Eyes Wide Shut [DVD] [1999]

Here in the USA, petitions have circulated urging Warner Bros. to release the uncensored version of "Eyes Wide Shut" on DVD. They CLAIM the version of the film being marketed in the USA (including digitally-inserted "manikins" that obscure the more explicit scenes) is the version Kubrick intended American audiences to see! Even though the studio may have felt the need to censor the film for American theatrical release, there is no reason why they can't market an uncensored "director's cut" on DVD. Anyone in Europe, the Middle East or Japan who purchases this DVD should consider themselves lucky, because they are getting Stanley Kubrick's artistic vision as it SHOULD be seen. Here in the USA we have to make do with an inferior product, and I for one refuse to buy it.

That having been said ... "Eyes Wide Shut" is an excellent, if somewhat challenging, Kubrick film, and although initial reviews were mixed, I think in retrospect this film will be viewed as one of Kubrick's best 10, 20 years from now. In the years before this film was released, the studio would only say that "Eyes Wide Shut" was a tale about jealousy and sexual obsession. My first reaction was, "Gee, that's like saying 'A Clockwork Orange' is about juvenile delinquency!" But actually "Eyes Wide Shut" does boil down to a tale about jealousy and sexual obsession. After his wife (played by Nicole Kidman) confesses a sexual fantasy while puffing on a joint, Dr. Bill Harford (Tom Cruise) retaliates by looking for some sexual fantasies of his own, and he ends up looking in all the wrong places and gets sucked into situations he wishes he hadn't. His wife's final line in this picture, her suggestion to her hapless husband, is a real clincher.

This is an absolutely gorgeous movie, as beautifully-shot as anything Kubrick has ever done. It is also a hypnotic and cerebral film. To say "slow" would be much too simple. "Eyes Wide Shut" requires something that too many American moviegoers lack: An attention span.

"Eyes Wide Shut" is Stanley Kubrick's last film.

Like all Kubricks, "Eyes Wide Shut" is a film that appears on the surface to be relatively straightforward, yet isn't, if you want it to be. You take from it what you want. When I first saw it, I was disappointed. I was expecting genius. And yet, like the layers of a peeled orange, the more you look, the more you see.

Visually it's fabulous - the colours and textures of the film are sumptious. You can tell when you watch it this guy started off as a stills photographer. Like Barry Lyndon, each shot is framed like a painting.

In terms of plot, "Eyes Wide Shut" is fairly one-dimensional. On the surface it might seem like a fairly basic morality tale about the temptations of infidelity, but the translation of the title of the novella it is based on is "Dream Story" - little of "Eyes Wide Shut" actually happens. Hence then, the unusual dialogue, the bizarre imagery, and the strange-plot-arc.

You can pick this up in the unusual dialogue frequented by the longue lizard in the opening scene who attempts to seduce Alice (Nicole Kidman), or the gaggle of women who flirt outrageously with Bill (Tom Cruise), or the bereaved woman who attempts to seduce him. Bill literally exists in a world where all women are sexual, even those who are being examined for breast cancer suffer from an objection of their flesh, as Cruise examines them in a state of unnecessary nakedness.

If the film is 'real', highly unlikely given the circumstances, then, for example, why is everything so old-fashioned? Why is the hooker so... civilised, her dialogue so stilted, her language so repressed? Why do characters behave as if they were living in the 1940's, not the 1990's?

However, there are also some moments of richness. Who else has filmed a couple applying deodorant or brushing their teeth? Who else has penetrated the nature of relationships in such a successful manner in film? Eyes Wide Shut is about the way we act against what we think, about the essential deceptions we all carry within us and do not reveal, about the gap between our desires and our reality.

Hence the use of masks as a recurrent theme. Hence the fact that all male characters have two faces - for example, the masks, or the fear of losing their faces (many characters bemoan losing their hair - the frame around the face), and many of the female characters (Domino - literally one with two faces) are also two-faced. Decievers and decieved.

