Is "Eyes Wide Shut" a good movie? Was Stanley Kubrick a good director?

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by Steve Hoffman, Jan 31, 2015.

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  1. coffeetime

    coffeetime Senior Member

    Location:
    Lancs, UK
    A few snaps taken at the Stanley Kubrick exhibition at the Design Museum, London in August.


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  2. coffeetime

    coffeetime Senior Member

    Location:
    Lancs, UK
  3. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    It goes beyond being in an art film, given the time it took to shoot, that is a lot of time taken out of "A" list talent.
     
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  4. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    Some pretty impressive masks.
     
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  5. Richard--W

    Richard--W Forum Resident

    I think EYES WIDE SHUT is a good film, even a superior film. On a technical
    level it's peerless. But it's also a compromised film because the lead actor
    wasn't up to the demands of the role.

    The delays on EYES WIDE SHUT were caused by Tom Cruise.

    He failed to deliver the emotional range of the character. Kubrick kept giving
    him chances and tried to get it out of him, but Cruise was not up to it. It's a
    shallow performance that limits the film. Cruise has a narrow range and does
    okay with undemanding roles. But this film was way over his head.

    The character of Dr. Harford needed a deep actor like a Brando or Nicholson.
     
  6. Bobby Buckshot

    Bobby Buckshot Heavy on the grease please

    Location:
    Southeastern US
    Kidman runs circles around him in their scenes together and it's obvious/distracting. Was Kubrick forced to use Cruise or was it just to far gone to recast?
     
  7. Fastnbulbous

    Fastnbulbous Doubleplus Ungood

    Location:
    Washington DC USA
    Kubrick expressly wanted a married couple to play the two leads. What better options were there?
     
  8. Bobby Buckshot

    Bobby Buckshot Heavy on the grease please

    Location:
    Southeastern US
    Ah, well there you go. Only no-names likely after that blockbuster couple. I forgot they were actually married at the time.
     
  9. ries

    ries Forum Resident

    I loved EWS, when it came out, lot of people were dissapointed because they were expecting a "sexy thriller", wich it clearly it isnt (I think partly the fault of the advertisement). It was weird, it was for me the first time to see a Kubrick film at a premier (I went to Full Metal Jacket, but wasnt aware at that time it was a Kubrick). When EWS came out I was a "fan", read books about Kubrick, seen all the films. So it was an exciting time, a new Kubrick (after years of A.I. rumors). Then just before the film came out, he passed away. So going to the film was like going to a funeral.

    Now 20 years later I still think the film holds up pretty good. On a technical level I think its one of Kubrick's best, right up there with Barry Lyndon/2001. And I agree with posters above me, the only thing holding back the film is Cruise, he's really out of his league, and this not a dig a Cruise. He's a good actor for certain type of films, but a Kubrick film isnt one of them. Some scene's are really hard to watch, like the scene when they use a joint and he has to act to be high. Or the discussion scene with Sydney Pollack.

    That being said the film still is an great experience, the use of colors, the use of music. Kidman's acting is amazing, her "confession" scene is a thing of beauty.

    Really curious about the rerelease planned at the end of the year for the 20th anniversary, I will try to catch it in the theatres, also hope it will come to UHD bluray, this film screams for a HDR treatment.
     
  10. coffeetime

    coffeetime Senior Member

    Location:
    Lancs, UK
    Finally got to see EWS on the big screen courtesy of the 20th anniversary rerelease. I’m assuming it was in 4K and I can easily see the arguments that EWS is a very soft, diffuse looking film. That said, the digital ‘print’ looked terrific, having been used to seeing the early DVD and early HD-DVD transfers which look lesss and less impressive as the years have gone by. Everything looked ‘right’, especially the colours - the soft blue lit hues of Bill’s office as he hides the bag containing the costume in the cabinet was merely one scene that looked SO much better than the home video versions to date.

    Equally impressive was the sound. No, EWS was never a surround spectacular and is almost exclusively a front-heavy mix. Of particular note was the pounding, surging music (Migrations on the soundtrack album) during the mansion orgy scene. Having the volume go loud and clean in the cinema really sold the intensity of the scene.

