could be made that he’s late on somethings, but on others his commenting (and technique) is very ahead of it’s time. So is it a wash overall?
Yes, aspects of this comments sort of get at what I was trying to convey. That for all his pontification and seriousness, Kubrick is nonetheless not quite as ahead-of-the-game as he lets on. I think I like his work in spite of all the great claims made for it, not because of it…for the visceral impact rather than the supposed intellectual bravado. That “tardiness” you mention combined the somewhat haughty humorlessness of his persona made him an easy target for fidgety critics, but I find the charge that his films lack feeling off-base: they are cold, yes, but in a particularly effective, moody, strongly-felt way.
I think I can agree with this somewhat, as the themes of the later Kubrick films are do feel outweighed by his technique. Of course, when you are a perfectionist with technique (and I think Kubrick hit the mark with his perfectionism more often than not), this is surely bound to happen, no? I so think with his earlier films like STRANGELOVE, PATHS OF GLORY, or LOLITA, for instance, his ability to comment on things was the equal of his technique. Yet I can see some validity in an argument being made where as time went on, this became less and less the case, for as much as I think BARRY LYNDON and THE SHINING are perfectly outstanding films, it’s fair to say that it’s the technical acumen of them that by far shines over the thematic elements.
Again, an outstanding position, beautifully conveyed. The technical prowess of course became far more evident in the later films, no doubt about that Troy.
And the winner is……………….Kaleem Hasan. Wow.
How’s this for a response and position, Dave, Jamie, Troy, John, Movie Man, Kevin, Margaret, Dennis, Mad Hatter, Daniel, Peter, Joe, Frank, Jon, David, Judy, Ed, Dee Dee, Tony, JAFB, Samuel, Shubhajit, Allan, et al?
Fascinating concept that Stanley always “gets there late.” I’ll have to ponder this by looking at his catalogue.
Yes, as usual Kaleem is very erudite, I just wish I could admire what he writes as much as how he says it. Kaleem missed his vocation, he should have been a politician.
Interesting choice. I found it to be dream-like, surreal and compelling set to it’s own rhythm and deeply fascinating, yet also in some fundamental way, deeply, unsatisfyingly catharetic. Perhaps because it’s propelled by and floats on ambiguity and mystery and is never spiked by the nutrients of other deeper emotions. At times it felt like watching a daytime soap opera, with always the promise of more.
I’m suprised so little credit has been given to the original source. Not in the same league of ‘La Ronde’, but a fitting final hurrah from the master.
For me, the necessity of crediting the “source” for a Kubrick film is a moot point. Kubrick, as I written before, uses the source material as a springboard to dive into a pool of his own thoughts on each subject. Only BARRY LYNDO is a straight adaptation of the source material and, even then, the emphasis is not so much on adapting perfectly (which, by the way, he does), but more about recreating and filming the period. Basically, LYNDON is more about showing us what it would have looked like or, if you like, making 18th century painting move. EYES WIDE SHUT is based on a Schnitzler novel but is really about the personal interests that Stanley had about fidelity, sexual desire and what makes relationships work behind closed doors. This is just like 2001 being more about evolution than the books interest in space travel. Stanley was, more often than not, smarter than the authors of the sources.
Pure nonsense. And the type that gives auterism a bad name. Yes, he brought his own VISUAL flair to the table, but to attribute themes, idea and concepts purely to the director does no one credit. Schnitzler had already explored those themes in his other works and in the adapted work ‘La Ronde’. It was a re-occuring motif. Otherwise, ‘Stanley’ would never have seen them. And you blow a huge hole in your thesis here, by claiming that the “book” was about space travel! It’s based on a short story and themes that Clarke had been exploring in his short stories and novels (such as ‘Childhood’s End’) all his life. The movie’s themes are as much as Clarke’s and Kubrick’s. It’s called a collaboration. The novels are based on the movie and flow along the same themes. They have as much to do with space travel as the film.
Kubrick was a cameraman and perfectionist in his field – a masterful director, but it’s idiotic to suggest that he is “smarter” than Arthur C. Clarke (who predicted satellites among other things), and Arthur Schnitzler. Unless you like to breakdown every work they did in their media and do some like for like comparison about their I.Q.s. I doubt it would be possible, feasible or smart to try it.
Having a cult for any director can have weird assertions placed and leads to poor and lazy criticism – where everything is credited by some cosmic wishful thinking, at his door. And a real, deep appreciation of his contribution is lost.
JAMIE-I DO NOT think Kidman’s moments stoned are laughable. I, shall you say, have taken that road a few times myself (probably more than I’d like to admit) and I think she’s dead on. Like anything else, its about personal perception, just like there are “happy” drunks as apposed to “nasty” drunks. Some people get smarmy and matter-of-fact when the partake in herb. I think she really nailed it myself.
KALEEM, I understand and appreciate where your taking this. But, I’d have to say, its really only with his last three films that he’s kind of tardy. THE SHINING, however late it may have been, worked to Stanley’s complete benefit. Rather than opening the film in the mid 70′s when the rash of horror films was hitting a fever pitch, his tardiness brought THE SHINING in at the end of the period and, being as great it is, laid0everything before it to waste. Its one of the supreme horror films of that generation. BARRY LYNDON is a period piece and this genre is always in fashion (although his fashioning is now the text book example by which all film-makers aspire) and the best of the period pieces. ONLY FULL METAL JACKET and EYES WIDE SHUT seem too much too late. But, then again, these films are so intriquing we have tendency not to care that they came in at dessert rather than attend the main course. 2001, CLOCKWORK, well, they are THE movies about the time for all time.