heh
As much as I loved William Carlos Williams when I studied modern American poetry, I have been, from an early age, chromophobic.
I think Kubrick would be very proud that his film led to a thread that discussed subtext, context and pubic hair.
HA HA HA
“I have read a few books covering the film and in one called Love and Death In Kubrick, the author, who I believe is Patrick Webster, said that Eyes Wide Shut could possibly have been shown in a different cut had Kubrick lived longer.”
Yes, Kubrick’s editing process was often an extended period of gradually pruning a film down into a tighter, more concise form, often running right up until the film’s release. It doesn’t seem too likely that EYES WIDE SHUT would have changed shape in any drastic way, but it’s likely that EYES WIDE SHUT would have lost some material. And I daresay EYES WIDE SHUT has some material to lose; in its current state, it’s a bit bloated.
I can’t say I agree with most of your analysis on a deep level, but in general I think you’ve made some fine points about what Kubrick was doing. I won’t go into some long winded explanation of my feelings of the film, since one could literally never stop talking about the meanings of details in this film. But as for the title, I feel that “Eyes Wide Shut” directly refers to dreams reflecting reality, and refers more specifically (thematically) to the relationship between the seen and unseen forces governing the social world at large, and more specifically the interaction of these forces with the stratified social landscape depicted in the film. I don’t think I could go further than that thematic statement without going into actual plot details and analysis and getting at more allusive themes and ideas. Also, MOST of what we see in the film is not dream (I do not see Bill’s journey as simply a dream), in my interpretation; but the idea of dreaming, perhaps the content of dreaming, is often hinted at by Kubrick as being of import as a symbolic code for demystifying social realities. The dream-like visual form of Kubrick’s film takes on this very attitude of demystifying reality through carfully placed symbolic codes, and it is these codes that take on the metaphorical essense of “dream” in his film. The actual “dream” is for the audience, and lies in Kubrick’s visual telling of the story, which is to divide it conscious and sub-conscious visual attributes, or more plainly put it’s surface plot and its hidden meaning. The placement of symbols often work well alone in this film, but understood and taken together work like clockwork in expressing the films very vast an encompassing themes.
“I don’t know who Arthur Schnitzler is”
He wrote the novella that Eyes Wide Shut is based on . . . and also the play on which Ophuls’s La Ronde was based.
Guys …
Think about the filmmaker you are analyzing.
This is the man who mined for laughs in child molestation and global thermonuclear war. This is the man who ironically and rightfully turned most of Freud and Jung and pop-psychology on its ear and exposed a lot of its silliness. This is the man who took on the entire seemingly ambiguous universe with its own ambiguity. This is the man who did his very best to highlight and ridicule so many of mankind’s foibles and failures and almost always in as sardonic a way as he could.
Eyes Wide Shut, a superior film, correctly noted, is a beautifully structured and accomplished comedy. The joke of the film is that in the entirety of all the sexual tension and the sexual longing and the sexual danger and the sexual intrigue and the sexual atmosphere and the sexual innuendo that saturates the story, and which leads to suspicion and doubt and mayhem and even death, nobody actually ever gets to have sex!!! The last line of the script punchlines the whole story!
Kubrick, as always, really is getting the last laugh.
@Christopher- You might be right, but if you are, Kubrick is also laughing at many of Eyes Wide Shut‘s most vocal fans who don’t think of it as a comedy. (like Scorsese ,for example, who describes the film with words like “raw” and “intimacy” and “intense”)
Comedies can’t be “raw” and “intimate” and “intense”?
@Roscoe- Comedies can be raw, intimate and intense I guess, but I am not sure I would leap to use those words to describe a movie that was essentially comic.
TwoPlus — I wouldn’t use those words to describe EYES WIDE SHUT — I didn’t see it as being particularly raw or intense. Kubrick’s familiarly chilled atmosphere frankly precludes much in the way of rawness, and I never found the film terribly intense or intimate, except during Kidman’s monologue (which I think is the best screen acting I’ve seen from her, fwiw).
I get a lot of amusement from observing the extremely careful, calculated, contrived social interactions in EYES WIDE SHUT. That’s the great waltz of life, baby.
Thought, granted, the first time I watched it, all I could think was: “why’s everyone acting so weird?”
Roscoe, do you honestly believe the masked ball was not meant to be a little tense? do you think it was played for laughs? How about those scenes where the men are following Cruise around to the tune of ligeti?
I think there is definitely humour in the film—there are some genuinely amusing scenes between Cruise and that Russian actor, for example—but to say that it’s meant to be a comedy is a bit of a stretch, and exactly the kind of thing i’d expect from Kubrick fanboys really.
I saw Eyes Wide Shut twice in the theatre. loved it the first time, and enjoyed it the second time, but not nearly as much. in the second session though, the masked ball sequence got a few laughs. unintentional ones. It annoyed me at the time, but in retrospect, something tells me they were right to laugh.
@ Joks
In 1997, Kubrick said to me he hoped people would get the joke of “this next thing” he was doing because they never got the hilarity of The Shining.