    The screening I was at only had three tickets sold, including me. I’m not seeing EWS getting an extended release due to public demand. So very happy to have seen it on the big screen after all this time; at least as satisfying as seeing the 70mm print of 2001 last year,

    Hoping to get a second viewing in on Tuesday in Liverpool. For some reason the advertised short on Kubrick & EWS wasn’t shown this evening. Fingers crossed it will make an appearance next week.

    Someone please tell me this is going to get a 4K BluRay release?
     
  11. the pope ondine

    the pope ondine Forum Resident

    Location:
    Virginia

    good point. make this in 71 with Nicholson and Jane Fonda and it works....
     
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  12. Chrome_Head

    Chrome_Head Planetary Resident

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA.
    I was on huge Kubrick kick before the film came out, then Kubrick passed away right before its release. I went to see it during its theatrical run—it’s much more impressive on the big screen than at home. That said, there’s not a lot to the movie besides it looks great (and the opening scene with Kidman’s backside is something to behold).

    I went alone to the theater, and as I was walking out, two dudes who had been in my showing were talking, and one said to the other “That was the worst movie I’ve ever seen”.
     
  13. Richard--W

    Richard--W Forum Resident

    Many moviegoers don't understand drama because they are raised on action.
    Their idea of entertainment is to watch the same kind of action all the time.
    They are so accustomed to nihilism and laconic posturing that emotional
    expression seems silly to them. Film buffs who saturate their minds with porn
    wonder why people who wear clothes make such a fuss. If actors aren't doing
    it in front of the camera they ask themselves "what's the point of this movie?"
    Audiences were getting dumber in the 1990s, and now the cycle is complete.

    Eyes Wide Shut was written during the sexual revolution of the 1960s (1968
    to be exact). It's dated. It represents an older man's view of sexuality as it was
    thirty years earlier, a point Kubrick may have missed. The idea of a secret
    fraternity engaging in a ritualized S & M masque is not new, either, it's actually
    very old although it seems bold in modern times when authority figures like
    doctors and lawyers, those normally constrained in their behavior, indulge in it.

    The film is missing its emotional center. It needed a deeper actor with chops,
    someone like Jack Nicholson, to express the internal makeup of the story thru
    his performance. Tom Cruise is a shallow actor with a narrow range. He has no
    idea what Eyes Wide Shut is about and utterly fails to carry the film. He should
    have had the integrity to withdraw, and Warner Brothers should have enabled
    Kubrick to bring in a more discerning talent to play the character.
     
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  14. Chrome_Head

    Chrome_Head Planetary Resident

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA.
    I wouldn't presume to actually know the film tastes of the two moviegoers walking out. But you are certainly on to something in that EWS is a story that seems to belong to another age. There was much talk of the pre-production he had done on AI (and I'd have much rather seen his version of that film), but he went with this project instead. I presume he perhaps wanted to tackle a genre he hadn't done yet, a psychological / sexual thriller of sorts (since he'd already done genre films such as sci-fi, war, horror, and a period piece).

    Too bad EWS ended up being Kubrick's last film, but it's not bad for what it is. It does have intriguing moments, but they are few and far between, and the film feels very padded.

    Just a thought, but Cruise ends up working in the role given that he's a character very much out of his depth in the events of the film. I'm not saying he knew what he was doing, but he works in the role in a way that someone like Jack Nicholson might not.
     
  15. Richard--W

    Richard--W Forum Resident

    Jack Nicholson played a man out of his depth in Five Easy Pieces (1970) which made
    him famous and won him the Academy Award, and again in The Passenger (1975), a
    calm sublime performance that is deeply felt, and again in the remake of The Postman
    Always Rings Twice (1981) in which he's a smartass who thinks he's one step ahead of
    the law when in reality he's two steps behind. He is known for finding the multiple
    layers of a character and walking emotional tightropes. He can play two sides against
    the middle as easily as Tom Cruise coasts.
     
