One thing I’ve always liked about Stanley Kubrick’s movies is how they grow on you after repeated viewings. Only, I didn’t like Spartacus, but I understand there were problems between Kubrick and Kirk Douglas which caused Kubrick to leave Hollywood and live the rest of his life in England.
Kubrick loved chess so much that he would play the game with cast and crew in between takes. Tony Burton who briefly appeared in The Shining brought a chessboard to the set hoping the director would fancy a game. The two reportedly spent all day playing with Kubrick winning every match. A great chess player knows so many moves and tricks so they can win. But it takes time. It’s not like checkers. His time and work on movies had an MGM studio executive to quip: “Is 2001 the name of the movie or the year he expects to complete it?”
Eyes Wide Shut, his final movie, had a long, notorious production starting in November 1996 and lasting until the summer of 1998. And that was just principal photography. Vinessa Shaw spent two months to film one scene with Tom Cruise that she was initially contracted only to do for two weeks. Cruise did 95 takes of walking through a door and eventually developed an ulcer which he kept from the director.
With both Cruise and his wife at the time, Nicole Kidman, in England so long their adoptive children became to speak in British accents. There’s even rumors the movie’s production led to their separation and later divorce. As they had been considered one of Hollywood’s power couples in the 1990s, they were separated about 18 months after the movie’s July 16, 1999 premiere and their marriage was later dissolved in 2001. Cruise reportedly began a relationship with Penelope Cruz filming Vanilla Sky as he was still married to Kidman.
Cruise was reported to be upset over the filming of sexual scenes between Kidman and the actor who played the Naval officer as Kubrick barred him from the set. By the 1990s, Cruise was beginning to have more involvement in his movies as a producer as well as approving of the screenwriter on each movie. This was reportedly his first movie in a long time where he didn’t have much control as he allowed himself to be at the mercy of Kubrick’s filmmaking, no matter what.
By 1996, Cruise had one of the best stars on the planet and he was only in his mid-30s. To walk away from all the high profile movies and major salaries he could’ve gotten to spend almost three years of his life working a movie like this shows his dedication to the craft of acting.
Cruise plays Dr. Bill Hartford, a medical doctor with his own practice in Manhattan. He has a nice apartment condo near Central Park. His clients include rich, wealthy socialites like Victor Ziegler (Sydney Pollack). His wife, Alice (Kidman), used to manage an art gallery in SoHo, but is currently unemployed. But judging by how Bill spends money, they don’t need to be a double-income family to live.
The movie begins with them attending a Christmas party at Victor’s mansion where neither Bill nor Alice know anyone else by the Zieglers. However, Bill recognizes a former med school classmate, Nick Nightingale (Todd Fields), playing piano and goes to say hi. It’s obvious from the start of the movie that Bill and Alice have gotten to that moment in their marriage where they’re not bashful about certain things.
One of my journalism/film professors at college was Ernie “Big Ern” Wyatt. He felt the opening scene in the movie where Alice is shown peeing while Bill is adjusting his tuxedo in the mirror was unnecessary. I don’t know if Ernie was ever married. But couples reach a moment where they don’t stop shutting the bathroom door. Bill isn’t really paying attention anyway as Alice in a long black dress asks how she looks to which he replies plainly, “Perfect.”
Eyes Wide Shut had been a project Kubrick had been working on for years upon reading the novella Traumnovelle or Rhapsody: A Dream Novel or Dream Story by Arthur Schnitzler. Kubrick changed the time from Mardi Gras to Christmastime. And Kubrick was known to despise the use of studio lights. Throughout much of the movie, he uses regular Christmas lights. This gives the movie more of a dream-like eerie feel. Take the look of Christmas lights at Victor’s party or in the nightclub where Nick is playing. We’ve become so accustomed to seeing studio lights for the indoor scenes, regular lights don’t look natural which helps the tone of the as they work as background extras.
Kubrick’s use of the United Kingdom as a backdrop on all his movies from the 1960s has been impressive when you consider how he turned the country into Parris Island, S.C. and Vietnamese cities Da Nang and Hue for Full Metal Jacket. People have noted that several scenes of NYC streets don’t look realistic even though the sets at Pinewood Studios made the sidewalks to scale. A scene of Bill walking down the sidewalk was done through a rear projector and Cruise walking on a treadmill. Also the English countryside is a perfect backdrop for the New England countryside where Bill attends an orgy.
It’s kinda odd that the two parties Bill attends both have a sexual nature to them. At Victor’s party, Alice inebriated finds herself flirting with an older Hungarian man, Sandor Svazost (Sky du Mont) while Bill is seduced by two younger models. Alice sees it and you get a hint that she wants to and even Bill wants to. But Victor interrupts him with when a younger woman, Mandy Curran (Julienne Davis), overdoses while they’re having sex. This means Bill spends a lot of time away which makes Alice think he went to have sex with the women.
