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Home , Absence of Malice, Bobby Deerfield, Christiane Kubrick, Eyes Wide Shut, Flying Padre, Garrett Brown

April 23, 2019 (XXXVIII:12) : (1999, 159m) The version of this Goldenrod Handout sent out in our Monday mailing, and the one online, has hot links. Style—use of italics, quotation marks or nothing at all for titles, e.g.—follows the form of the sources.

DIRECTOR Stanley Kubrick WRITING Stanley Kubrick and wrote the screenplay that was inspired by the story “Traumnovelle” by . PRODUCED BY Stanley Kubrick, Brian W. Cook (co- producer) CINEMATOGRAPHY Larry Smith MUSIC EDITING Nigel Galt

CAST ...Dr. William Harford ...Alice Harford Madison Eginton...Helena Harford Jackie Sawiris...Roz Pollack...Victor Ziegler Leslie Lowe...Illona shoestring budget, and made his first major Hollywood film, The Peter Benson...Bandleader Killing*, for in 1956. This was followed by two ...Nick Nightingale collaborations with , the war picture Paths of ...Ziegler's Secretary Glory* ** (1957) and the historical epic Spartacus (1960). As he Sky du Mont...Sandor Szavost was cementing a reputation as a great innovator in cinematic Louise J. Taylor...Gayle vision and technique in the 1960s with the tragicomedy of his Stewart Thorndike...Nuala first Oscar-nominated (Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Randall Paul...Harris Writing) Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying Julienne Davis...Mandy and Love the Bomb* ** (1964) and the aporetic, Oscar-winning Lisa Leone...Lisa (Best Effects) and Oscar-nominated (Best Director and Best Kevin Connealy...Lou Nathanson Writing) 2001: A Space Odyssey* ** (1968), Kubrick had Marie Richardson...Marion acquired the rights to Arthur Schnitzel’s “Traumnovelle,” but it ...Carl would not begin filming until 1996 in “under the veil of Mariana Hewett...Rosa severe secrecy” (Cinephilia & Beyond). The secret production would end up being Kubrick’s final film, 1999’s Eyes Wide STANLEY KUBRICK (b. July 26, 1928 in , Shut.* ** In the intervening years, Kubrick would make several New York—d. March 7, 1999 (age 70) in Harpenden, controversial and lauded films. The shocking Anthony Burgess Hertfordshire, , UK) was an American film director, adaptation A Clockwork Orange* ** (1971) and the epic Barry screenwriter, and producer. He is frequently cited as one of the Lyndon* ** (1975) were both nominated for Oscars for Best greatest and most influential filmmakers in cinematic history. His Picture, Best Director, and Best Writing. 1980’s Stephen King films, which are mostly adaptations of novels or short stories, adaptation The Shining* ** became one of the most revered cover a wide range of genres, and are noted for their realism, horror films, generating wild fan theories about the significance dark humor, unique cinematography, extensive set designs, and of architecture in the film’s haunted lodge. These are the other evocative use of music. Kubrick taught himself all aspects of films he directed (16 credits): * **** (Documentary film production and directing after graduating from high school. short) (1951), ** *** (Documentary short) After working as a photographer for Look magazine in the late (1951), ** *** (1953), *** 1940s and early 1950s, he began making short films on a (Documentary short) (1953), Killer's Kiss* ** ***(1955), Kubrick: EYES WIDE SHUT—2

Lolita* (1962), and * ** (1987), for which he infidelity. These are some other films he has acted in: Endless received his final Best Writing Oscar nomination. Love (1981), Taps (1981), The Outsiders (1983), Losin' It (1983), *Writer (1983), All the Right Moves (1983), Legend **Producer (1985), (1986), (1986), Cocktail ***Cinematography and Editing (1988), (1988), (1992), A Few Good ****Cinematography Men (1992), (1993), Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994), Mission: Impossible (1996), ARTHUR SCHNITZLER (b. 15 May 1862, Leopoldstadt, Mission: Impossible II (2000), (2001), Minority Vienna, capital of the Austrian Empire—d. 21 October 1931, Report (2002), (2003), Collateral (2004), War Vienna, ) was an Austrian author and dramatist. He once of the Worlds (2005), Mission: Impossible III (2006), Lions for responded to a question about criticisms against his recurring Lambs (2007), (2008), Valkyrie (2008), Knight themes: "I write of love and death. What other subjects are and Day (2010), Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011), there?" In 1879, he studied medicine at the University of Vienna, Rock of Ages (2012), (2012), of Tomorrow eventually earning his doctorate of medicine. He worked at (2014), Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015), Vienna's General Hospital, and then moved to exclusively (2017), and Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018). writing. He wrote work deemed controversial in late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century Vienna where there was a growing hostility to works that were frank about sexuality rooted in an increasing sentiment of anti-Semitism. In a letter to Schnitzler, Sigmund Freud mused, “I have gained the impression that you have learned through intuition—although actually as a result of sensitive introspection—everything that I have had to unearth by laborious work on other persons.” He was a member of the avant-garde group Young Vienna (Jung-Wien), where he toyed with formal as well as social conventions. His 1900 novella Leutnant Gustl was the first German fiction to use the modernist technique, made famous by and James Joyce, stream-of-consciousness narration. Schnitzler's works were called "Jewish filth" by and were banned by the Nazis in Austria and Germany, along with writings from Freud, Einstein, Marx, and Kafka.