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  16. Sandorelli

    Sandorelli Forum Resident

    Location:
    Us
    Perhaps Cruise’s detachment is what brings the story into the modern age. There’s a lot of issues of fragile masculinity that were NOT generally accepted as part of the sexual revolution, at least what I’ve seen if it through movies and music etc, being of the generation X.
     
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  17. stepeanut

    stepeanut The gloves are off

    The masks used in the film were made in Venice, Italy by Ca’ Macana:

    Homepage

    Here are a couple of photos I took of their window display in December 2017:

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  18. Johnny66

    Johnny66 Laird of Boleskine

    Location:
    Australia.
    That's one perspective. Another might be that Kubrick cast Cruise exactly because Cruise (at least in terms of his popular film persona circa 1999) embodied the glib, shallow and wantonly superficial figure that Harford is. (Think Cocktail. Think Top Gun. Think Days of Thunder. Think The Firm.) As the article I linked to previously in the thread rather convincingly argues, Kubrick's characters aren't to be judged in typically dramatic (or emotional) terms, but rather should be approached sociologically as (often monstrous) figures embodying a particular set of relations in time, culture, place, etc. The casting of Cruise and Kidman was clearly no accident, and their place in the film resonates far beyond dramatic effect (or lack of it). Indeed, one wonders if either of them (then or now) truly recognised what Kubrick was doing with, and through, them.
     
  19. Richard--W

    Richard--W Forum Resident

    I get your point, and it's a valid point.
    But I still think Dr. Hafford required a better actor.
    Nicole Kidman certainly "got it."
     
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  20. a customer

    a customer Forum Resident

    Location:
    virginia
    I saw this at the theater when if first came out because it was Kubrick. People talked in the theater because the movie was so (well supply whatever word you want )
    I walked out of theater after it was over thinking was that it... the best part is the opening with nicole undressing and the annoying piano song.
     
  21. Richard--W

    Richard--W Forum Resident

    I enjoy Eyes Wide Shut on a technical level. Kubrick was a photographer of
    the old school. His kind of lensmanship and craftsmanship is something you
    don't see anymore; you didn't see it much in 1999, either. The image he puts
    before me is seductive and exciting. I love the "environment" of his films.
    Aesthetically and visually a Kubrick film is a pleasure to spend time in,
    regardless of the story. The story is a bonus.
     
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  22. Borgia

    Borgia Do not speak wisely of this night

    Location:
    Arkansas
    I watched EWS upon release in the theater, then earlier this year on the telly. I have the same opinion of it now as I did upon first viewing. I don't like Tom Cruise, and to a degree Nicole Kidman. Kubrick could have chosen anybody but those two for his leads and it would have helped the movie. Another thing is this slow, halting way some of the characters speak, and slowly repeating lines of dialogue back to each other.
    "Are....you......okay?"
    "Am...I...............okay?"
    As a fan of Kubrick I remain not a fan of his last film.
     
  23. Chrome_Head

    Chrome_Head Planetary Resident

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA.
    Exactly. Cruise and Kidman were the Hollywood couple du jour at the time (this predated even a couple like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie), and I think they both had a fair sense of what Kubrick was doing with their celebrity cachet. At the same time, they weren’t going to turn down a chance to work with an auteur like Kubrick.

    I also wasn’t bothered by Cruise as others here. Yes, a more dynamic actor could have given the whole thing another dimension, but Cruise also embodies a kind of good-natured shallowness that works for the character. I believe Stanley knew just what he was getting and what he was going for with this.
     
  24. Richard--W

    Richard--W Forum Resident

    Kubrick must have thought, as many people did at the time, that Cruise was
    capable of doing better, or he wouldn't have pushed the actor so hard with
    hundreds of retakes. In the end Kubrick had to settle for mediocrity because
    that's all Cruise was capable of giving.
     
  25. carrick doone

    carrick doone Whhhuuuutttt????

    Location:
    Vancouver, Canada
    We are talking about Cruise and Kidman but I recall something about Harvey Keitel and Jennifer Jason Leigh being the couple until Keitel bailed. Am I remembering this wrong?
     
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