Later that night, during one of the movie’s most memorable scenes, Bill and Alice make out nude in front of the mirror as Chris Isaak’s “Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing” plays on the soundtrack. But the scene cuts away. I’m believing Bill can’t maintain an erection which is why it leads Alice to think he had sex with one of the models or both of them. And it’s likely she’s sexually repressed which is why she finds Sandor’s flirtation so enticing. (Incidentally, it was Kidman who had been listening to Chris Isaak at one point that led to Kubrick using the song in the movie.)
The next night, Bill and Alice have a fight where she accuses him trying to “fuck” the models which explains why he was gone. They do cannabis and Alice tells Bill of the fantasies she had about the Naval officer (Gary Goba) they say on a recent vacation. She loves Bill but some of the romance has gone out of their marriage. Alice has become a bored housewife as they have a daughter, Helena (Madison Eginton), but there are scenes where you see Bill has become bored by her a bit, as he watches TV while talking to her not even looking at her.
I find it interesting that all the men in the movie are shown flirting or involved in sex with women younger than them. Mandy is in her 20s while Victor has to at least be in his 60s. Bill is interested in Domino (Shaw), who is younger. Then, the next night when she goes to the apartment, he gets frisky with her roommate, Sally (Fay Masterson), who is also about the same age as Domino.
However, when he finds himself the object of obsession of Marion Nathanson (Marie Richardson), the daughter of one of his patients who has just died, he rejects her. It’s possible that Marion is around the same age as he and he can’t find himself wanting to be with her, even it was just one night of passionate sex. Yet, he is quick to want sex with Domino, Sally or even a mysterious woman who may or may not be Mandy at the orgy.
Kidman is five years younger than Cruise, but I suspect Bill didn’t meet Alice at college. It’s quite possible she could’ve been a patient of his when he was younger. That’s why she mocks him for getting an erection when she has to give a woman a breast exam.
When he goes to the costume shop to rent the tux, the cloak and the mask for the orgy, the proprietor, Mr. Milich (Rade Serbedzija), discovers two older men of southeast Asian ancestry having sexual relations with his teenage daughter (Leelee Sobieski) who is underage. The scene is played somewhat for laughs as he locks them in a room to call the police. The next day when he returns it all, it looks like they’ve made amends and he’s also pimped out his daughter to them. I think it’s to show that Bill wasn’t at all prepared for the world of sexual perversions that exist.
Even when he goes to the orgy, he never partakes in any sexual activity. He just watches as he goes from room to room. (This is a controversial scene as Warner Bros. inserted characters to images of people having sex to obtain an R rating. It’s been show as Kubrick intended on the newer DVDs and I believe Netflix is the only streaming service I’ve seen it unedited.) I heard the production used Michael Douglas as the template for the mask Bill wears at the orgy which is a subtle reference to the movies (Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct and Disclosure) which all had Douglas involved in erotic thrillers.
At the orgy, it appears Bill is acknowledged by a masked couple presumed to be Victor and his wife. Victor later tells Bill he was at the orgy as well along with a lot of famous and rich people. It’s never mentioned what Victor does but he says he recommended Nick to the organizers of the orgy to play the piano organ. Nick also says he’s performed at one before which suggests this is a very regular weekly or biweekly event. Nick lives in Seattle but tells Bill he has to go where the work is.
Because he arrived in a taxi, Bill is called out by the main organizer only referred to as Red Cloak (Leon Vitali) who demands Bill take off his mask and then his clothes. People gasp upon seeing Bill unmasked but Victor later says this was all staged including an intervention by a mysterious woman (Abigail Good) and voiced by Cate Blanchett uncredited. It’s implied that the mysterious woman is also Mandy, who was a beauty pageant queen who dies of a drug overdose.
As Bill seems to question all the events that happened the day before, he is constantly followed by people later revealed to have been ordered by Victor. It’s suspected the old man with the pursed lips who hands Bill a typed letter warning him to quit his inquiries is also the man in the Red Cloak as he doesn’t talk. But why would they type up a letter and put it in an envelope unless they knew Bill would drive all the way out from the city. I suspect that Victor has a lot more to do with the secret society but he is downplaying his involvement. This explains why he tells Bill at the Christmas party not to mention anything about Mandy’s overdose. Bill thinks it’s because he doesn’t want it getting out to his wife, but she knows and Victor is more concerned of a woman overdosing at his house than being caught having sex with another woman.
