EYES WIDE SHUT
Waiting in anticipation for the final Kubrick film, it was almost anti-climactic by the time the film began. But then the credits popped up, and some wonderful European music followed by Nicole Kidman taking off her clothes. Then another blink into darkness followed by a further title. What followed was two and a half hours of a film that has a hypnotic effect. Some people say that Kubrick films are treated in a "highbrow" fashion. Firstly, perhaps because he imbues in every scene an intelligence that is unparallelled that you cannot divide it between "just a film" and "art". In my opinion, Mozart's music works as music but it is also distinguishably Mozartian. Stanley Kubrick's films are the same. Just look at scenes he chooses to shoot. People may find them boring, but that is because we are brought up on films that don't linger, that don't excite multiple readings, that don't challenge us to look. And Eyes Wide Shut, if viewed properly is so amazingly put together, that if you don't like it, then you have no appreciation for what is truly great about film. Concentrating on colour alone, and Kubrick's use of it would take at least one viewing. Within the most deep focussed of shots, there is a hint of the blue, red or yellow. Sometimes it's a blue van a kilometer away, or (in the scene where Dr Bill meets the fur wearing prostitute) a red door with a blue garbage bag on one side, and the interior light of the restaurant (blue) on the other. At times, all three colours are used together. The blue used is "as cool as ice" (back page of the newspaper he picks up) and hints at coldness - and its contrast with the red of passion or danger or fire is played out as a paradox in much the same way as black v white is played out in The Karate Kid. To list the amount of red in this film would take at least two A4 pages. I was amazed at how much the colour "coincidentally" makes its way into the film. And with that cool blue, it's more than coincidence - it's a brilliant eye. And if you look in this film, you can't not be rewarded. My second viewing of this film resulted in a more hypnotic rendering. The last viewing left me ready to look out for things, look out for clues and solve the puzzle that is this movie. But while Stanley Kubrick has left us room to move around within the puzzle this movie may or may not be; he has so tightly constructed it, that every word, every phrase could mean something - and he sure as hell won't give anything away.
The mystery of the movie is how staged was the masked scene? how "real" was Dr Bill's experiences? was Alice at the masked party? There are many more questions that arise. The masks almost take on a narrative device - just as props seem to take on a life oof their own (look at HAL from 2001), so too is this mask a metaphor perhaps of the relationship between Alice and Dr Bill. The opening shows that their marriage has reached a stage where he doesn't even look at her to tell her how she looks. She finds herself more endearing in the mirror than the advances of her husband. She loves him and he loves her but is he wearing a mask? In the final scene where she's sleeping quietly on the bed with the mask next to her, is that not a summation of where their relationship was at - that the mask is a substitute for Dr Bill? Does Bill's realisation of this allow him to open up his heart and rediscover the truth needed in the relationship?
Then there is this notion of dreaming. What i got out of it was that Alice's dreaming was played out in Bill's reality. Now, that depends on many narrative assumptions - but it does make sense in the literal sense of the film - especially in Alice's closing remarks. In a way, she could forgive because her dreaming was like his reality - and what Kubrick does is show that perhaps dreaming and reality are closely linked, that it's not so "black and white" (used in pot scene dialogue) - perhaps this is why his reality is so much like a dream (look at lighting for example and coherence in colour schemes). I don't know about this feeling I got when I watched it, but I thought the film had a little of the religious overtones to it. OK, bar the obvious masked ball scene music, which sounds very Orthodox church type, but just this sort of feeling of the bible where Jesus says that to think about adultery (i think that's what it is) is the same as committing it. And if you look at the closing section - the rationalisation that Alice makes, you see that coming through loud and clear. Then there's the woman from the masked orgy who "redeems" Bill. If what Ziegler says is correct and her punishment was getting her "brains fucked out" - then if Cruise's punishment would have been similar, would his redemption refer to his seeing the integrity and the love in his marriage? Of course, Kubrick here is playing out the notion of desire in this film. It is the desire to do things you can't do - that have been repressed. Cruise is confronted with all these repressed desires and never really indulges in any of them. There's the prostitute, the woman in a relationship, the child, the dead body. Almost all of these situations result in invariable interruptions. The telephone itself plays a major role in this film - and to think of it as unimportant to the film, is to ignore how often it is used to interrupt or create drama. Just like RED makes the use of the phone as a system that transmits lies and is also an instrument of truth, I feel Kubrick may have borrowed this idea for the film. In the first place the telephone sets him off on his oddyssey and it makes him tell a lie to his wife (after he told her he could never lie to her) but also acts on his conscience. Even in "baby did a bad bad thing", there is a telephone sound in the background of the piece (that is, within the piece).
There is obviously a lot more to this film - and I'm sure argument will ensue over what exactly did happen. I like to see it as close to the literary truth as the film presents it. That Dr Bill is at the party and Alice is not and that Dr Bill does have these various encounters, even though they are 48 hourish (Scorcese's 48 hours - i think). But the amazing use of Kubrick's high key lighting, flooding us with bright light is unbelievably effective in this film - and adds to the dreamlike quality that it presents. Everything in this film does take on significance - a genius who spends two years on a film, is done a great disservice when it is not analysed carefully and seriously, and dismissed outright as irrelevant. It is a film but it is a film in the true sense of the word - a film with rich artistry and amazing direction. Watching it a second time and I cannot see how this movie has any faults - I would even go so far as saying that there is not one bit out of place, not one moment too prolonged, not one piece of acting out of place. Even though the ending may be a bit suspicious to some, it showed that while Kubrick may have had little respect for human beings (self destructive), he understood us as individuals, respected the bonds that tie and had a greater faith in us than many would suggest. While jealousy can introduce rot, there is also this human capacity to forgive - to see that reality and dreaming, while they can have their impacts, cannot totally sum up one's achievements - especially over one day. This is a masterpiece that really makes you sad that there will be no more from this great director. Instead, we will have to put up with the traditional hollywood quick editing, standard choices direction we're used to. If Spielberg dies soon, then there'll be no great directors left (ok, there's scorsese and allen - but not really same standard here).
90/100
PS. I should mention the music. Kubrick has made some extraordinary choices in the music of this film. Firstly his use of Shostakovich's waltz. A perfect touch that has this dreamlike and european quality to it. But most importantly is the unbelievably brilliant piece played on piano. It consists of three notes F sharp, G and A. F sharp followed by G is played over and over again at different octaves (those two notes are played on "black" and "white" notes - as if mirroring the breakdown of the black and white boundaries). Then all of a sudden, at the intense moment an A- it strikes like a missile hitting Baghdad. A tone higher than the G, it is so percussive, so out of place, that it jumps at you. This is masterful musical writing but just like Space Oddyssey's music, finds its rightful place in this film. That A is like you've defined the boundaries - black and white, and then out of the blue you hit somewhere totally outside this structure. And the movie does this continuously - it hits you outside its own structures. Then there's Mozart's requiem in the cafe as Bill reads the news of the prostitute's death (the front page is "lucky to be alive" - a little Kubrick nudge about how Dr Bill is feeling). Kubrick did a shocking thing by commissioning work for the movie - the stuff you hear when Alice confesses her dreams to Bill and the masked orgy haunting music is the work of a modern composer. But it is seamlessly interwoven into the texture of the film. If only I had time to examine this movie in more detail. Not one thing is out of place, not one thing is done without meaning and even if it doesn't have meaning it's deliberate. Everything is thought out.