Eyes Wide Shut: A Farewell to the Great Cinema
This film is an event, a cinematic milestone. It’s a final farewell from the grand cinema that passed into eternity with masters like Fellini, Visconti, Renoir, and Kubrick.
Kubrick remained silent for twelve years. Then, he dedicated four years to this project, with a year and a half spent filming. Secrecy shrouded the production. One star-studded acting duo (Harvey Keitel and Jennifer Jason Leigh) was replaced by another (Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman). Rumors swirled about the film’s scandalous, almost pornographic nature, fueled by the director himself, who promised an “erotic thriller.” Upon completing the film, Kubrick passed away, leaving behind a multitude of mysteries. This created fertile ground for speculation: every critic, perceiving a flaw, suspected a producer’s conspiracy and the secret substitution of the author’s vision with a dilettante’s. The producers insist that the director completed everything as intended, even agreeing to amendments proposed by American censors. The orgy scene threatened the film with an NC-17 rating, severely limiting its distribution. Consequently, 65 seconds of the film were edited: digital figures were superimposed to obscure the most explicit details. The events remain clear, but without graphic realism. This earned the film a more lenient R rating. Some European countries opted for the director’s cut.
The critical reaction to the film is strikingly diverse. Many critics resembled horses with blinders, their vision narrowly focused. They anticipated a new “Lolita,” or even an “Emmanuelle,” or perhaps a “Caligula,” but instead received a psychoanalytic odyssey into the depths of the modern soul. A cry of “Where’s the eroticism?!” echoed across a disappointed America. Viewers and critics emerged not merely disappointed, but embittered!
The Enigma of the Source Material
The choice of material itself was a mystery. Kubrick adapted an old (1926) novella by Arthur Schnitzler, an Austrian playwright, physician, and friend of Freud. He transposed the story to contemporary New York. Tom Cruise plays Dr. Bill Harford, a successful physician, and Nicole Kidman plays his wife, Alice, an art gallery specialist. At a lavish Christmas ball hosted by their billionaire friend Victor Ziegler (played by director Sydney Pollack), both engage in blatant flirtation: Alice with a passionate Hungarian, Bill with two models. At home, a scene of jealousy unfolds. Alice vengefully admits that she, too, has not always been faithful to her husband’s trust. This is the setup, after which Bill embarks on a strange journey through the deserted nighttime streets of New York, during which he discovers the secret lives of human souls and the abyss of his own subconscious desires. The film culminates in a grand, Gothic-style scene of a mysterious orgy in a luxurious country mansion. It resembles both a Venetian carnival and a somber sacrificial rite. The demonstrative, deceptively naive kitschiness of the episode fueled speculation about the master’s senile degeneration, his inability to portray eroticism erotically.
A Direct Authorial Message?
However, if there is anything archaic in the film, according to many, it is the presence of a direct authorial “message,” a moral explicitly stated in the final episode. Kubrick had no intention of arousing the public. There is plenty of nude female bodies in the film (critics lamented: where are the male ones?!), but it is presented contemplatively, as in a museum. The Botticelli-esque images of the film are beautiful but frigid, highlighting the inner emptiness and coldness of the characters. Sex seems detached from the individual – it exists independently as an obligatory and therefore almost tiresome ritual, like a haunting nightmare. In the orgy scene, figures copulate in masks and hooded cloaks – they are faceless, their actions somnambulistic and devoid of passion. It is merely a process of self-gratification.
This is a recurring theme in Kubrick’s work – the dehumanization of the individual and society. The same demon – not of sex, but of violence – haunted the characters of “A Clockwork Orange.” And in “Dr. Strangelove,” the obsessive idea was utterly detached from humanity, transforming people into machines.
Fear and Obsession
Kubrick’s widow, Christiane, believes that “Eyes Wide Shut” is about fear, about the ghosts that possess the characters. It is no coincidence that many scenes stylistically resemble “The Shining,” which the author called not a horror film, but a “film of terror.” This denotes a deeper, heavier, more painful kind of horror, not intended for entertainment. The theme of sex as an obsessive idea in the new film is linked to the theme of death. This connection is literally realized: at the bedside of her recently deceased father, a woman feverishly confesses her love to a bewildered Bill. Death is the leitmotif of the film, constantly reminding us of its presence in news reports, newspaper headlines, even in the whitened carnival masks, even in the phosphorescent, otherworldly color palette of the film. New York here is strangely deserted, dark, and perpetually rainy. The actions of the characters are best described as “wanderings” – they are aimless, chaotic, and illogical, like the actions of a rabbit hypnotized by a snake. The only one who escapes the general hypnotic sleep is Ziegler. He is businesslike and engages in sex in between signing papers. The businessman feels comfortable in this world devoid of romance; he is at home here.
The film has a unique, otherworldly rhythm. Everything is slowed down, as in a dream. Phrases in dialogue are not spoken, but dropped – slowly, word by word. Those who see the film in its original language will be fortunate: dubbing will destroy this magic.
Kubrick has once again proven that he is more than just a film director. He has combined cinema with pantomime, even opera; the vibrating atmosphere of his films suggests the musicality of their nature. Hence, the constant disregard for plot logic and simple explanations of what is happening – everything lies in the realm of the subconscious and hidden emotions. In “Eyes Wide Shut,” the surrealism of the atmosphere has become the content, the main element of the cinematic action. To expect salacious pornography is short-sighted and even foolish – there is no more sex here than violence in the semi-balletic “A Clockwork Orange.”
This is a film about psychological impotence, when love is replaced by habit and resembles an emptied vessel. About love that is “engaged in” without experiencing anything significant. The idea of fidelity declared in the finale is presented straightforwardly and disarmingly naively. But the moral is not the point. The images of the film enter the subconscious and linger for a very long time. Kubrick’s film is a mourning ribbon that the genius of cinema, upon departing, laid at the tombstone of an already barren world. His next film was to tell the story of intelligence, already completely artificial, overgrown with synthetic flesh and in every way resembling a human being. And this would have brought the odyssey to its logical conclusion.
Hits are released on our screens immediately after their New York premiere. The film that everyone is waiting for, has heard so much about, and is so intrigued by, is inexplicably delayed. Theaters know nothing about it. Domestic video companies are in no hurry. It is already clear that there is no need to rely on the enthusiasm of distributors. So, the appearance of the first DVDs in the “Purple Legion” salon can be considered the long-awaited Moscow premiere of Stanley Kubrick’s last film.