LARRY SMITH (b. London, England) is a British cinematographer (22 credits) known for his work with Stanley NICOLE KIDMAN (b. June 20, 1967 in , ) is Kubrick, Tom Hooper and Nicolas Winding Refn. Before an Australian and American actress (84 credits) and producer (8 making his debut as a cinematographer for Kubrick’s final film credits). She began her acting career in with the 1983 Eyes Wide Shut (1999), Smith had done lighting and electrician films Bush Christmas and BMX Bandits. In 1990, she made her work on the sets of and The Shining. He made his Hollywood debut in the racing film , opposite first directorial effort in 2015’s Trafficker. These are the other Tom Cruise. She went on to achieve wider recognition with films and television series he has done cinematography for: Cold leading roles in Far and Away (1992), Forever (1995), Feet (TV Series) (1999), Love in a Cold Climate (TV Mini- (1995), and Eyes Wide Shut (1999). She received two Series) (2001), The Piano Player (2002), Fear X (2003), Prime consecutive nominations for the Academy Award for Best Suspect 6: The Last Witness (TV Mini-Series) (2003), Red Dust Actress for playing a courtesan in the musical ! (2004), Elizabeth I (TV Mini-Series) (2005), Marple (TV Series) (2001) and the writer Virginia Woolf in the drama film The (2007), Bronson (2008), The Blue Mansion (2009), The Guard Hours (2002). In 2012, she received her first Primetime Emmy (2011), Austenland (2013), Only God Forgives (2013), Calvary Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a (2014), The Man Who Knew Infinity (2015), Dark Angel (TV or a Movie for her role in the HBO film Hemingway & Gellhorn Mini-Series) (2016), The Alienist (TV Series) (2018), Tau and returned to television in 2017, co-producing and starring in (2018), and Puppy Love (2018). the HBO drama series , winning the Primetime TOM CRUISE (b. July 3, 1962 in Syracuse, New York) is one Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress as well as of the most commercially successful American actors who is also Outstanding Limited Series. These are some of the other films widely respected and recognized (49 credits). He is both known she has acted in: Wills & Burke (1985), Windrider (1986), for high-grossing action films, in particular the Mission: (1988), Billy Bathgate (1991), Malice (1993), The Impossible franchise, where he famously does his own risky Portrait of a Lady (1996), The Peacemaker (1997), stunts and for recognized comic and dramatic turns, in such films (2002), (2003), (2003), Cold as Born on the Fourth of July (1989), (1996), and Mountain (2003), (2004), Magnolia (1999), all three films for which he received Oscar (2005), (2005), Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane nominations for Best Actor. Throughout the , he was Arbus (2006), The Golden Compass (2007), Australia (2008), famously married to his Eyes Wide Shut (1999) co-star, Nicole (2010), (2011), Stoker (2013), Grace Kidman, adding a layer of intrigue to the film’s themes of marital of Monaco (2014), (2014), Strangerland (2015), Kubrick: EYES WIDE SHUT—3

Secret in Their Eyes (2015), Brothers (2016), The often playing corrupt or morally conflicted power figures. These Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017), (TV Series) are some of the other films and television series he acted in: The (2017), The Beguiled (2017), (2017), Destroyer Kaiser Aluminum Hour (TV Series) (1956), The Big Story (TV (2018), (2018), and (2018). Series) (1957), Now Is Tomorrow (TV Movie) (1958), Playhouse 90 (TV Series) (1959), Presents (TV Series) MADISON EGINTON (b. August 28, 1989 in (1960), The Twilight Zone (TV Series) (1960), Have Gun - Will County, ) is an American actress (12 credits) known Travel (TV Series) (1961), The Asphalt Jungle (TV Series) for her work on Star Trek: Generations (1994), Eyes Wide Shut (1961), Ben Casey (TV Series) (1962), War Hunt (1962), Death (1999) and the Buffy the Vampire Slayer spinoff Angel (1999). Becomes Her (1992), Husbands and Wives (1992), Frasier (TV These are some of her other film and television appearances: Dr. Series) (1994), A Civil Action (1998), (1999), Quinn, Medicine Woman (TV Series) (1996), Touched by an The Majestic (2001), Changing Lanes (2002), The Interpreter Angel (TV Series) (2000), Psycho Beach Party (2000), ER (TV (2005), Will & Grace (TV Series) (2000-2006), The Sopranos Series) (2000), and Death and Cremation (2010). (TV Series) (2007), Entourage (TV Series) (2007), Michael Clayton (2007), and Made of Honor (2008). JACKIE SAWIRIS is a Jordanian/Egyptian actress (17 credits) *Actor and Director who is best known for playing the Arabian genie Majida in Knightmare from 1993 to 1994. Other notable performances include playing Roz in Eyes Wide Shut (1999). These are some of her other film and television appearances: Undying Love (1991), Death Machine (1994), Table 5 (1997), The Big Swap (1998), The Wire (TV Series) (2003), Incendies (2010), and45 Minutes to Ramallah (2013).

SYDNEY POLLACK (b. July 1, 1934 in Lafayette, Indiana—d. May 26, 2008 (age 73) in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, California) was an American film director (41 credits), producer (48 credits) and actor (43 credits). As he was beginning a career directing for television, for series, such as Shotgun Slade (1961) and The Fugitive (1964), Pollack played a director in The Twilight Zone episode "The Trouble with Templeton" in 1961. His film-directing debut was (1965). He was ‘Eyes Wide Shut’: A Tense, Nightmarish Exploration of nominated for Best Director Oscars for They Shoot Horses, Don't Marriage and Sexuality in Kubrick’s Ultimate Fiim” They? (1969) and * (1982) in which he also appeared. His (Cinephilia & Beyond) 1985 film Out of Africa won him for directing Almost a decade passed since Full Metal Jacket hit the and producing. During his career, he directed 12 different actors theaters, and Stanley Kubrick lived a sort of a reclusive life in in Oscar-nominated performances: , , London, distanced from the press. It was then that he felt he Susannah York, , , Melinda could turn his attention to his slow-brewing passion project. In Dillon, , , Teri Garr, , the sixties, he purchased the rights to Austrian author Arthur and . Young and Lange won Schnitzler’s novella called ‘Traumnovelle,’ which translates as Oscars for their performances in Pollack's films. He also received ‘.’ Kubrick apparently felt the story was an ideal a nomination for the Palme d’Or at Cannes for Jeremiah Johnson foundation for a cinematic exploration of sexual relations and all (1972). These are the other films and television series he the tension, jealousy and passion that inevitably come along with directed: Wagon Train (TV Series) (1963), Ben Casey (TV it. Kubrick’s fourteenth feature film, which would unfortunately Series) (1962-1963), Presents the Chrysler Theatre turn out to be his last, was written by screenwriter Frederic (TV Series) (1963-1965), The Slender Thread (1965), This Michael Raphael and it soon acquired Hollywood superstars and Property Is Condemned (1966), (1968), The real life married couple Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. In 1996 Swimmer (1968), (1969), Jeremiah Johnson (1972), the production began in London under the veil of severe secrecy. (1973), (1974), Three Days of the Given the fact that the idea for the film was conceived three Condor (1975), (1977), The Electric decades earlier, it only seems fitting that, in the hands of a Horseman* (1979), (1981), Havana (1990), notorious perfectionist of Kubrick’s rank, the project would The Firm (1993), Sabrina (1995), and The Interpreter* (2005). break all records in terms of its production length. Filming took Oddly, after 20 years of not acting, arguments he was having no less than 400 days, which earned Eyes Wide Shut a deserved with Dustin Hoffman on the set of Tootsie led Hoffman to place in the Guinness Book of World Records. Sometimes suggest Pollack play his agent in the film, lending authenticity to classified by critics and scholars as a mystery-driven erotic the conflict in the film. This jump back into acting led