Joks — I never said that the film was a comedy. I think there’s some good mean humor in the film, of course. But since you bring it up — I think the film is more of a satiric drama than anything else.
As for the orgy sequence, I think it was meant to be tense, sure, but I don’t think I ever felt any of that tension during the sequence. I certainly don’t think it was played for laughs. Likewise the scenes where Cruise thinks he’s being followed with Ligeti on the soundtrack.
I guess part of the problem was that I never really believed all the folderol about Harford/Cruise being in any real danger. The threats and all seemed frankly silly, which I guess is the point about Harford/Cruise’s extreme naivety. Who’s going to commit murder over an orgy? I always saw Ziegler/Pollack’s big speech as the capper to the joke — of course — nobody committed any murders over an orgy, and Harford/Cruise has been tying himself into knots over nothing
@ 2+2
The beatings, killings and rapes in A Clockwork Orange are also very raw and intense, yet the film gets the last laugh. The end of the world via nuclear destruction in Strangelove is very intense, and the use of “We’ll Meet Again” couldn’t be more intimate, yet we’re all laughing hysterically. The cold display of ambition that makes up the whole story of the rise and fall of Barry Lyndon is intense in its very ponderousness, yet the joke is that despite all that ambition, he never really went anywhere.
Kubrick loved smokescreens, and was a master at using them to disguise the centers of his ideas and themes.
“to say that it’s meant to be a comedy is a bit of a stretch, and exactly the kind of thing i’d expect from Kubrick fanboys really.”
Not if you know anything about Schnitzler and the other things he wrote it isn’t. And Kubrick knew what he was doing. At one time (in the ‘70s, I think), Kubrick had actually considered adapting the novella with Steve Martin as the lead (which, given Martin’s persona at the time, must have been conceived as an even more blatent comic treatement).
^^It doesn’t matter what the source material is. What matters is how it plays. and there are people out there that accused Kubrick of missing the point of the original work anyway(which i haven’t read).
“satiric drama”
sure, but what is it satirising exactly? apart from the naivety of an upper middle class moron like Cruise? What’s it trying to accomplish with these goals in mind? What’s it got to say about ego and sexuality within this specific context that is actually meaningful? and how is it saying it, more specifically? if anything at all?
“sure, but what is it satirising exactly? apart from the naivety of an upper middle class moron like Cruise? What’s it trying to accomplish with these goals in mind? What’s it got to say about ego and sexuality within this specific context that is actually meaningful? I think viewing it as a comedy makes it seem even more superficial.”
I don’t see how viewing it as a comedy makes it seem even more superficial, unless one thinks that comedies are inherently superficial, which I hope you don’t do — such an attitude strikes me as the height of cultural stupidity.
I thought it was satirising the very knots that Harford/Cruise was tying himself into over what turned out to be absolutely nothing, along with the sense of sexual ownership that makes relationships into such an ordeal that the revelation of a partner’s momentary, powerful desire for someone else can set him off on a rather strange Dark Night of Unconsummated Desires.
That’s what I always got out of it. Works for me.
I’ll admit to finding the Harfords’ combined naivety a bit hard to believe in. They’re so Deeply Shaken by the film’s events, it seems a bit much. I was involved in a rather troubled relationship when the film was released, and remember thinking that if these two were this Disturbed over Bill’s little misadventures, they’d have been strapped into straitjackets over what I’d been through with my then-partner. Of course, the Harfords comparative complacent coziness is part of the point of the film, I’d say now.
^^Sure, that’s partially how i always read it too(in terms of psychology). that his ‘ego’ was threatened, and he was mostly cozy, perhaps took his wife and their relationship and her loyalty for granted—i never believed it was meant to be totally realistic, even in the late 90s—but again. i need more Roscoe, but thanks anyway ;-)
i have my interpretation of the film, but i’m curious to hear this particular defense
You’re welcome I guess.
“I don’t see how viewing it as a comedy makes it seem even more superficial, unless one thinks that comedies are inherently superficial, which I hope you don’t do — such an attitude strikes me as the height of cultural stupidity”
To me if it’s a ‘comedy’ it works against the laborious tone. that is what could make it appear more superficial.
I’m not suggesting comedies need to be lightweight, but i think this movie just feels too bogged down in its own style and pretenses to really work on that level.
Maybe Greenaway should have directed it then? hahhah. He often finds the right balance between formal rigidity, philosophical themes, and a certain dark and offbeat comedic sensibility.
So Roscoe, i’m not against the idea of an artist presenting serious ideas in a way that is playful and serious at the same time, and who enjoys ‘having the last laugh’. I just don’t think that is what Kubrick is doing most of the time. It’s certainly what Greenaway is doing.
“What matters is how it plays”
Plays to whom? If people are telling you it’s a comedy, doesn’t that suggest that, to these people at least, it played like a comedy?
