12 Films of Christmas: Eyes Wide Shut
Yes, believe it or not, this one's a Christmas movie. This excerpt from Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas explains why:
At a Christmas party, Manhattan physician Bill Harford (Tom Cruise) and his wife Alice (Nicole Kidman) are sexually propositioned, separately; she turns down her suitor because she's married, but he seems to send his away only because he is called into service when the mistress of the party's host (Sydney Pollack) overdoses in the bathroom.
The following night, Bill and Alice smoke pot and ask each other about the events of the night before. They argue over whether or not men and women think about sex differently, and Alice admits that, years earlier, she saw a Naval officer when she and Bill were vacationing in Cape Cod. If the officer had wanted to, she would have thrown away her kids and marriage just to make love with him one time; not having done so, however, made Bill dearer to her than ever before. This revelation sets Bill off on a tour of New York's sexual underground, from a chat with a prostitute (Vinessa Shaw) to an encounter with an erotically precocious young girl (Leelee Sobieski) to a mysterious orgy outside of town.
Stanley Kubrick's final film is most often remembered for pairing the then-espoused Cruise and Kidman in a movie that addressed strong sexual themes in the context of marriage, but Christmas weaves its way through the film from start to finish, as does a murder mystery that might or might not involve the woman whose life Bill saves at the party. Kubrick underlines his story's ambivalence about marriage, home and family by unspooling his tale in a season of familial warmth and closeness. There's a perverse sense of humor about the movie -- on the night after the party, Bill finds sexual opportunity around every corner, but when he goes out again actively looking for it, all doors slam in his face. Since Kubrick preferred to shoot everything in England, there's a certain fakiness to his Manhattan -- it's certainly not as lavishly lit as the real thing is around the holidays -- but Eyes Wide Shut is nonetheless a provocative movie that seems, like many of Kubrick's films, to get better with each passing year.
Fun facts:
Kubrick was said to have considered Steve Martin for the lead role.
Kubrick includes several self-referential moments in the film: a sign reads "Bowman" and one of Bill's patients is named "Kaminsky," which were the names of two of the astronauts in 2001: A Space Odyssey; a VHS cassette of Full Metal Jacket is visible in Bill's apartment; the mask Bill wears to the orgy is modeled from the face of Ryan O'Neal, star of Barry Lyndon; Blume in Love -- directed by Paul Mazursky, who made his acting debut in Kubrick's Fear and Desire -- airs on a TV set.
Eyes Wide Shut is generally considered to be the longest continuous shoot in film history; Cruise and Kidman signed contacts tying them to the production for as long as Kubrick needed them, but Harvey Keitel and Jennifer Jason Leigh both dropped out due to commitments to other films. They were later replaced by Pollack and Marie Richardson.
Check out the rest of Movieline's 12 Films of Christmas as they're revealed this week and next.
Subscribe to the new Movieline on YouTube
Comments
My favorite bit about this, one of my favorite movies, is how it unfolds in a certain manner and then at the highpoint (the orgy) it folds back in the same order as before. It's wonderful as it tracks the characters journey, and then his desire to return to who he was before, but then at the end, he realizes that he can't go back to the before.
It nails one of the themes of the movie - that you can revisit the past, but it's over and done with no matter what you do.
This is an amazing film. I urge anyone who didn't like it to watch it again. I hated it the first time, but knew that there was genius in there somewhere. And I knew that, like all Kubrick films, it takes multiple viewings to really appreciate. I actually believe that for more of the general public to embrace this film like they have with 2001, The Shining, and Clockwork it is going to take another 5-10 years (For the record, it's not as good as those 3). Most of Kubrick's films took at least a decade for people to really understand and appreciate.
The main problem with Eyes Wide Shut is the Tom Cruise factor. Most people just cant take him seriously anymore and he has become a caricature of himself. It will take several years for people to be able to look at him as the character in the film and not as himself (the fact that his wife in the film was his wife in real life doesn't help). Imagine if Brad & Angelina did a serious film about the troubles of marriage (no, Mr n' Mrs Smith doesn't count). Would you be able to look at them as different characters? I don't think I could. Just give it some time and all those preconceived notions we have about actors are usually forgotten.
Another reason the film has not been widely embraced is because the commentary on our society was not well understood by the audience due to the fact that they were too close to it. For example, if you were to ask me today to define teenage pop culture in the 80's it would be pretty easy. But if you were to ask me in 1987 to define teen culture in the 80's it would be nearly impossible to accurately do so, because I would be too close to it.
That closeness paired with the strong sexual content made for uneasiness, disgust, and a large disconnect between the way audiences perceived the film and the way Kubrick intended it to be perceived. As time goes by, it gets easier for us to view in an more objective way and therefore it is much more enjoyable. Maybe Ill watch this instead of A Christmas Story with my family this year... Or not.