to a thriller, Kubrick’s last movie is a complex exploration of revitalization of Pollack’s acting career, which he continued to marriage and sexuality, fidelity and jealousy, a pursue throughout the rest of his career. One of a select group of detailed, nightmarish study of human intimacy with strong erotic non- and/or former actors awarded membership in The Actors tones, carried on the performances of a highly talented cast, with Studio, Pollack resumed acting in the 1990s with appearances in excellent back-up from supporting actors such as such films as The Player (1992) and Eyes Wide Shut (1999), and Todd Field (both acclaimed filmmakers in their own right), Kubrick: EYES WIDE SHUT—4 accompanied by nice miniatures from and Rade feelings of anxiety, perplexity and tension we experience every Serbedzija. Cruise’s distanced, obvious insensitivity and certain time we see the film somehow convince us Kubrick was not far woodenness that some complained about upon the film’s release from being right. actually fits in perfectly with the filmmaker’s assumed vision: Cruise’s character leads the audience onto a voyeuristic journey of intimate self-discovery, and his performance, labeled underachieving by critics who just might have misunderstood Kubrick’s intentions, allows the viewer to more easily relate to the character by projecting their own image onto the actor’s frequently blank face. The motif of masks, the act and symbolic meaning of wearing disguise, is delightfully explored here, whether we’re talking about literal masks worn at the infamous and unfortunately digitally altered orgy (the studio wanted to get an R rating, thus changing and diminishing the great filmmaker’s last vision for financial purposes) or the metaphoric ones that the protagonists of the film, and probably every other person in the real world, wear on a daily basis. The image we choose to project from the inside, either to impress, accommodate or deceive other people, is a constant theme throughout the picture, and it’s interesting to note that the whole plot is pushed violently forward when Nicole Kidman’s character confesses fantasizing an affair, a verbal act with a lot of gravity which completely shakes the image of a faithful, loving wife she projected until this fateful moment of drug-induced honesty. Kubrick, Cruise, Kidman and Pollack watch video playback on set Kubrick relied on psychology in the process of On the occasion of the LACMA retrospective, two of preparing his lead actor and actress for the shoot. Kidman and Kubrick’s friends and collaborators reminisced about the master Cruise we’re Hollywood’s hottest couple, but during filming director’s approaches, rituals, and concerns. Tom Cruise, who Kubrick demanded complete honesty from them, leading them to starred in Eyes Wide Shut, and former Warner Bros. head Terry confess and discuss things they would most likely have liked to Semel, who oversaw the production of many of Kubrick’s films, keep for themselves. The usually fine line between reality and got together for a phone conversation that Annette Insdorf fictionbecame oblique, with more than a little help from the moderated in late August to discuss Kubrick’s brilliantly filmmaker, who made his stars sleep in their character’s cinematic storytelling. Courtesy of Interview Magazine. bedroom. These tricks resulted in magical on-screen CRUISE: We discovered that we were both Yankees performances spurred by palpable chemistry. At the same time, fans. But in that meeting, he didn’t really want to discuss certain the stretch was a bit too much for the couple, as it would soon subjects—like how he made certain pictures or the choices he turn out. Exhausted and tortured, they still remained faithful to made. But as time went on, we became great friends, and he just their visionary leader, defending him to the public with regard to broke down for me all the sequences of his movies—starting the prolonged shooting. English composer Jocelyn with 2001—and how he came up with all the ideas for each shot. Pook provided the music, even though Kubrick still liked to base It was an incredible learning experience. Working with Stanley the score on classical tunes, while cinematography was handled was a lot of fun because even though it may look like a very by Larry Smith, former gaffer on Barry Lyndon and The Shining, simple film, he was brilliant at getting under the audience’s skin. whom Kubrick promoted. It’s needless to say that Kubrick He was very interested in the idea of, “How can I tell this with remained very much involved with every single aspect of the just a camera?” I know the games that he and Sydney Pollack film’s production. used to play back-and-forth. They would trade commercials After the laborious shooting finally ended, Kubrick back-and-forth and see how much of the dialogue could be taken entered the lengthy post-production process and ultimately out of the commercial while still retaining a story and also seeing presented his film to Cruise, Kidman and the studio executives. what they could do visually with it. When you look at Eyes Wide Less than a week later he suffered a severe heart attack and died, Shut, there’s the sense of, “Is this a dream or is this a three months before the film’s premiere, unable to witness its nightmare?” and how do you handle the aspects of the story in international box office success or discuss any of the themes and such a way that you’re not resorting to the usual visual problems of this difficult project’s production. Upon seeing the techniques to say, “This is nightmare.” film, some critics believed Kubrick needed more time to finish it, You mean Kubrick was playing with formal structures? not failing to note the irony in the fact that the most notorious He was pushing the film very hard. One fascinating perfectionist ended his career with a practically unfinished film thing about Barry Lyndon was that he used the Apollo lenses in need of some obvious polishing. But in the years that followed [still photography lenses developed for NASA, modified for film its release what was established was the dominant notion use]. The speed of those lenses is startling, and he used them to that Eyes Wide Shut was indeed a complete masterpiece, just shoot in candlelight, which gives it that incredible depth of frame what the old master wanted to present to the world. Kubrick was that he’s really known for. He likes those wide-angle lenses and allegedly very proud of the film, even considering it his greatest he would often adjust the furnishing and the pictures on the wall. contribution to the world of filmmaking, and the palpable He understood those lenses completely, because a lens like that Kubrick: EYES WIDE SHUT—5 will bend the picture. It will alter it, and he made adjustments at the sets. So he knew what people he needed. And he was very because he wanted that depth, he wanted the audience to feel the smart about money. He never went back to Terry and asked for space. He was very selective when he went into a close-up. more. He stuck by the budget and did everything it allowed him Every director has his taste in a performance, but Stanley would to do—with the time he needed—to make his film. explore a scene to find what was most interesting for him. When SEMEL: I don’t think it can be overemphasized how you look at the lens choices with , for example, hands-on he was on his projects. He never became the type of when he’s in the pantry leaning against the door and Stanley filmmaker to direct from a distance. shoots up at him, its clear what CRUISE: Earlier on in his an amazing eye he had. When career, he would do all the you’re working with a filmmaker operating. When you look at with that command of The Shining, you see that he storytelling, you know right operated a lot. He did less so on away that it’s his taste, it’s an Eyes Wide Shut, but even then, extension of him. It’s not he didn’t want many people on necessarily analytical. As an the set. He wanted to keep it actor—like an artist—you have very contained and very to ask, “Why do I choose a intimate and personal. It was certain moment