@Matt- You have triggered an “oh I see” moment. Having just recently watched three Ophuls, I now see Eyes Wide in that light. La Ronde is indeed similar- though it shows its hand as a satire more blatantly, and it also is much more cohesive, despite the intricacy of the shooting style. To be honest, it didn’t “reach me” either (in fact I like Eyes Wide much more, despite my criticism) But I’m glad you mentioned it. I remember now that Kubrick was an Ophuls fan. hmmmm. interesting. and as I mentioned earlier Le Plasier featured a mask…
Ophuls definitely had a lighter touch (Kubrick sense of humor was a several shades blacker).
“sure, but what is it satirising exactly? apart from the naivety of an upper middle class moron like Cruise? What’s it trying to accomplish with these goals in mind? What’s it got to say about ego and sexuality within this specific context that is actually meaningful? and how is it saying it, more specifically? if anything at all?”
@ Joks
Beyond satirising an upper middle class moron, the film satirises the social norms that we don’t look beyond and accept at face value; this goes beyond the main protagonist to include practically every situation and character in the film. The film satirises humankinds varying conceptions of value, and how this leads to disconnects throughout society that can be both recognized and accepted or ignored and subconsciously integrated by a given individual, usually at their own loss through miscomprehension and subsequent manipulation. The film doesn’t just connect a superfically entitled affluence with a wilfull ignorance (Bill Harford), but also exposes the ignorance behind varying conceptions of affluence and their adopted properties. The film also explores different segments of society with their social biases and the impenetrable causes of seemingly irrational, immoral, or unethical behaviours; from the wealthiest character’s (Zeigler) to the poorest (the student prostitute needing money through prostitution to pay for her education), the film explores the neccesity of actions from the the highest places of motive/necessity to the lowest places of motive/necessity. However I think no Kubrick film can be done justice with labels such as drama, tragedy, comedy, sci-fi, or satire, since all of his films incorporate various elements for the purpose of exposing social truths, fears, and hopes. Although this may seem to fit with the idea of satire, Kubrick is really moving beyond this to something entirely different, and completely unique. So bantering back and forth about genre labels for this film is futile, and I believe it misses the overarching motive for Kubrick, which is to get us to look at ourselves, our feelings, and our place and moral stance in relation to the world around us; therefore a serious tone is necessary, and satiric point-making becomes inevitable.
“I don’t see how viewing it as a comedy makes it seem even more superficial, unless one thinks that comedies are inherently superficial, which I hope you don’t do — such an attitude strikes me as the height of cultural stupidity.”
“I thought it was satirising the very knots that Harford/Cruise was tying himself into over what turned out to be absolutely nothing, along with the sense of sexual ownership that makes relationships into such an ordeal that the revelation of a partner’s momentary, powerful desire for someone else can set him off on a rather strange Dark Night of Unconsummated Desires.”
@Roscoe – I agree that being a comedy doesn’t make a given film automatically more superficial. But I feel you are using that term wrong with this film, as it encompasses so much beyond merely the satirising of ideas and attitudes. In other words the term seems to narrow a discussion and directs argument of this film to too sharp a point. It may very well, to a level, be satirising exactly what you say it is, but this does not come close to doing justice to what the film becomes, and is, in its totality. To me the film is like a row of domino’s and each domino could have a potential heading, such as “marriage and family dynamics”, “career and life decisions” “poverty”, “cultural confusion”, “class entitlement”, “class expectations”, “role-playing”, “masochism” “social control” “relative-value of goods and services” “the value and failure of education”, etc, etc…
^ Now we’re getting somewhere.
heh Kubrick is being rehabilitated…
“I agree that being a comedy doesn’t make a given film automatically more superficial. But I feel you are using that term wrong with this film, as it encompasses so much beyond merely the satirising of ideas and attitudes. In other words the term seems to narrow a discussion and directs argument of this film to too sharp a point. It may very well, to a level, be satirising exactly what you say it is, but this does not come close to doing justice to what the film becomes, and is, in its totality.”
@Thearshman — Please don’t put words in my mouth. I never said the film was a comedy. I don’t think it is a comedy. We agree, I think that Kubrick’s films in general and EYES WIDE SHUT in particular transcend mere genre classification, and that there’s a great deal going on in the film. I was not seeking to do justice to the totality of what the film becomes and is in its totality. My posts were a statement instead of what were for me some of the most interesting aspects of it.
“he film satirises humankinds varying conceptions of value, and how this leads to disconnects throughout society that can be both recognized and accepted or ignored and subconsciously integrated by a given individual, usually at their own loss through miscomprehension and subsequent manipulation”
Sure, but it’s not the meaning i’m concerned with necessarily, it’s how the meaning is produced within the tonal framework mentioned earlier. My interpretation of the film isn’t that much different from yours, but it’s more the ‘spin’ that is being put on it that throws me.
“. Although this may seem to fit with the idea of satire, Kubrick is really moving beyond this to something entirely different, "
Bingo.
and i think Dr.Strangelove can comfortably be labelled a satire without taking much away from it.
Great response btw.
Two Plus Two
@Matt. I don’t know who Arthur Schnitzler is… I’ll look him up, but before I do, I am going enjoy the Dr. Seus- like creature that popped into my head upon reading his name.