Eyes Wide Shut

but I haven't seen the a bird->a plane and don't know why it happens.

i quite like the bit where hal is killing the boring spacemen, but sadly the wrong robot wins

i like the weird glow he gave new york: nicole k is pretty good too, tho shelly duval is still the only woman SK actually ever met, i think (except for his daughter who wants a bushbaby)

haha yes mark see lolita again - surely some new level of meaning to be gleaned there, as you must be about the kid's age by now

BONNNNNGGG

BONNNNNGGG

BONNNNNGGG

BONNNNNGGG

yes

A friend of mine and I were talking about Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut" last weekend. My friend observed that whenever he asked his guy friends if they liked "Eyes Wide Shut", an overwhelming majority praised it, but when he would ask his women friends what they thought, an overwhelming majority said they hated it.

Being curious, I looked at the ratings for EWS on the movie database, and indeed there is a pretty significant gender split, with males rating the movie much higher than females across age groups.

Of course, I'd take the movie database's ratings with a grain of salt, but assuming it might reflect a true difference...theories? Perhaps women find Nicole Kidman's character more interesting than Tom Cruise's, but given the short-shrift in the storyline?

oh dere's tits

Hmm, I hate admitting that it might be the fact I'm a woman. But I did hate it at the time. The idea seemed terrific on paper but I hated the way it played out. Now, after so many years and having read his biography (well, both Kubrick's and Cruise's), I think I might actually turn around and actually enjoy it. At the time I hated it because it was a late 19th century Freudian book converted to a 20th century story. HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE? I think I was (maybe still am) very hesitant to praise Freud.

I watched it again recently and I was really struck by how AWFUL Tom Cruise is.

Cruise seems willfully bad in this film. I feel like Kubrick must have directed him to be so incredibly flat for a purpose. In a way it feels appropriate, as the doctor is dreaming all these scenes and he is not really functioning as an agent. Rather, this action is happening to him, and his blankness can be seen as an indicator of his remove.

it was a late 19th century Freudian book converted to a 20th century story.

Still seemed very 19th-century Viennese to me (under the veneer, where it counts).

to be honest, i never thought his performance was that bad and i've seen it many times. i see how it could be seen as flat though -- that seems to be his attempt to act dumbstruck by what's happening to him, which actually does lack depth.

but nicole kidman is awesome to watch in this -- it's the sort of unstable character she knows how to play.

also um yeah the boys like this movie cuz there are like, 40 naked women in it?

It's close enough to an incantatory delivery that I look forward to listening

(Which means it'll be a good match for Kubrick)

Roffle. I roll with it, it's fine! Met her years ago well before the podcast started, she's a good sort.

If you join her patreon you can get transcripts, for those of you here who find it so horrible TO HEAR A WOMAN SPEAK.

I've always liked her delivery. She also has a very wry sense of humor.

I haven't given her podcast the attention it deserves. I'm streaming the sex, lies and videotape ep.

The series she did on Polly Platt and the one on Dead Blondes were especially good.

if you don't have the 2.5 hours free to watch EWS then just watch the video for Laura Branigan's "Self Control" which is the same plot and many of the same shots but is like 5 minutes long, predates EWS by 15 years and has a really cool song over it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZtn9AwgfQQ

― jed_, Wednesday, 2 July 2008 01:31

lmao otm

Saw this for the first time today and it was much more watchable and good than I was led to believe, although there were several false notes.

Cruise has taken a beating itt for his acting but Kidman is worse, consistently too mannered. I guess pot smoking was new at the time of this film, because it wasn't portrayed at all believably.

Can I just complain about the "West Village" set - why do studios trying to recreate NYC always show a street that ends by running into a cross street, thereby forming a T-shape? That is not a configuration that really exists in NYC with possibly a few exceptions. Many old Hollywood films use a "NYC" backlot set with the same configuration - MGM maybe? Definitely the Universal lot was like this. You see it in TV shows right through the 1970s.

Nevertheless, the mystery and the surrealism of the film were overall quite captivating.

https://i.imgur.com/YWdTpPo.jpeg

why do studios trying to recreate NYC always show a street that ends by running into a cross street, thereby forming a T-shape?

Unacceptable. Just shoot in NYC ffs. But they couldn’t in this case because Kubrick was too afraid of flying there.

I don't think his fear of flying wouldn't have changed anything. With the way he worked, he wouldn't have shot on location, it would have to be in a 100% controlled environment like a soundstage.

I never bought the criticism against his decision to work this way. It reminds me of the story Truffaut told in the intro of his book on Hitchcock. “In the course of an interview during which I praised Rear Window to the skies, an American critic surprised me by commenting, ‘You love Rear Window because, as a stranger to New York, you know nothing about Greenwich Village.’ To this absurd statement I replied, ‘Rear Window is not about Greenwich Village, it is a film about cinema, and I do know cinema!” He could've said something similar about Eyes Wide Shut. Shooting a fabrication of NYC ultimately works in favor of the dreamlike nature of the film - having the night time surroundings feel unreal rather than allowing a documentary element to flow in was the right call.

Yeah, exactly. It’s a film about constructed reality on many levels.

I can buy that. Because at the same time they did get a lot of detail correct in their street set - specific lettering on signs, decals on newspaper stands etc. - which contributes an uncanny aspect to those scenes.

Parts of the film reminded me very much of Scorsese's After Hours. I wonder if that was an influence.

This New York has the same dream quality as the european(?) city in the unconsoled by Ishiguro imo.

Here’s a real corner you could see in this movie though tbf

https://maps.app.goo.gl/Kk3oZ2NYeTxaxphE7?g_st=ic

He was nothing if not consistently deliberate in details that seem wrong (ie the impossible interior layout of the Overlook Hotel in The Shining). One detail in EWS that signals to me that we’re in a fantasy/imagined NYC is that the buildings are numbered sequentially on the same side of a street (36, 37, 38).

blog post on exactly this https://www.scoutingny.com/stanley-kubrick-the-shining-new-york-city-the-filming-locations-of-eyes-wide-shut/

Interesting. Between the blog post and the comments it looks like they're covering all the ways to look at this. Seems as if Kubrick and his sets are kind of like Hitchcock and his green screens - it's difficult to nail down their exact intentions, if any.

(Aside: someone online said the costume shop in EWS was based on the facade of Trash and Vaudeville in the the East Village and I thought "no it's not, it looks just like a particular storefront on West 8th St. - I've shopped there!")... and someone in the blog comments supports my take.