to play the least amount of crew I’ve something a certain way?” It’s ever had on a movie. I think he organic to who we are. I think was always looking at “How do you see through Stanley’s I bring things down to a movies that his visual command simplicity?” Annette, you was an extension of him. And in spoke about . Eyes Wide Shut he was very After that film, he went on to much pushing the film. Every work with Kirk Douglas again morning, I would go in early and we would look at the negatives on Spartacus. The original director for Spartacus was Anthony together. We would look at the day’s rushes—not with sound, Mann, but Douglas replaced him with Stanley after the first but we would look at the image, and he was checking the film to week. And, of course, Stanley and [director of photography on see how hard could he push it. There was an interesting moment Spartacus] Russell Metty didn’t get along, because Stanley, of during filming. We were shooting in the backlot of Pinewood course, really knew as much, if not more, about lighting and Studios and he had built a set to resemble New York. We were composition. Metty was used to, “You’re the director and you working on a scene where I see that a guy is following me. He stand over there and I do my work over here.” He and Metty cast a very distinct-looking actor, a bald guy with a very really came to blows on that. I think that experience changed particular wardrobe. In the shot, this guy walks across the street. Stanley’s feelings about Hollywood in terms of not wanting to go We went back and looked at the video playback; we must have through that again. spent hours studying it, just to figure out what the behavior of SEMEL: I remember he would finish a film and come to this man should be like crossing the street. Finally, Stanley said, me and say, “I, Stanley, want to create all the ad campaigns. I “Listen, when you’re crossing the street, please don’t stop staring want to do all the PR. I want to be involved in every aspect of the at Tom.” It looks like a very simple thing, but behaviorally, it movie.” He worked on every inch of how a movie got promoted. had a tremendous effect. He just immerses you with his tone. His He did the trailer. He decided when it was going to open, and in tracking shot through the trenches in Paths of Glory is which city. And all of this was done with the backdrop of, “No, I revolutionary. And it’s the same with the shot in The cannot leave London or the greater London area.” Shining with [camera operator] . That was a very CRUISE: The trailer for The Shining is stunning. And I difficult shot where the boy is racing from carpet to floor to think the one for Eyes Wide Shut is as well. carpet. That was the brilliance of Stanley: he knew how to use I remember François Truffaut telling me about 30 years the medium of film and the camera and the lens, and, of course, ago that Kubrick had a hook-up in his home that alerted him also sound. He had such command of his craft. when a projection bulb blew in a New York theater that was Tom, were you amazed by how few people he had on the showing one of his films. This was before computers were part of set? our daily lives. Was he the most exacting perfectionist with whom Yeah. In all matters of the film, he was economical. He you’ve ever worked? needed time to make the film, yes, but he also needed time to SEMEL: Without question. He would get a list of the think about the film. The script, for him, was just the blueprint. theaters that his movie would be opening in, and he would have And, as you know, as much as Stanley projected this notion of his brother-in-law go from theater to theater taking photographs. him as not being collaborative, he actually was incredibly Stanley was interested in how many people there were in the collaborative. We had a $65-million budget for Eyes Wide Shut, audience when the movie opened. His brother-in-law would and everyone thinks we ended up shooting for two years. But it photograph them coming in and out of the theater. So Stanley wasn’t quite two years. I got there in August and he gave us a knew more about what was happening day by day than I did. month off for Christmas and left about a year and a half later. But [laughs] He’d call and say, “You gave me a list of all the theaters we had a lot of vacations in between. Stanley would allow us to and I have photographs of them. This one doesn’t have good break, and that would give him time to evaluate the film and look parking and the screen isn’t very good in this theater in Denver!” Kubrick: EYES WIDE SHUT—6

I’d say, “How do you know about this theater in Denver?” So about that—people using their titles or power to allow this was not a man who just went out and made a movie. It was themselves into places and to exploit others and the situation. sad in fact that the final night before he died he had been going And the orgy is dark, but it’s not satisfying either—it’s a slow over every detail of Eyes Wide Shut—the ad campaign, the burn. In The Shining, there is the same slow burn. There is no cat trailer, everything—and it was only week or two before it all that jumps out at you. It’s a slow, slow burn that gets under your came out. He was so good at that aspect of promotion, but he skin, and it builds and becomes quite terrifying. He’s someone would often make this comment about other filmmakers: “Why who definitely understood the tone of the story that he was in the world do they go on talk telling and the consistency of shows? Do they realize that tone. So I think, personally, they’re not celebrities? They when you watch Eyes Wide make movies. Why are they Shut, yes, it’s a disturbing film. there?” But when we were shooting the CRUISE: He did not end, Stanley said, “This is a want to be a celebrity. You happy ending.” We were in a toy know, [the late director] Tony store. As Terry said, he had an Scott worked on Barry Lyndon. amazing sense of humor. And he He was in art school at the was a lot of fun to be with. time. Tony told me that he Terry, was there any serious wrote down the exact longitude thought of releasing Eyes Wide and latitude of where Stanley Shut as an NC-17 film with no wanted the camera, the exact digital covering of nudity? height of the camera, and the SEMEL: It was such a short time, to get the shot that period of time between Stanley’s Stanley wanted. Tony said he death and the release of the film. sat there for a couple of weeks I did not want our company to be trying to get the right light. responsible for changing Stanley really loved the Scott brothers. I’ve had long Stanley’s view or adding things to Stanley’s view. I just decided conversations about this with both Tony and Ridley. Stanley was in my own self that I was going to do everything I possibly could a director who did not let people borrow or rent his lens. He to make sure that the film got this rating. It’s Stanley’s movie. never gave his Apollo lens to anyone. But when Ridley was And I don’t want anyone else touching it or fooling with it. I having a really difficult time with the end of Blade Runner, don’t want to change history with it. I think the best parts of the Stanley gave Ridley footage that he had shot but didn’t use for film still shine. I just made sure that we got the rating so it could the opening of The Shining. He was offering to let him use it for be in lots of theaters throughout the world. Blade Runner. That’s how highly Stanley thought of them. CRUISE: Stanley wanted that. He wanted his movies to I want to go back to something that you said, Tom, be huge successes. He did not want an NC-17 rating. about his ability to get under the audience’s skin. In comparison SEMEL: He would call me every other week to tell me to other contemporary filmmakers, his vision wasn’t upbeat or to go back to the rating board. [laughs] To push them against the comforting. The choices he often made—a wide-angle lush wall… Tom, do you want to talk about the final nights before he exterior with a tiny human being in the center, or a crowded died? interior with few close-ups of the character, for example—give a CRUISE: What happened