Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick, 1999)

[Red Screamer]

That’s a great point, the movie really lives and breathes from its play with tone and ambiguity. I think that’s also partially why I appreciate the censored version: it adds to our sense Cruise’s puritanical, frustrated headspace. The sex party really is no big deal, even pre-internet, so the surreal touch of the swooping figures gives it more of an edge.

SpoilerShow

On the other hand, that kind of deflation of menace is what makes Pollack’s appearance work for me (and maybe the two are of a piece). He’s someone totally in control, unbothered by Cruise’s snooping and disruption of the group, which we had been lead to believe were daring transgressions. Cruise’s epic night and slow escalation of discoveries, in the end, mean nothing to someone with real power like Pollack. This is the closest he’ll ever get to finding something out and he hasn’t even made a dent. Pollack recommends accepting his powerlessness, the flow of the status quo, with the untouchable calm and condescension of a school principal telling you to just go to detention even if you didn’t do it. And we don’t know how much is a pose. That’s more frightening to me that someone who feels the need to demonstrate their power and menace.

[therewillbeblus]

Pollack's casting works because that stuff is all banal and doesn't matter. Cruise cannot disjoint himself from the subconscious narrative that he's the Movie Star of Life with others as participants ('My wife could not possibly be attracted to other people, because I cannot fathom approaching it as a topic'), with the extra joke layered on throughout that he's not an interesting character because he isn't one at all: He doesn't know himself, and he's not really interested in growth, just a mode of complacency and blending in - he believes he takes action, or could, but never does and can't when new experiences are offered that stop him in his tracks. I dunno, that final act speech works to both give utility to Cruise's subjective experiences and also deprive the "objectively" utility he's still delusionally looking for in the wrong places.

I still turn to John Cope's reading of that scene, many years and pages back in this thread, as the closest someone has come to cracking the code of it yet - even if I wish it could be expanded upon into a book or essay.. This film deserves it!

[Matt]

Both of you make good points, and I will have to think about it some more. Maybe Pollock feels like he’s acting in a different movie because his is the only character who’s actually living in reality in the film. I think it’s because all of his revelations were so banal that it seemed to me there ought to be a little more disdain, more of a sense that Cruise’s character was just an irritating mosquito in his world, something to be swatted away. Pollock plays him as somewhat chummy, too concerned with letting Dr. Bill down too easy.

The last third of the film is a slow deflation, full of bad news and disappointment and (ugh) daylight, but also such a funny inversion of paranoid thriller tropes. “Oh my god, this goes all the way to the top!” Yes, it does, but not because there’s some evil conspiracy going on, these people just don’t want you at their party.

It has much more in common with Barry Lyndon than maybe I first realized.

[therewillbeblus]

It has much more in common with Barry Lyndon than maybe I first realized.

Great connection, the key difference being that in that film we are almost always at a distance from Barry - the narration and structure help maintain a detachment from a sense of depth, meaning that we are permitted to judge his character based on action alone. We certainly feel something (shared sadness, or mild sympathy, or perhaps just a more intimate connection with his fear that's driven his behavior - finally being implemented in a manner we might do - missing on purpose! A compassionate or violent-avoidant gesture.) when Barry does the 'right' thing and isn't reciprocated, but it's pointedly an ironic objective study in human folly. Eyes Wide Shut does engage with similar ideas, but we are always with Tom Cruise on a more intimate level, even if he and we cannot access his 'character' because he doesn't really know himself beyond the deceptively-safe bubble of his complacent, comfortable life. So it's like Barry Lyndon if throughout that film we were planted closer to Barry, without the narration, and able to simultaneously recognize his flaws and feel sympathy for that fear-based behavior throughout the narrative.

Maybe that's why this is my favorite Kubrick film - not only does it speak to me on a personal existential level, but we maintain a leveled distance from Cruise that's close but never close enough to blend with his subjectivity. And that lets us experience the same kind of reveals as he does, in real time, about his own impotence, even if we may be able to piece together the bigger picture about his problem as he keeps trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. And because most of us know what it's like to reactively try to do that out of a sense of self-preservation of identity or status or self-esteem, we're engaging with the experience (rather than 'character' - as you mentioned, 'cypher') in layered ways. It feels like a more challenging and impressive feat to pull off, and it's more involving. We break down with Cruise, we share his morals and curiosities and frustrations and confusions and self-consciousness, and we all have a part of us that believes we are the star in our own movie, because we see through our eyes. But, of course, those are.. wide eyes shut, to the peripheries that will bring us closer to a state of harmony with ourselves, our social intimates, and our world around us. I've been there many times, and it's not a state you can 'ascend' permanently - these existential concerns are going to trigger us in some form forever. But that's why the ending is so tragic and optimistic - the cycle will go on, nobody can promise anyone the security they seek, and yet, in this moment, let's try to connect in the most tangible way we can, and see what happens from there..

[Blip Martindale]

Wow, this print scan floating around does look amazing, and completely transports me back to the initial theater experience (minus the walkouts and snickering).

I wouldn't mind if every Blu-ray of any older film had a questionable new "restoration" if the disc also contained a scan like this. Call it a "grindhouse version" or whatever, it shouldn't be too much extra work to find a print, scan it, and drop it on the disc. Obviously the extra space would require a second disc, or reduced file size, but worth it in my opinion.

[beamish14]

Wow, this print scan floating around does look amazing, and completely transports me back to the initial theater experience (minus the walkouts and snickering).

I wouldn't mind if every Blu-ray of any older film had a questionable new "restoration" if the disc also contained a scan like this. Call it a "grindhouse version" or whatever, it shouldn't be too much extra work to find a print, scan it, and drop it on the disc. Obviously the extra space would require a second disc, or reduced file size, but worth it in my opinion.

