"Eyes Wide Shut" is at once a classic Kubrick film -- glacial pacing, cool examination of the human psyche under pressure, visually
splendid – and a departure from his other work in its surreal celebration of domesticity. It is as puzzling, infuriating and baffling as his greatest works, tempered with a fundamental compassion for
human foibles. Sexual desire is the common thread of the story but "Eyes Wide Shut" is not about sex. It's about dreams versus reality, a man's emotional journey in self-discovery and a statement
that love is one of the few absolutes. It's a maddening, bizarre work by a stubborn individualist, a film that requires immense patience and repeated viewing to fully comprehend. Love it or
hate it, it is impossible to look away from the infuriatingly opaque scenes: the master has you in his grasp. Think about those unsettling long shots of the car driving up to the hotel in "The
Shining" and you'll get what I mean.
This cross between "After Hours" and "Belle de Jour" is arguably his most personal and self-revealing film. Kubrick enjoyed a long, happy marriage to
Christiane, whose paintings give the slick yuppie apartment of the central characters an appealing domesticity. The director was so concerned with protecting his family, influenced his career (he
turned down projects he deemed too sexual or potentially damaging to his family) and Dr. William Harford's (Tom Cruise) concentration on his wife Alice (Nicole Kidman)
seems to echo Kubrick's own family-centered life.
The director's
meticulous perfectionism is evident in every frame of this sumptuous, painterly film. The female body is celebrated in shot after shot of lithe flesh, notably Kidman's sculpture-perfect nudity in the opening sequence. This is a film made by a very straight man in love with unadulterated nature (I only spotted one set of silicon breasts). Women remain an enigma throughout: Hofman's tortured musings on his wife's confession of irrational desire for another man don't bring him any closer to understanding what she felt. Women are also only the avenue for men's futile and often pathetic attempts to understand their sexuality (gay sex doesn't exist). Kubrick's dark, wicked sense of humor is evident in characteristically disorienting ways: Hofman identifies himself as a doctor to everyone he meets, everyone reacts sexually to him, Kidman's delicately devilish articulation of the word "dicky" as Alice rambles on.
The film, based on "Traumnovelle" (trans: Rhapsody, a Dream Novel)
a 1926 story by one of Sigmund Freud's favorite writers, takes place during a single night. Bill and Alice are both separated and tempted at the grand Christmas party of amoral Victor Ziegler (director Sydney Pollack, giving a fine performance). An oily Hungarian (shades of Claus
Von Bulow!) puts the moves on Alice in a very long, slow sequence giving Kidman the chance to shine as she plays a woozy Alice, extricating herself at the last moment. Kidman's precise performance is
echoed in the crisp photography: both are razor-sharp and pitch-perfect.
Meanwhile, Bill is commandeered by two lanky models who lead him around the mansion to an unknown destination (watch for
the same situation in the orgy scenes). Ziegler calls Bill upstairs on a hush-hush mission, which involves a buck-naked woman succumbing to an overdose. Bill clings to his role as "a doctor" and
isn't touched by emotion or desire. His smug confidence is shattered soon after, as stoned and jealous Alice picks a fight, then unloads a confession of desire that could have destroyed their
lives. Bill is stunned. He's interrupted by a request for a house call and runs into his first encounter with sex and death, as an unhinged Marion delivers her own startling confession.
Bill flees into the city, starting an Alice-in-Wonderland adventure. He has a touching, humane encounter with a young, bold streetwalker (never has a hooker looked so unrealistic!) uncovers a depraved
father-daughter relationship when renting a costume (Leelee Sobrowski exudes exactly the right trashy, dissolute aura as a young whore) and sneaks into a secret orgiastic party. The orgy scenes are
devoid of any real sexual heat and have been disfigured by obvious computer-generated figures shielding 65 seconds of action. What an abomination! It's like sticking Colorforms on a Michaelangelo
painting. Shame on the ratings board for their priggish stupidity.
Sex games soon turn into something more menacing, as Hofman is shadowed by a dangerous-looking character and people start going
missing…or turning up dead. Kubrick's skill at handling the medium of film is brilliantly demonstrated as Hofman buys a paper, darts into a café to lose the man trailing him, and finds out a woman he
met earlier in the evening is dead. Black jokes abound! The paper headline is "Lucky to be Alive" and Mozart's "Requiem" (mass for the dead) is playing in the café. Marvelous
work. Hofman discovers his acquaintance Victor may, or may not be, at the center of his nightmarish experiences. He returns home, only to discover a scary reminder that he may be in great
danger. Or was he hallucinating? Or was he set up? We never know for sure, and whether everything was true or not, isn't central to the film's message.