Originally, Harvey Keitel was hired to play Victor but he was reportedly unable to do the reshoots. However, Keitel said that he was fired from the role. I like Keitel but I can’t imagine him in the role. Pollack has more of that New York City old money vibe to him. Jennifer Jason Leigh was also hired to play Marion but she is wrong for the role. Richardson has more of the classy NYC old money vibe that would attract her to Bill over her fiance, Carl Thomas (Thomas Gibson).I also feel Marion only got with Carl to please her father. And now that he’s gone, she doesn’t want to be with him.
Also seeing a woman involved in a relationship where she claims to be unhappy makes Bill think if Alice is unhappy with him. Why is okay for married men to look at porn or turn their head to look at a woman as they pass but not ok for a woman to think another man other than her husband is attractive? Alice discusses this with Bill. A lot has been said about the patriarchy and Kubrick obviously knew how things were.
Young women with big breasts and nice bodies are sexually used at the orgy and even engaging in lesbian sex. However, you don’t see many men as opposed to the women. While walking down the street, Bill is accused by a group of college-aged men, possibly frat boys, of being gay. But what does it say about men if all they think of other men being because they don’t fit an archetype?
There’s a lot to examine in the movie. Kubrick, like David Lynch, rarely ever discussed much about their movies, leaving it to the audiences and critics to make their own interpretations. In Full Metal Jacket, it seems like a basic Vietnam war movie. But it’s really about how the military industrial complex turns young men into murderers while telling them they’re doing their civic duties.
And The Shining has been taken apart piece by piece, scene by scene for over 40 years. There’s fan theories all over the Internet. A friend of mine said every time she watches it, she notices something different. And even A Clockwork Orange shows us a society where malicious violence is capable by both conservative and liberal people. The government punishes Alex by making him get sick when he thinks of sex and violence but the liberal writers want to punish Alex also for his crimes to show how the authoritative government is wrong.
Bill and Alice are a Dick and Jane type of couple. Even their names sound common WASP upper-middle class. That’s why neither are really prepared for the sexual word that exists outside their realm of normalcy. And in the end as Bill explains everything that has happen, Alice says they need to “fuck” as soon as possible. It’s not make love or have sex. But they need to fuck, which implies they need to have the freaky hardcore rough sex they may have enjoyed in their earlier days as a couple.
There’s also some suspicion that Bill is dreaming as all the events where he’s about to have sex are interrupted. Carl arrives before Bill and Marion can talk about her sexual attraction to him more. And Alice calls Bill before he can have sex with Domino. And Sally stops Bill to tell him that Domino tested positive for HIV.
How does it seem possible for Bill to do all the things he does in one night? He meets Domino at around 12:30 a.m. but returns home at 4:30 a.m. from going all over the area. Also, Domino doesn’t look like the type of street hooker in NYC in the latter 1990s. She also seems to charge too little for NYC which makes me think Bill is unaware of how much prostitutes charge? Also, all the wads of cash he has in his wallet seems highly unlikely for someone to carry at one time, especially in NYC during the 1990s.
Also, Bill seems to go around the city asking questions while he shows his medical doctor license in his wallet. One of my other friends said he thinks this is to show that Bill thinks he can use the fact he’s a doctor to get away with things. How is Bill able to draw the comparison between Mandy and the mysterious woman? For a newspaper story to be printed that fast means someone had to discover her body almost after Bill left the orgy. An autopsy and toxicology report would have to be performed and then reported to the media for a late edition which would run no later than 6 p.m.
It’s possible the cannabis Bill smoke caused him to pass out and he is having a lucid dream. I mean the basis for the movie is a novella that means Dream Story. Regardless of what Kubrick intended or didn’t intend, the movie divided audiences and credits. And whether it was really completed by him or not is still being debated. Kubrick died on March 7, 1999 reportedly days after he had submitted his final cut. But others have said that it wasn’t completed and Kubrick was still editing it.
R. Lee Ermey, who worked with Kubrick on FMJ, said Kubrick was upset over what he had done so far, saying Kubrick called it “a piece of shit.” However, Kidman said it was a completed film. Jan Harlan, who was a long-time production assistant of Kubrick as well as his brother-in-law, dismissed reports Kubrick wasn’t satisfied with the movie. It’s possible a lot of this had to do with Kubrick’s death just four months before its premiere and the fact that Kubrick deleted a scene at the end of The Shining following its premiere.
For the most part, I’d think Kubrick would be laughing at the people debating over if the movie was unfinished or completed. And it’s hard to describe the movie as an erotic thriller or a psychological drama. There’s hardly any violence in the movie, which I think says a lot of what we’ve come to expect from movies. Sometimes the biggest twist of a movie is when it doesn’t have a twist.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 