EYES WIDE SHUT
Soft core porn for the mind! No matter how you slice it, there’s enough T & A and simulated sex to satisfy the most ardent voyeur in Stanley Kubrick’s swan song, "Eyes Wide Shut."
The sexual climate that created the Nancy Fridays and Dr. Ruths of the world, who proclaim that a little sexual fantasy is good for what ails you, has nothing to do with the enclosed universe Kubrick imagined from his English Xanadu. Except for a copy of The New York Post and a few P.O.V. stock shots of New York City, "Eyes Wide Shut" has no realistic sense of time and place. Even Dr. William Harford (Tom Cruise) and his wife Alice (Nicole Kidman) have no history other than the time spent on screen. They are merely pawns moving through a series of set pieces that express Kubrick’s ideas on the complex psychology of sex. The film could have been called "Eyes Wide Shut: A Sexual Odyssey." Kubrick takes the viewer on a somnambulistic journey through a sexual underworld that starts with a complacent marriage and ends on a higher plane of consciousness.
The basic plot of "Eyes Wide Shut" is simplistic at best. The Harwoods have a kid, a privileged lifestyle, and rich friends. Bill’s flirtations at a black tie affair trigger a pot- fueled jealous rage by Alice. She confesses her own compulsive fixation on a Naval officer who crossed her path a year earlier. Bill is devastated. A phone call saves him from further humiliation. A friend has died, and he is summoned to his house. Bill is propositioned by the daughter. He is a doctor. Bill is there to nurture her, not to take advantage of her. He fantasizes about his wife and the sailor. Could he resist the temptation of another woman - a hooker? Can he perform acts of pure depersonalized, unadulterated lust? If Alice is obsessed, Bill becomes possessed. Kubrick’s depiction of states of mind is the meat and potatoes of the movie. "Eyes Wide Shut" is not so much a psychological thriller (although it has some misleading elements to that affect) as a cinematic Rorschach test.
Kubrick wastes no time in showing Nicole Kidman in her birthday suit to satisfy the "will-she, won’t-she" curiosity seekers. Once done, she becomes Alice. Her body is as familiar to her husband as the furnishings of their apartment, and she has the same utilitarian value. Alice is mother, housewife, and sex object. Her presence is taken for granted. Bill’s foreplay is as clinical as his examination of his female patients. While Bill fondles Alice, she stares out at the audience, daring them to guess what’s on her mind. It’s not Bill. The context of naked bodies changes as Bill becomes increasingly aware of the decadence that exists just outside the perimeters of his sheltered life. Topless patients appear sexless, but not soulless. They have faces - personalities - and medical problems that must be dealt with. Later, silent, faceless nude women at a ritualistic orgy appear soulless, but not sexless. They exist for one purpose only. In the end, the sexless, soulless cadaver of a woman Bill knew brings home the void in his life. In the beginning of the film, muted colors in soft focus and a shallow depth of field characterize Bill’s self contained world. Later, Bill’s heightened senses allow him to embrace a deep focus world of razor sharp images of perfect female bodies and menacing cloaked figures. Lust and fear go hand in hand.
Anyone familiar with Kubrick’s films knows that he is not as interested in the real world as he is in the things that push people beyond the limits of their psyche. It could be the disgust of a Colonel in "Paths of Glory," or the sanity of a recruit who goes ballistic in "Full Metal Jacket" made thirty years later. It could even a machine with human qualities like HAL in the virtually plotless "2001: A Space Odyssey." Kubrick, true to form, uses all the tricks in the book to connect the disparate elements of "Eyes Wide Shut" like Alice’s dreams which are hauntingly described to her husband. They have an uncanny resemblance to Bill’s experiences leaving plenty of room for speculation. Some scenes seem rushed, while others build tension with long stretches of silence. I suspect that, if he had lived to see his film open, Stanley Kubrick might still be fine tuning it. Despite some of its shortcomings, I was still mesmerized by "Eyes Wide Shut." Its two hours and thirty nine minutes went by in a blink of the eye.
Suggested Video Pix
Not the obvious choice:
"Kama Sutra - A Love Story" ( 1996) - Dir. Mira Nair. A much more realistic and erotically charged tale of sex and politics in 16th Century India. Fascinating from beginning to end from the female director who made "Mississippi Masala" (1992) with Denzel Washington.
Three landmark films from Stanley Kubrick:
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) - Title tells all. A satirical look at man’s obsessive compulsion to destroy himself. What happens when a fanatical general launches a nuclear assault on Russia? The President apologizes to the Russian Premiere, the Russians counterattack, and a cowboy rides the bomb to glory! Peter Sellers heads an all star cast in three roles - U.S. President, a British Captain, and the inventor of the bomb. "Fail Safe," a more deadly serious film released the same year, basically tells the same story in realistic terms. Both are frightening.
"2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) - It still continues to inspire generations of filmmakers. Kubrick traces the dawn of man to the advent of space travel with the shake of a stick. Made with the help of special effects wizard Douglas Trumbull who had a hand in the creation of the "Back to the Future" ride at Universal’s theme park.
"A Clockwork Orange" (1971) - A futuristic world where a violent youth is punished and reconditioned by the state only to be released into a world more violent than the one he left. From on a novel by Anthony Burgess. With Malcolm McDowell.
Something from Tom Cruise:
"Born on the Fourth of July" (1989) - Dir. Oliver Stone: Cruise gives a searing portrait as real life Viet Nam Veteran Ron Kovi who came home from the war paralyzed from the waist down. The pinnacle of Cruise’s career. "Jerry Maguire" (1996) is a close second.
Something from Nicole Kidman:
"Dead Calm" (1989) - Dir. Philip Noyce: Nicole was already an established star in her native Australia when this slasher-at-sea thriller was released in the states. With Sam Neil as her husband and Billy Zane as the psycho.
Something from Cruise and Kidman:
"Days of Thunder" (1990) - Overblown race movie but this is the one that brought Cruise and Kidman together.
"Far and Away" (1992) - Dir. Ron Howard: film with an epic look without an epic script about a dirt poor Irish farmer who makes his way across the Atlantic to the Oklahoma Land Rush. The Boston scenes are the best. Colm Meany is the local kingpin who turns a brawling Cruise into a bare knuckle money making machine.