Eyes Wide Shut operates as a vivisection of a failing marriage, and is easily one of the most incisive and abrasive comments on the idea of monogamy and the modern family unit that’s ever been put up on screen. It’s also incredibly dreamy, more than a tad surreal, and highly erotic if never being truly sexy, except for the bit with Vinessa Shaw, because there’s no way that Vinessa Shaw couldn’t be sexy. Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman took some serious personal and professional …risks here, with those risks and challenges cinematically paying off, if not personally. I love that Todd Field is THAT piano player. Kidman’s final line of dialogue to close the film is absolutely perfect, summing up the psychological stance of the film in two succinct words. The now infamous orgy sequence is something of a tour de force (the notorious prudes at the MPAA still be damned!), while Larry Smith’s hot-light cinematography singes the eyes while repeatedly playing with your expectations. There’s also a stilted quality to portions of the film which always make me feel like I’m watching Kubrick’s idea of a waking dream (or nightmare), with Jocelyn Pook’s sketchy piano-dominated score pecking away at your nerves. Arthur Schnitzler’s highly influential Traumnovelle served as the basis for the narrative with the film being co-written by Two For the Road screenwriter Frederic Raphael and Kubrick. This is an endlessly debatable film and was designed to be so, and in retrospect, feels like an appropriately cryptic and final piece of work to come from one of the most legendary and of filmmakers. Kubrick, who started thinking about the project in the late 60’s, died four days after screening his final cut for Warner Brothers execs, and it’s truly a shame he never lived to see the reception that the film received.
Podcasting Them Softly 