"Eyes Wide Shut" deals with
paranoia and the fear of uncovering death. This theme shows up repeatedly: Hofman is called upon to rescue a drugged-out girl from a coma, he suspects the piano player has been killed, the orgy
woman warns him. Another theme is deception: nothing is what it seems. Hofman, so confident that women don't feel brazen desire, is stunned to discover his angelic wife was once gripped by
a passion so fierce she would throw away her future for a liaison. His piano-player friend has dealings with a mysterious, powerful depraved group. The innocent child is far from pure.
These dizzying gaps between appearance and reality seem to echo Hofman's own struggle to reconcile the shocking truth about his wife's confession with how he sees his world. Suddenly he's plunged into
a topsy-turvy city where everything he assumes is wrong. I believe one explanation for this mysterious story, is that at the start, Hofman is smugly confident in his role as a doctor, married to a
woman who would never feel pure lust. When he finds out how precarious his happiness is, he plunges into self-examination through desire, attempting to understand his wife's feelings. Notice how
Hofman insists on identifying himself as a doctor, until the end of the film when he can no longer rely on anything except his love for his wife. His tentative attempts to connect with and understand
the women he encountered that night bring him back to her. He finally becomes a feeling person who is willing to show vulnerability and risk rejection. There's material for thousands of
film-school papers and cultural commentary in this movie.
Pretentious or tour de force or a dalliance, the film is a technical tour de force. Costumes, lighting and set design
are smashing. Pay very careful attention to colors: blue for domesticity, red for sexual danger. Notice when purple makes its one appearance at the end of the film. This film was shot entirely in England, with all the streets and sets recreating New York (this accounts for the lack of rats and grit). This artifice works in a film deliberately playing with ideas of reality and illusion, keeping the experience far above the rock-solid authenticity of Scorsese's films. Kubrick's legendary passion for research is everywhere in the film. The masks are Venetian, the Long Island goings-on recall the illicit Hellfire clubs where English noblemen would participate in costumed orgies, and the red pool table recalls the scene in "Belle de Jour" when red roses signal moral corruption. Language is sometimes stilted. Alice would probably not refer to her object of desire as a "naval officer" when stoned and angry. The film is stylized almost to the point of parody, but Kubrick's ability to keep a dream-like, menacing mood throughout and some fine performances keep the film off-kilter enough to sustain interest.
Nicole Kidman gives a blazingly good performance as Alice. She's letter-perfect in very long takes requiring her to maintain character as she moves from drug-addled torpor to contempt to a sad
truthfulness. Cruise is overshadowed by Kidman – this is largely because of the script – Hofman is a bit of a pompous dolt – and partly because he has to be confused most of the time. Cruise does
look aimless but the strain of keeping things together in long scenes shows. I suspect Kubrick's way of working (upwards of 50 takes for a single scene) doesn't mesh well with the raw intensity of
actors like Cruise. Classically trained Kidman and Alan Cummings (in a very funny cameo as a lascivious bellman) are more consistent and articulate. Cruise does deliver an astonishingly raw scene
when he finally breaks down and confesses. I swear the director's choice to have Hofman deliver all his lines in the carefully parsed cadence of HAL is a wink at "2001."
At times downright goofy (the orgy scene buildup is lovingly photographed
but is more suited to a heavy metal music video) completely confusing (why does Hofman always wear gloves?) and very funny (the costume seller wants advice on baldness) "Eyes Wide Shut" never loses its strange power to keep you guessing, and watching. Best for Kubrick fans. The film will frustrate many. Great potential as a laugh-at-it goof – or a serious examination into the elusive thing we call "truth."
Viennese connection:
Arthur Schnitzler is also the author of "La Ronde," which was adapted into "The Blue Room" another tale of sexual games, played to great acclaim by its star…Nicole Kidman.
Better put this on the video version: scenes with Harvey Keitel as Victor and Jennifer Jason Leigh as Marion, excised because the stars ran into scheduling problems.
Juicy unsubstantiated rumor: according to Howard Stern, the real reason Harvey Keitel was fired involved over-enthusiastic Method acting and a gob in Nicole Kidman's hair. |
