EYES WIDE SHUT
Eyes Wide Shut was not written solely by Kubrick. It
is based on the novel Traumnovelle by Arthur Schnitzler,
and Kubrick also had assistance with the screenplay from Frederick
Raphael. It is almost three hours long, and there are definitely
times when the pace need not be so slow. The beginning of the
film, in particular, drags noticeably — before we have come
to understand the need for such a thickly measured tempo. As the
tension builds, aided greatly by the use of a compelling musical
score by Jocelyn Pook, this choice is more understandable, as
every second seems to be weighted with meaning. The use of bright,
primary and secondary colors is noticeable throughout (I haven't
seen such a blatant use of color lighting since Dick Tracy);
rainbows are mentioned several times, as well as many startling
visual images, many of them involving sex or nudity.
The film centers around Dr. Bill Harford (Tom Cruise), a physician
in New York whose wife Alice (Nicole Kidman, Cruise's real-life
spouse) gets his jealousy juices flowing by admitting to him that
she was attracted to a man they met some years ago. Unable to
get the image of her making love to the man out of his mind, Bill
intentionally seeks to venture outside his marriage for sex. He
attempts to hire a prostitute, but is unable at the last minute
to cheat on Alice. Then he meets an old friend who tells him of
an exclusive, masked sex party he's attending as a paid musician.
Unable to resist, Bill crashes the party with a hastily purchased
mask and a stolen password. The scenes he sees stagger the mind
(this is where Kubrick had to use digital trickery to avoid an
NC-17 rating), but just as he's getting his nerve up to join in
the festivities, he is warned by a beautiful, naked, masked woman
that his life will be in danger if he doesn't leave. Soon he is
discovered, however, and begins to wonder if he'll make it out
of this sexual paradise alive.
Cruise and Kidman both do excellent work in this film; they
are called on to be more than a run-of-the-mill married couple.
Kidman hits all the points on the emotional scale, although it
is her pace that is the slowest early in the film. One can see
the evidence of Kubrick's coaching her to speak and act at a snail's
pace; such evidence is seldom a good thing. Cruise is in almost
all 159 minutes of film; he is generally effective in showing
us the journey he takes, but there are moments when his delivery
doesn't exactly ring true. Of course, it's not easy to act with
a mask on . . . Credit must also be given to an excellent supporting
cast, notably Sidney Pollack — he's not on screen much, but
effective while there.
Eyes Wide Shut is an excellent cap to Kubrick's career, delving again into the depth and breadth of the human psyche, and coming up with treasure. ****½
Copyright 1999 by John R. McEwen and The Republican