EYES WIDE SHUT
Being somewhat of a fan of the mighty (and now, very dead) Stanley Kubrick, naturally I was excited at the prospect of a new movie, some 12 or 13 years after his last one. Although I didn't realize it at the time, most of his movies have this vaguely "desolate" character about them. People walk in and out of huge empty rooms and they seem like tiny plastic figures, the noises of their footsteps are amplified and echoed to the outside world, as if to emphasize their complete and utter disconnection from the scene itself. This particular framework was played out especially in 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Shining. The main thematic backdrops to all of his movies was dislocation, filtered as it were through this ominipresent feeling that no matter how hard people tried, they would always misunderstand each other and ultimately they would revert back to their pre-facto coccoon-like existence. He's invested this notion in all the genres, pseudo-political satire (Dr. Strangelove), science fiction (2001), horror (The Shining), war (Full Metal Jacket), and whatever you want to call it (A Clockwork Orange). So I was expecting to see Kubrickian (or Kubrickesque) dysfunction in the new Eyes Wide Shut, released a few weeks ago. Well, of course, it was dysfunctional---the characters who habitated this world were not upstanding representatives of family values, and Dan and Marilyn (Quayle) would not recommend this movie to their kids. At the same time, there was something vaguely conventional about the movie, in a sort of upper class New York way, like a Woody Allen movie (which never have black people even though they're always in New York) that isn't funny. Kubrick's convention is decadent, but the completely over-the-top decadence of most of the principal characters of the move make it the kind of conventional that conservative rich assholes who go to Paris fashion shows would like. Maybe that was the whole point of all this---to make these rich folks more distasteful than they really are. Casting Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman was either a stroke of genius (I mean they are the quintessential rich snooty hollywood couple) or complete idiocy (how are we supposed to forget that Tom is probably reading scientology booklets inbetween the takes of various orgies, etc.).
There's no way, you could call the movie "not weird." It was very weird. Basically some kind of meditation on the consequences of infidelity, both imagined and real. The woman imagines it, the man tries to do it for real. Kubrick draws some kind of moral equivalence, (unwittingly or willingly) bolstering male-female stereotypes that women live with their fantasies and men don't. The most telling moment in the movie is a confrontation between the Husband (Cruise) and the Wife (Kidman) in which the Husband reveals his sexist notions that women don't "really" think about debauchery because they are just inherently more chaste---whereas men are just pigs, they'll fornicate with anything that moves. To the shock of Husband, Wife dispels that notion, laughing in Husband's face. It's a powerful moment, skillfully done by Kubrick, and you think that the film will ultimately hinge around challenging Husband's very traditional interpretation of the dynamic between men and women. Umm, no. Kubrick just trots out a vast array of naked women (and I mean a vast array) whose only goal in their lonely New York existence is to be passive sexual objects for the very clothed men. (No men are naked in this movie). Sure, women have sex, but not because they enjoy it, because they like to just hang around and please men and walk around naked. So, yeah, the movie was kind of ridiculous, and kind of offensive. Some of the scenes are stunning and beautifully filmed, the music is excellent, the movement of the actors is well choreographed, but the movie is kind of sterile. And I mean that in a bad way, because in 2001, sterile was good. So Kubrick produced another weird movie to end his brilliant career, but it was the kind of weirdness that makes you think New Yorkers are boring. No earth-shattering observations about disconnection or alienation. And maybe that was his last very deliberate epitaph. That we can all be saved if we have sex.
For those with an appetite for Kubrick in general, I highly recommend going to this site. It's packed with cool stuff.
EYES WIDE SHUT READER ADDENDUM
[Editor: I got this from one unusually upset Fred reader about Eyes Wide Shut]
What the hell is with the people reviewing the Stanley Kubrick movie?
What the hell is with the people reviewing the Stanley Kubrick movie? Why has every reviewer of Eyes Wide Shut suddenly been possessed to exhibit more than Nicole Kidman? I don't need to know every emotion you've projected on to each and every Stanley Kubrick movie! I don't need to know your favorites and the peculiarities of each that make you come in your pants! I don't need to know how you've been masturbating for the last 15 years during "2001," "Dr. Strangelove," all his "classics," only to be disappointed by Eyes Wide Shut! TOO MUCH INFORMATION!! Stop wallowing in your love affair with your reclusive intellectual genius artiste whose romantic death during his mangled 'final masterpiece' only enhanced the pathetic image you've invented to cover up your own impotence! Onanate in your own space, buddy, not mine!
Can't bear it? Then, STOP WATCHING EYES WIDE SHUT, FOR GOD'S SAKE!! I mean, get a bloody life! Stanley Kubrick was just a person! And he was considerate enough to make a three-hour oasis of air-conditioning in a fucking hot summer.
-Disgruntled in Manhattan (long-time listener, first-time caller)