is, Stanley sent the final cut sense of dehumanization. If you look at Eyes Wide Shut, the of Eyes Wide Shut to New York. And the four of us watched it— mansion is an arena where cold copulation is the norm and Terry and Jane and me and Nicole. We watched it twice in a row anonymity is the condition. Do you think that bleakness was an and went out to dinner after that. I had to leave after that for integral part of his vision? Australia to start filming Mission [Impossible 2, 2000]. You SEMEL: He had a great sense of humor. I don’t think he were on the phone talking with Stanley about the movie, going saw any of that as being bleak. over everything— CRUISE: In terms of the orgy scene, that’s how Stanley SEMEL: That’s right. Stanley wouldn’t allow anyone wanted it to feel. He wanted the audience to have that reaction. else to see the cut. I think his nephew carried the print from Here’s a guy going into the dark side of life. One of the themes England to a screening room in . And he called that that the film explores is jealousy—the wife never actually lived night—“What did you think? And how was this? And how was this fantasy that she had, and the husband goes on this journey that scene?” He went through every bit of the film. And generally where he feels, I’m going to do this. But nothing ever happens. speaking, we were all very happy and excited. I said, “Stanley, He doesn’t sleep with the woman whose father has died. He I’m going to fly back to Los Angeles,” which is where I was doesn’t end up being able to participate in the orgy, and, as an living. “We’ll continue this tomorrow. We’ll talk about lots of audience, you wonder how much danger he was ever really in— details. You have notes, we have notes.” And then when you know what I mean? And yet, it does have to be dark. The tomorrow came, he was on the phone with me—which was not a character that I’m playing—and Stanley and I spoke about this— rare occurrence—for many, many hours. And it was probably is using his title as a doctor as a way to open doors and as a about three o’clock in the morning at that point, and he and I had weapon. Stanley’s own father was a doctor. People look at been talking the entire time. And he went over every detail of doctors like they know everything, and Stanley was very cynical how the movie would be released—of who would do it, of what Kubrick: EYES WIDE SHUT—7 it would look like, etcetera. It just went on and on and on. When which are the paintings themselves. While her late twentieth it was about four o’clock in the morning, I said, “Stanley, I’m century West apartment is expressive of the really tired. I’m going to go to sleep now. We can continue this couple’s taste and status, it does evoke, as Virginia Spate pointed conversation in the morning.” So I go to sleep, get up in the out (to me in a conversation), the intimate domestic interiors of morning, and in those days we had an answering machine, and the late nineteenth century Symbolist painters such as Felix there were dozens and dozens of calls on the machine, starting Vallotton, Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard. This path into with Stanley’s wife, who was insisting that they wake me up. He Symbolist art history is also made more mysterious by the briefly had died during that night. She said, “What was it like? What conspicuous presence of a Vincent Van Gogh coffee table book happened? Were you guys angry?” I said, “No, we were laughing which Alice wraps up as a Christmas present, and also the for hours. We were going over everything on that film and we painting of sunflowers on her bedroom wall. were in hysterics for hours—for many, many hours until sunlight The Symbolists experimented with colour and surface was starting to come through.” We were all in a state of shock. ornamentation around the same time that cinema was invented in I’m so happy to say that his life ended on a huge up-note of 1895. It is evident that the Symbolist aesthetic was developed as feeling success coming from his latest movie, Eyes Wide Shut. It a resistance to the mechanisation of perception. The importance was like a celebration on the phone for many, many hours and a of this moment for Kubrick, after 100 years of cinema (and lot of laughing. Later, we did an opening for Eyes Wide Shut for consequent technologisation of the human sensorium), is a charity in Los Angeles, and I got up to introduce the movie to encapsulated in the film’s title. The expressive use of what Van the audience, and I said, “This is going to be my last movie at Gogh called arbitrary as opposed to local colour is facilitated by Warner Bros.” I think all of my colleagues and the whole the garden of artifice created by the paintings. I would go further company all stopped to say, “Terry, what did you just say?” I just and say that painting forms a virtual sphere nourishing this film. felt there’s no way to top the experience with Stanley. And then The importance of colour over light is made possible by didn’t we all fly back to his funeral in his backyard? Kubrick’s refusal to use studio lighting in a film shot almost CRUISE: Yeah, we did. I was in Australia when I got entirely on a studio set. Instead of the usual studio lighting he the call. I talked to Stanley on the plane. We talked for about an used the available light sources visible in the shot, such as lamps, hour, going through the film. And then I got the call. And we Christmas tree lights and so forth. When this was not adequate he flew back for the funeral at his house in England. used Chinese paper ball lamps to softly brighten the scene. The colour was enhanced in an unusual manner in the lab where the film stock was “force-developed by two stops” in processing to bring out the intensity of colour. The cinematographer Larry Smith makes the point unequivocally: “There’s no question that with force-developing you get exaggerated highlights—they really blow out.” This is a new kind of cinematic colour invented by Kubrick, working against the standardised norms of film lighting and processing. What Dorothy Parker said many decades ago – “men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses” – is still more or less true within Hollywood generic coding. Why then does Alice wear glasses, especially when she is naked? Does Alice/Nicole play the age-old role of nude model to Kubrick the artist or is she Laleen Jaymanne: The Ornamentation of Nicole Kidman simply a naked woman who in wearing glasses creates a slight (Eyes Wide Shut) and Mita Vashisht (Kasba): a Sketch difference. If so what might this little ornamented difference be? (Senses of Cinema) Something funny is going on here between Kubrick and Kidman …As Tim Kreider said, “critical disappointment with that develops into a little joke, the kind he liked to make at the Eyes Wide Shut was almost unanimous and the complaint was expense of Hollywood codes of editing for continuity. Alice is always the same; not sexy.” True, it didn’t show Tom and Nicole helping her daughter, Helen, do her homework at the dining table making love nor was the orgy orgiastic. But the film’s colour and which is shot at an angle and framing strongly reminiscent of the light left me breathless, wanting more and more. My encounter Nabi paintings of such intimate domestic scenes. At this point with the behaviour of colour (and I insist on the activity of colour Bill comes home, sees them, goes into the kitchen, gets a beer rather than its meaning which seems to me a more art historical from the fridge and begins to hear (in his head) his wife’s concern) drew me into the film. Eyes Wide Shut is strangely confession of the previous night, about her desire for another animated by the colours of the vegetal/floral paintings done by man. As this imaginary voice torments him he comes over to the (the director’s wife). Strange because these dining table and Kidman smiles at him, her gaze slightly above colours seem to jump out of the frames on the walls, strewn with her glasses but crucially directed at us/the camera/at Kubrick, these paintings, creating an ornamented garden of artifice in the though ostensibly it is narratively directed at Tom. This look couple’s affluent New York apartment. directed at the camera (common in early silent film but Alice Harford (Nicole Kidman), the wife of Dr. Bill proscribed with the formulation of the classical Hollywood codes Harford (Tom Cruise), is an out of work curator whose Soho of editing by the 1920s) gains another dimension if one sees a gallery has gone bust. Her taste in interior decor is highly photograph of Kubrick by Christiane, taken during the decorative, creating a richly layered, textured surface of production of Eyes Wide Shut. There, Kubrick, wearing his materials, light and colour, the most conspicuous contributor to glasses, looks at the camera with the same gaze and expression as Kubrick: EYES WIDE SHUT—8