I like how private collectors are doing their own renegade/DIY film preservation projects. Someone also scanned their own 35mm print of another 1999 WB film, The Matrix, which has never had a home video release that properly preserved Dick Pope’s incredible photography.

I remember seeing Eyes Wide Shut on opening weekend in the States, and the now-infamous rear screen projection scene didn’t strike me as being poorly made or incongruous, but it’s kind of jarring when you watch it again on Netflix. How does it look in this transfer?

[Matt]

I don’t think it’s at all recognizable as rear projection here (and I don’t remember noticing it in the theater either). What’s ironic is that the rear projected shots images were actually shot on New York streets, whereas wider exterior shots that feature Cruise were filmed in London or on sets. The “fake” stuff is more real that the “real” stuff.

[oh yeah]

Wow, this print scan floating around does look amazing, and completely transports me back to the initial theater experience (minus the walkouts and snickering).

I wouldn't mind if every Blu-ray of any older film had a questionable new "restoration" if the disc also contained a scan like this. Call it a "grindhouse version" or whatever, it shouldn't be too much extra work to find a print, scan it, and drop it on the disc. Obviously the extra space would require a second disc, or reduced file size, but worth it in my opinion.

It looks amazing indeed. It felt like seeing the film for the first time again. The blown-out whites and deep, deep blacks, and all that grain, wasn't faithfully captured on any DVD/Blu releases.

[Blip Martindale]

Agreed about "fan" preservation projects. If the studios or filmmakers won't or can't, someone has to. And it's not about simple nostalgia, it's about accuracy and the historical record (and shared experience - not that that is something I personally associate with film, bah humbug). With this scan, and the 4K Star Wars scans, and many others mentioned here and elsewhere, these guys should be applauded. Someone like Malick or Coppola has multiple iterations of each film - which I sometimes find tiring - but they at least have the generosity and sense to allow (most of) them out into the world and onto disc.

The rear projection stuff is interesting. I'm sure I remember a comment attributed to Kubrick about Hitchcock's "phony" use of rear projection, yet in this film Kubrick doubles down on the artifice. The rear projection, the theatrical staging, the Sirk/Fassbinder colors, everything here adds up to his most "unreal" film, yet its somehow just as convincing as any of his others. Perfect use of form for the content. I was trying to think which of Kubrick's films use the technique, and how it is utilized - I suppose all the interior driving scenes in The Shining and Lolita, and the cockpit scenes in Strangelove are RP, and maybe a few shots in Sparatcus. I also noticed the exquisite use of fades, also prominent in The Shining and Lolita. Very dreamlike.

And the enveloping grain always brings to mind an early review of My Bloody Valentine's long-awaited follow up to Loveless, MBV, which described the album's opening sounds as lowering yourself into a warm bath. Very cozy, despite the subject and season in the flick.

Watching this again I was reminded how handmade this film seemed, even some of the weird "unfinished" edits and transitions which contribute to that feeling. Like Cassavetes' Love Streams, a little bit. It really does feel intimate, like one man with a camera, bearing the most "fingerprints" since Killer's Kiss.

[aox]

This is arguably my favorite Kubrick film, and I've seen it maybe 50 times since its release. I have to say I have never noticed the rear projection. Can anyone point out a few scenes with it? Thanks

[Blip Martindale]

This is arguably my favorite Kubrick film, and I've seen it maybe 50 times since its release. I have to say I have never noticed the rear projection. Can anyone point out a few scenes with it? Thanks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0MP5zlIFYM

Smith notes that the filmmakers applied a classic trick in a rather unusual manner for a few medium shots of Harford walking restlessly along Manhattan streets. "In some of the scenes, the backgrounds were rear-projection plates,” the cinematographer reveals. "Generally, when Tom's facing the camera, the backgrounds are rear-projected; anything that shows him from a side view was done on the streets of London. We had the plates shot in New York by a second unit [that included cinematographers Patrick Turley, Malik Sayeed and Arthur Jafa].

https://theasc.com/articles/a-sword-in- ... -wide-shut

[beamish14]

Malik Sayeed and Arthur Jafa are both perhaps most well-known for their collaborations with Spike Lee (and Jafa also shot the absolutely beautiful Daughters of the Dust). I wonder if Kubrick sought them out specifically as a result of their work with Lee

[Blip Martindale]

Those night time or dark interiors sure are similarly lit to scenes in Clockers, etc. so I have to imagine he appreciated the look.

It's Larry Smith who's the mystery to me. What big work had he done previously except a little Brit TV? Of course, it goes without saying that on a Kubrick film, Kubrick is essentially the cinematographer, no disrespect to all the fine DPs he employed.

[Matt]

He was a gaffer on Full Metal Jacket and The Shining and chief electrician on Barry Lyndon. The ASC article linked above explains:

Renowned for his exacting standards and perfectionist tendencies, Kubrick labored over every detail of the film... He also selected various other locations, including an estate in Norfolk that would serve as the site of the orgy, which ostensibly occurs on Long Island.

On one of these scouting trips, Kubrick brought along cinematographer Larry Smith, who had served as a gaffer on both Barry Lyndon and The Shining. The duo drove out to an estate that was being considered for the orgy sequence, and as they examined it from a distance, the director asked Smith how he would light the imposing edifice for a night exterior scene. After Smith detailed his strategy, the pair headed back to Kubrick's home. "When we arrived at the house, he said to me, 'Well, do you want to shoot the movie?'"

It was probably much more important and preferable for Kubrick to have someone he knew and could trust than someone from outside with more credits.

[aox]

Wow, thanks Blip.

I can't believe I never noticed that before.