The other sub-plot is that of a world where the rich use and discard people who are of lesser importance. Bill is constantly buying people off, paying for services that are either not rendered, or over-paying for everything - the Taxi Driver, the Prostitute. This is probably something to do with the fact that wealth brings with it guilt, and by constantly 'forking out', he's trying to address the balance and pay off his middle or upper-class sense of guilt. With Wealth comes the knowledge everyone has a price.

To its logical extension, the people behind the debauched mansion sequence actually appear to gang-rape and drug a woman to death. Bill only survives because they do not want to kill him. Yet. If any of it is real.

So "Eyes Wide Shut". Not by any means an easy movie to love. But a great one. Like any Kubrick movie, it takes many repeated viewings and years of enjoyment to begin to unravel all the riches it has to reveal. A satisfying end to a career.

And hence the title Eyes Wide Shut is a deceptively shallow name for a film. But what does the phrase mean? In full knowledge of the darker side of human nature, in full awareness of the corruption at the heart of man (the use of money to buy anything, the corruption of power, the emptiness of sex which is a mere simulation of love), Bill / Alice choose to ignore the facts they are fully aware of, and try to live an ignorant life. In ignorance lies bliss. But it has a price. The couple no longer are innocent - the purity of their love has been broken. Alice's final suggestion is that the couple shag. Not make love. But sex, like base animals, like creatures who can no longer connect spiritually anymore. But do not yet know that all they are doing now is decieving themselves in an imitation. An imitation of what their love used to be.

Eyes wide Shut ,like all Kubrick films, should be judged by it's own merits. According to all the ill informed(unofficial) hype that preceeded it's release we were to expect a lurid erotic vehicle for Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Nothing could be further from the truth, most of the stories stemmed from the fact that much of the media (perhaps with the exception of the Evening Standard's Alexander Walker) was so frustrated by the lack of information on the film that they decided to do what they do best and start filling in the blanks with anything they fancied. This, after 2001:A space odyssey, is without any doubt Kubricks finest moment. I promise you that the film will be nothing like you've been led to expect. I really don't want to give much away ( I believe a review should cover the quality of a movie,not it's plot) but much of the film takes place on one long night after Bill Harford (Tom Cruise) has just been through a mesmerising revelation with his wife(Nicole Kidman). The film fills a space in the subconscious often neglected by modern films and we get carried deep into the heart of something truly compelling by the main character who is played with an eye opening honesty by Mr Cruise. I'll have to admit that I have never been a fan of Tom Cruise,often even avoiding his work because of his association with all that awful american apple pie stuff, but this is the most astonishing 'solo' performance I've seen since Harvey Keitel in Bad Lieutenant. This film proves to be Cruise's best work and I am now a believer in his talent, with this film he has shifted his axis and I hope his priorities in movies. Kidman is also very 'real' although her screen time is limited to crucial key moments. The camerawork and editing is the usual tight and specific high standard you get from any Kubrick picture and all the music and sound equally efficient. This is an important DVD release for several reasons: The high standard of lighting demanded by Kubrick would probably be wasted on VHS (all DVD owners know about the importance of picture clarity) and much of the more eccentric shots which give the movie it's dreamlike quality deserve a decent medium to give them depth. This is also a movie which is quite demanding on the audio front. There is masses of dialogue which needs the DVD format to help you hang on every word (and believe me you'll need to pay attention to whats being said) and some very sonically demanding musical sections (I guarantee you'll be fixated with the groundbreaking acoustics on chapter 16 of the disc) so much so that I know of several home cinema retailers using this disc for demos on some of their systems. I have been fascinated by this movie since seeing it on it's cinema release and I haven't had any negative feedback from anyone I know who's seen it. As I said,have no expectations other than this is a film from a true craftsman,no one ever came close to Kubrick for pure quality and as Steven Spielberg accurately mention on his interview in the special features section of this top DVD title,once you start watching a Kubrick movie,you cannot turn it off until the very end. Get this disc,I promise you won't be disappointed.