Alice and even has his eye brows shaped just like hers in the the stately Kubrick camera gets infected by, moving around to film. So what are they up to these two, playing little games, capture her impulsive convulsions on the bedroom floor. having some fun at Tom’s expense? Is Kubrick making a pass at Cinematic ornamentation here is not the same as a his bespectacled model or more interestingly are they involved in painterly plastic ornament because what is ornamented is what Gilles Deleuze called a “double becoming”? Does Alice movement and time. Alice’s ornamentation of time is not about permit Kubrick to become a little girl, playful, while Kubrick harmonious effects created by synaesthesia (the traditional take gives Nicole a chance to go on the relationship between slow, really to unwind time and sound and colour) but rather her make time itself play little sonic ornamental line is games? aberrant, unpredictable, now Bathroom – Gaseous humorous, now sad, now Blue something else, difficult to In the “bedroom name, but always moving like a scene,” the couple get stoned; gas, any-which-way. This is Bill begins a bit of foreplay what Bill senses and wants to while Alice starts questioning access in order to get out of his him about “the party last night.” solid and stolid perceptions but She gets querulous and begins the only ornamentation he can to talk about “last summer” achieve is to simply repeat the which leads to the disclosure of last word or phrase from her desire for a total stranger, to another’s speech, a mere Bill’s stupefaction. Bill wants to have sex, while Alice wants to repetition with little capacity to create a different move, a dogged unravel time; “last night…last summer” and their whole past marking of time. In Deleuzean film theory, the non- collapses into the present. Bill doggedly goes looking for sex anthropomorphic vision of the camera enables three kinds of while Alice hangs out at home and travels in another dimension perceptions; solid, liquid and gaseous. I contend that Kidman in that Bill can sense exists but does not know how to activate. her sonic performance accedes to a gaseous perception with the From now on Alice and Bill operate two different series. Bill is aid of colour. The blue responds actively, merging with the red driven by images and Alice surfs the sonic like a surfer a wave. of the curtains; becoming a purple halo around her hair. The development of time as series is one of the crucial The Orgy means of temporal ornamentation in this film. What I perceive as In Eyes Wide Shut, the encounter between painting and the virtual crack in the mirror (scene), separating Tom/Bill from film is staged within a self-conscious aesthetic awareness of the Nicole/Alice, as she turns her head away from the kiss, is a sign simulacral commodity form of the cinematic image. This (and there are several such signs) of the bifurcation of time into awareness is structural, that is, internal to the composition of the these two series, the audio and visual. The blue that fills the film, which is why the film is shot on a set; a simulated bathroom quite “arbitrarily,” behaves as if it were a gas because Symbolist New York and this is also why Kubrick wanted a it does not obey gravity, seems to go any-which-way just like married couple to play Bill and Alice. The distinction between Alice’s speech at moments heightened by champagne, dope or Bill and Alice and Tom and Nicole becomes imperceptible, the memory of a desire. A great deal could be said about simulacral. In Eyes Wide Shut, there are 12 perfect female nudes Kidman’s extraordinary performance but briefly, the main point and only one naked woman (Alice). The dozen nudes are to be sketched is that, in her speech, she stretches syllables and interchangeable commodities both because they are prostitutes vowels to a point where their semantic values are displaced by and because they are of an identical body type rendered musical values. The consequent unpredictability of what she will by being masked in the high-class orgy. Their say, of how her words will turn out, creates a correspondence speech, gestures and movements, their breasts, hips and legs, are between her speech and this blue. In this scene Alice/Kidman, all standardised. The expected eroticism of the bodies is with Van Gogh’s and Christianne’s mediation, enables Kubrick transposed into the cinematic image. The very substance of to draw out the power of colour as a transformative force. Kubrick’s film is erotic, while, despite their promise of Alice (who is figured as a Symbolist woman; the red happiness, the perfect nudes remain disenchanted commodities, head a sign of sexual potency for them) stands framed by this plastic bodies, moulded to the desire of late twentieth century blue, wearing her Calvin Klein-like underwear as though in a mediatised beauty. Kidman’s Alice, whether naked or clothed, modern-day portrait but evoking some of Van Gogh’s vibrant because of her Symbolist affiliations is able to take us elsewhere ones. Beyond a mere correspondence, the colour and sound act even in the shopping mall. [Jaymanne forgets the unconscious on each other creating a synaesthetic vibration that wafts Alice naked woman at the party who appears again as the dead naked out of the genre of the intimate “chamber play”. What is woman at the morgue. BJ] wonderful to see here is the agility of Alice/Kidman bifurcating time (creating multiple micro-series), ornamenting it at each The central orgy takes place in a palatial house whose instant, creating a range of micro-affects, sensations and interior decor consists of Islamic arches and decorative motifs. emotions while poor Bill sits high on the bed frozen in a As well, the orgies staged as tableaux are accompanied by South catatonic stare. Alice’s impulsive, girlish bursts and waves of Indian vocal music associated with erotic traditions within Indian laughter (her response to Bill’s assertion that women don’t have culture. The complex montage and modulation of multiple wild sexual fantasies), is one such micro-movement which even rhythms in this sequence occurs within a context where the Kubrick: EYES WIDE SHUT—9 perfect orgiastic bodies are de-eroticised by being subjected to a appealing obtuse look and posture of being quite out of his mechanised rhythm of copulation, while in contrast, the depth? Anyway in refusing us the grammatical reverse shot, vocalisation intimates a highly flexible rhythm marked by the Kubrick is once again calling the shots, giving Alice (in the microtones of that musical tradition. It is my contention that wonderland of the late capitalist toyshop) the power to toy with Kubrick uses decorative motifs from an Islamic visual aesthetic time, to multiply micro series, which I have called the tradition as well as a South Indian (Hindu) aural tradition, to ornamentation of Nicole Kidman….. function together as critique (“Is this hell?