Warner Bros.
Tom Cruise is now known as an action star and “ savior of cinema , ” but in the tardy 1990s , the actor only figure out on two moving picture : Magnolia , in which he had a supporting role , andEyes Wide Shut . The latter , Stanley Kubrick ’s final movie , attract far-flung care in 1999 with its secret subject issue , drawn-out production time , and provocative teasers .
Upon its posthumous release , Kubrick ’s net film received assorted follow-up and was the issue of innumerable censorship malicious gossip . But 25 years later , heart blanket Shuthas cemented its status among Kubrick ’s lushest , most crew - pleasing seriocomical masterworks — and as one of Cruise ’s finest picture show .
Warner Bros.
A dreamlike mirage
For the uninitiated , the uncouth image ofEyes Wide Shutis a sexually provocative , danger - tinged frightfest – reductive , to say the least . The detail that good help oneself us to realise the motion picture , which was ( very ) loosely based on the 1926 Austrian novelTraumnovelle , is its production style . Kubrick , who left America for the U.K. for good in 1961 , shot his New York picture on a immense series of sets at London ’s Pinewood Studios , eerie double for the streets of Kubrick ’s birthplace , Lower Manhattan . The think Long Island mansion where our protagonist Dr. Bill Harford ( Tom Cruise ) witnesses a unavowed society ’s grandiose binge is in fact a composite plant of Mentmore Towers and Elveden Hall , two English country houses .
Eyes Wide Shutis painted in photorealistic brushstrokes – anyone who ’s ever encountered an upwardly Mobile River and prominently rich vernal Manhattan family will know the case and surroundings on display here . But the picture has little joining to realness ; it occupies , in fact , a gonzo , Baroque era fantasyland , fitting for a film based on a book whose title translates toDream Novel .
Contrasting elements made for public curiosity
One must think , as well , the fever pitch of ethnical loudness around star Tom Cruise and his leading lady Nicole Kidman , who were six years into their marriage and two of the world ’s defining CRT screen matinee idol when filming start in November of 1996 . ( Kidman plays Alice , Bill ’s pampered fellowship wife . ) Kubrick , who at long last saw the film as a comedy , corrupt the right to the novel in 1968 , and over the age envisioned Steve Martin or Woody Allen for the lead use . As it plow out , he only began nominate the moving-picture show 28 age later , returning to the screen follow a decade - plus - retentive absence after directing his Vietnam diptychFull Metal Jacket .
The flakey contrasting elements in the film ’s background – a sequestered master auteur take the world ’s hottest mainstream stars , a Woody Allen role recast with Tom Cruise , a managing director who died during the nine - calendar month postproduction operation – created a public relation boom . It ’s often forgotten that this weird and woolly film was , with its $ 162 million gross , one of the biggest summer blockbuster of 1999 . ( Movies it out - grossed that class include more traditional summer fare likeNever Been Kissed , South Park : braggart , Longer and Uncut , andThe Iron Giant . )
An aesthetically perfect story of sexual jealousy
And what a megahit . Nearly three hours of riveting , gorgeous Christmas - inflected imagery kicked into action by Alice ’s admission that she once fantasy about another man , Eyes Wide Shuttreats manly intimate green-eyed monster not as a humble and fleeting emotion but the agency it actually feel – ghostly , otherworldly , capable of transfiguration . Over the row of two picaresque December days and night ( mostly nights ) , Bill explores – but at long last decide against – whoredom , sex fad , and the hedonistic underbelly of apparently dignified old money .
Upon his reunion with his married woman , in the reassuring Christ Within of daytime , Kubrick and Frederic Raphael ’s vivid script discover this giant of insecurity as a scarecrow as Bill fall away seamlessly back into domesticated bliss . Hearing the fib of Bill ’s Gulliverian travails , Alice tells Bill that there ’s a dim-witted solution to the mutual distrust that laid the fundament for his bloodcurdling risky venture . In other Word , she arrange things into perspective . “ There is something very important that we postulate to do as presently as possible , ” she read , her optic relaxed into Kubrick ’s classic frozen lake of expressionlessness . “ screw . ” This is the last product line Kubrick ever put on cinema , and one of the bang-up closers in cinema .
Kubrickisms
Other ubiquitous Kubrick touches ? There ’s the duration of production – 15 months , including Vinessa Shaw ’s one - panorama floozie role taking two month to shoot and Alan Cumming , who only appears in a thrown-away cameo role , being storm to try out six times .
Every color , every man of costuming , the warmth of every light ( and the lights in this flick are very , almost counterintuitively , lovesome ) had to be adjusted to Kubrick ’s specifications .
Easter eggs and the ultimate moral
There ’s also the Kubrickian Easter egg , a yield for his post - The Shining(1980 ) film . In this case , one of the most famous is the trace , in the final scene , that Bill and Alice ’s daughter , Helena ( Madison Eginton ) , is kidnapped , without their knowing it , by the very secret society of which Bill earlier run afoul . This is , of course , subjective , come about largely on the outer boundary of the bod and seemingly a feature of Kubrick ’s experience leaning to give future moving-picture show students grist to chew on for generation to amount .
Whether , in fact , the movie is stool the point that the Harfords ’ oblivion goes so far as to disregard the well - being of their small girl is at long last beside the point . The movie is about the overstatement of small problems into tremendous 1 , about the perils of poke your principal into a domain not your own for no reason other than peevish curiosity and boredom . For all Kubrick ’s capacity to suggest experiential affright , the substance , at long last , is : “ Be satisfied with what you have , you schmucks . ” ( Actually , in its path , it ’s one of the gravid anti - infidelity movies . )
Critics were split
Critics did n’t uniformly embrace this heavy work upon its initial release ; Martin Scorsese described it as “ sternly misunderstood . ” It did n’t help that Warner Bros.digitally edit several sequences to head off an NC-17 rating , which launched a cosmopolitan outcry that the motion picture was being altered contrary to its deceased theatre director ’s intentions . Ultimately , the changes do n’t make too significant of an shock , but the unrated version was released on DVD in 2007 and is still available .
Eyes Wide Shut is a summer classic
At arthouse film across the country , Eyes encompassing Shutis see a Christmas flick , playing alongside other cinema unconventionally primed for the time of year likePhantom ThreadandCarol . But intentionally or not – the late livery of the net track and Kubrick ’s previous dying screwed matter up somewhat – it ’s actually , historically , a summer movie , and now is as good a time as any to watch a film that ’s as substantial and fulfilling now as it was a poop - century ago .
Eyes Wide Shutis cyclosis for free onPluto TV .