…lovers…” is heard sung in Tamil) and lamentation of the commodification of bodies and the consequent loss of sensuality, but simultaneously to open up a multiplicity of rhythms. In combining two traditions of ornamentation (visual and sonic) in Indian culture that both Hindu and Islamic fundamentalisms would want to eradicate, and using it not only as critique but also as intimating other temporal potential beyond the chronometric time of the pulsed bodies, Kubrick makes a transnational gesture with the kind of care and precision one expects of him. The traditional pre-industrial ornamentation he deploys here now returns as a form of pastiche, made possible by technologies of mass reproduction. It is evident that Kubrick does use the familiar bag of tricks of postmodern pastiche – citation, irony, parody – quite liberally in this film: in Richard T. Jameson: “Ghost Sonata: Eyes Wide Shut” (Film his use of music, in the highly melodramatic hocus-pocus Comment) dialogue at the orgy and in the very construction of the plot; We might begin with Todd Field's Nick Nightingale assuming urbanely that these examples of postmodern pastiche because, luckily or unluckily, Field's been hustled out of movies constitute a contemporary realism of sorts. But something prematurely of late. Disappearing summarily from The Haunting qualitatively different happens with the South Indian music was surely a blessing in disguise, deliverance on the cutting room because at that moment there is a multiplicity of differential floor. But in Eyes Wide Shut he's a fellow—like so many audio-visual rhythms: those of the copulating bodies; Tom’s slow characters in Stanley Kubrick movies—we might expect to see walk; the floating camera; and the rhythms of the song. Through more of before the final fade. Nick Nightingale, old med-school these, Kubrick creates a rasa (aesthetic sentiment) of sadness. chum of our protagonist Bill Harford (Tom Cruise), is playing This sadness is highly abstract, and precise, a function of the piano at the Upper East Side pre-Christmas party in Eyes Wide music; it is not achieved through a depiction of a sad scene. In Shut's first major sequence. (To be sure, the nude rearview of fact there is one word that modulates that particular rasa – viraha Alice Harford / Nicole Kidman more than qualifies the opening – which may be translated as a melancholy yearning associated titles as a major sequence, but you take my point.) Bill hails him with erotic loss. and they reminisce briefly about old times. But though Nick Toy Shop never completed his medical training, it seems he's ever on call, Kubrick’s film ends in a toy shop, a place of artifice to authorities both petty and potentially terrible. He's plucked unlike Schnitzler’s Dream Novella which ends in the conjugal from the narrative mainstream with barely time to leave a cue for bed room with a beam of sunlight streaming in with bird song Dr. Bill's subsequent nighttown itinerary: the Sonata Café, in the mingled with the child’s laughter enhancing the happy resolution Village and, just maybe, in a more distant time than even their of marital conflicts. I think the film ends there for the same shared past. reason that the orgy is mechanised and for the same reason that “Nightingale” seems a tad ornate, even for a guy who's the film as a whole is shot on a set (all be it a Symbolist New a night bird and who does make music. It's just the Anglo- York). They are perfectly controlled environments of late Americanization (for Kubrick's New York is, of course, a capitalism where all things and relations are under the reign of facsimile somewhere in England) of “Nachtigall,” the name in standardised exchange of commodities as signs. Arthur Schnitzler's Traumnovelle, the source work from Freud's In this space of exchange, as if remembering Dorothy Vienna that plucked at Kubrick's attention for thirty years. Parker’s comment, Alice wearing her looking glasses doesn’t Yet the American ear in 1999 hears something more in wait, she makes a pass, (at her husband), but in an unusual the name: a nudge to be open to florid possibilities; an earnest of manner, with a deadpan expression. She uses an infinitive: kidding on the square; an echo of the ghostly footsteps of another “There is something very important we need to do.” “What?” author, another medium, another era, another town, another “Fuck”, thus virtualising the actual. Throughout the film, Alice language, another lifestyle. So when we do see Nightingale has conjugated the “dark precursor”, the nonsense word “Fuck”, again—just too late to catch his set at the Sonata—we are not to replenish her conjugality with a light and perhaps also entirely surprised to find ourselves both titillated and tantalized therefore terrifying humour. This is not the Freudian dirty joke by his presentation: from an intimate low angle and in that rouses loud laughter through exclusion of the other. There is symmetrically crepuscular lighting that lends him the look of a no self or other to exclude in the infinitive which has no subject, preposterous, cut-rate Satan. a pure virtuality in language. If indeed one smiled loudly at this Is Nick Nightingale a Devil-figure in Eyes Wide Shut? ending, as I recall doing the very first time I saw it three years Not in any way that Kubrick could expect us to believe. Say what ago, the absence of the reverse shot leaves one wondering if Bill you will about Satan, he's nobody's pawn (save perhaps God's), was man enough to smile? Or would he still have that mildly and old Nick's in too deep to be Old Nick. No, he's only wearing Kubrick: EYES WIDE SHUT—10 a mask; not Comedy, not Tragedy, just Temptation, on Ziegler's…bathroom? bedroom? looking, at any rate, like a assignment from the Author. Bill Harford does all the work of chamber of Bowman's suite Beyond the Infinite in 2001: the seducing himself. Nick merely lets slip a password, “Fidelio”— wages of cold, heartless sin, and the sad lot of a playmate who, apt signal to a husband who isn't sure how errant he means to be time and resiliency having run out, is about to be obsolesced. The at an orgy he may or may not succeed in crashing. other keeps the nudity under wraps, and yet Alice Harford's end- There are other things we could say about Nick, who is of-main-title gesture—rising fully clad from the potty and briefly but inconsequentially glimpsed at the orgy on Long brusquely drying her pubes under her gown with a wisp of toilet Island, playing blindfolded (eyes wide shut?) as he said he would paper, while husband Bill checks his bowtie in the mirror—is be. His most persuasive existence is offscreen, invoked or perhaps the most startling theme-statement in cinema history. It perhaps utterly fabricated: a man with what sounds like a normal defines the conjugally intimate precincts of the dream-drama life (wife, four kids, Seattle), taken away from his Manhattan about to occupy the next two and three-quarter hours. hotel the morning after, a bruise on his face, by two men. The “My name is Sandor Szavost,” says the blond chap men represent “the authorities,” though they clearly wouldn't be usurping Alice's champagne. “I'm Hungarian”—as though it police. Hard not to think of Kafka's officers of the Court and the were a credential and he an icon so pronouncedly abstract, he end of Josef K., in another Mittel-European artwork, artworld. might shimmer away in the golden, “rainbow's end” glow of the But the main point is that Nick—and “Nightingale”—is chiefly a festive wall behind him · as he might have materialized from it, figment, a pretext, a pun: at once a token of fidelity to a prior text like Lloyd the bartender of the Overlook Hotel. Can you believe and an index of stylization. His essence is that he has been this guy? Can she? Probably not, and yet he is persuasive translated. enough, definitive enough, that the question was asked in the first How are we supposed to watch Eyes Wide Shut? Really, place. (And the actor Sky Dumont is deliciously funny.) how are we supposed to watch any Stanley Kubrick movie? Eyes Wide Shut doesn't insist on it, it's too committed to Apprehension of so many of them has shifted between initial its own imaginative reality for that, and yet almost no one and reviewing and years of re-viewing, of reconsideration from the nothing in this film of a “dream novel” can be certified as “real” vantage of a culture changed, often as not, by the films in any literal sense. Fair enough, and no problem: a film image is themselves. That's a measure of their impact on the artform and a film image is a film image, and dreams are a law and logic unto the audience, on how often the critics got it wrong. Add that not themselves—including, here, the ascertainability of just which even Kubrick could know (could he?) that Eyes Wide Shut would Harford is dreaming when. Moreover, dreamers can be, if not be a posthumous release, Kubrick's Last Film, an occasion more bad, then very naïve artists. Eyes Wide Shut is often a funnier monumental and definitive than it already, instrinsically, would movie than its solemn critics appear to have recognized. Bill have been. So some of the early, almost self-congratulating Harford's penchant for encountering redheaded shadows of his dismissals of the film have taken on the air of dismissing beloved wife bespeaks a deep ambivalence about honoring his Kubrick, too. He was, after all, an old guy—what could he have marriage vows and accepting the inevitability of so many hoped to know of sex, orgies, contemporary society, or even attractive women finding him irresistible. Bill (and this plays to New York, the hometown he may not have visited in nearly four Cruise's own strength / weakness) has a recurring ploy of decades? For that matter, what did he really know about repeating whatever someone has just said to him, then filmmaking? It's the Nineties, almost the new millennium; isn't accompanying it with a chuckle he hopes will sound this 2 hour 39 minute movie awfully slow for audiences as hip as conspiratorial, rather than clueless. He's compulsively into we? wordplay, as in his choice reply when the student / hooker Perhaps. Then again, what is “slow” and who decides? Domino (Vinessa Shaw) asks him what she can do for him: “I'm By that term, bad (re)viewers often mean “boring, overlong, in your hands.” It's Christmastime in the Village—although unexciting”—whereas I would describe the film as compelling, pedestrians' breaths don't fog in the midnight air—and all work engrossing, mesmerizing. Yes, Kubrick might well have trimmed and no play make Dr. Bill a dull boy. it if he hadn't passed away five days after a “finished” version was screened for the Warner principals and the stars. Yes, it Just as The Shining's Jack Torrance was shunted off to might have mesmerized as well, or better, x minutes shorter. But the bathroom at the very moment he thought he was going to the slow isn't necessarily bad. Slow can be a legitimate dimension all party of his life, so the dream-current of Bill's adventures is its own, a metabolism of legitimate life-forms and moods and sometimes deflected. Going to Rainbow Fashions (cf. Alice's experiences that couldn't be viable at any other rate. dance in the rainbow's end) to rent his orgy costume, Bill has to Once upon a time, The Shining was taken to task for wait out the low comedy of the Serbian proprietor (Rade failing to deliver the conventional horror-movie zap people were Sherbedgia) and his daughter (), a nymphet looking for, even as it drew us into a creepier metaphysical seducing / seduced by / contracted out to a couple of horror that reinvented the genre. Likewise, Eyes Wide Shut has pedophiles—in a wacky slippage of dream logic, Japanese been shrugged off for its woeful shortchanging of Cruise and sandmen bearing Chinese takeout. And though the progressions Kidman's boogie nights. Yet for all the nudity (digitally obscured of Harford's dream narrative are sometimes clockwork in and otherwise) of the Renaissance Italian orgy sequence, and for precision—Bill's gay-baiting by half a dozen college louts is all the reverence for Kidman's stellar nudity at several immediately answered by the psychic rearmament of a gorgeous breathtakingly lighted moments in the early reels, the artistically young woman (Domino) taking him in tow—at other times our radical visualizations of female privacy are two. One is very “narrator” must resort to the threadbare dream dramaturgy of nude, indeed naked: the heroically forlorn sprawl of drugged-out having a phone call interrupt the proceedings just when a Mandy Curran (Julienne Davis) in the chair in situation threatens to become too erotically intense. Kubrick: EYES WIDE SHUT—11

But the drollery goes hand in hand with an ineluctable clean with each other about their dream journeys and tentative aura of menace, figured most obviously in the hints of however- infidelities, and hope for mature reconciliation. They may get it; improbable Mabusian conspiracy that could bring “dire sweet dreams. And yet the most positive notes have been consequences” for Harford and his family. The 13-minute sounded earlier, in the fleeting windows of potentiality that have billiard room interview between Ziegler (Sydney Pollack) and opened from time to time as Bill wends his way through the Bill “explains” a lot of what went before, confirms the identity enveloping mysteries of the city. The orgy is only the most outré and relevance of the masked woman who saved Bill's life— manifestation of the grotesque, really quite silly lengths to which which of course didn't really need saving, just as her own demise humankind will go to act out fantasies of fulfillment and had nothing to do with the “not just ordinary people” sponsors of dominion over themselves. Whereas connection can occur easily, the Somerset orgy. Reviewers have declared open season on this tenderly, spontaneously, where and when no one was looking for scene since, like Ziegler himself, it's one of the few additions to it: the extra warmth of the café waitress who decides to give Schnitzler's original narrative. Yet the scene is essential, not only Nightingale's address to Bill; the sweet pixilation of the gay hotel for enlarging Ziegler's corruptness but also for its culmination of clerk () who gets to bask in, uh, “Bill”'s the push-pull, how-awful / well-no-not-really dynamics of the confidence for a moment; the dreamed yet also affecting rapport entire film's waking-dream state. Ziegler's explanation elucidates, Bill strikes up first with Domino and then with her roommate demystifies, and leaves us profoundly unsatisfied; Schnitzler's (Fay Masterson). This is also the justification for the tacit bond— friend Sigmund Freud would have loved the way it sad and foreshortened though it be—between Bill and the young simultaneously assuages and frustrates desire, the viewer's desire, woman whose extinction he briefly postpones, and in the for narrative and voyeuristic closure. Whether cinephile Kubrick presence of whose corpse he experiences the strongest erotic and intended it or not, it's a counterpart of the oft-disputed, now spiritual urgency in the film. essential-seeming “explanation” by the psychiatrist at the end of Ziegler, like Hitchcock's shrink, isn't speaking the whole Hitchcock's Psycho—really telling us more about Ziegler, and truth, but he isn't necessarily lying all the time, either. That's about Bill who needs to hear what Ziegler is saying, than about what's so awful about him. Kubrick's final dream can't wish away what really did or didn't happen over the past two nights. It locks the awful, but there's consolation in it, too, and the only in the bad dreams, rather than dispelling them. benediction available in the circumstances: “Nobody killed Kubrick's final film is unique in his oeuvre for anybody. Someone died—it happens all the time. Life goes on, concluding on a note of apparent affirmation. The Harfords come until it doesn't.”

COMING UP IN THE SPRING 2019 BUFFALO FILM SEMINARS (SERIES 38) Apr 30 Frederick Wiseman Monrovia, Indiana 2018 May 7 Alfonso Cuarón Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban 2004

CONTACTS:...email Diane Christian: [email protected]…email Bruce Jackson [email protected] the series schedule, annotations, links and updates: http://buffalofilmseminars.com...to subscribe to the weekly email informational notes, send an email to addto [email protected] cast and crew info on any film: http://imdb.com/ The Buffalo Film Seminars are presented by the State University of New York at Buffalo and the Dipson Amherst Theatre, with suppport from the Robert and Patricia Colby Foundation and the Buffalo News.