Eyes Wide Shut

By the way, I take back what I said upthread about antonioni six years ago!

ryan, i don't know how to talk about it because i'm so baffled by that take on acting. to me the acting is the single most prominent feature in any film. can a bad film be saved by good performances? most definitely. can a film be very good if the acting is bad? most definitely not!

"Well you know that stuff is good because there are usually accepted criteria for what good framing is, namely that they are effective."

there are accepted criteria for what makes acting good and they are as hard to pinpoint as what makes a shot good or bad.

lots of xposts

jed,

you're not the only one who's noticed that Laura Branigan/EWS connection. check out the edit of the two someone put together:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0

"can a bad film be saved by good performances? most definitely. can a film be very good if the acting is bad? most definitely not!"

see i disagree w/ this - i dont think id ever watch a film purely for a performance or performances

PP, you got me!

Jed, I guess it's the difference between seeing acting as a "craft" and seeing it, as someone totally uneducated about it like me may be likely to do, as an attempt at "realism" or the production of some unstated intent on the part of the filmmakers.

deeznuts, would you watch a film for the cinematography alone?

i totally love EWS

yeah, but - to be 'clearer', & to flip what you said on its head, i definitely dont think bad acting can kill a good film, but im equally sure good acting cant save a bad one - i guess my prob with your statement is that i see acting as a definite part of the whole, & thus yr opinion inherently doesnt make sense to me: if bad acting kills a good film, its not a good film, & vice versa

it might be true that i value cinematography, or plot, or whatever, more than acting, but at the same i wouldnt say any one of those could in & of itself make a movie good or bad

ok yr right. i just meant it can make a bad film better or even enjoyable.

i think really excellent acting can make a film that is otherwise a trifle totally compelling. i'm not sure how i'd regard something like 'the good thief' if it didn't have such a great cast. but there are a few films in which "bad" acting is beside the point. like ryan said, bresson's pics.

deez breakin it out

so many good directors manipulate bad actors for the sake of their scenarios, though (Joan Crawford, Ali MacGraw, Keanu Reeves, Scarlet Johanson, to name a few).

^^^ this

See, like, in the scene in which Tom Cruise goes back to the hooker's apartment the next day and encounters her roomie, there are a lot of agendas going on there:

-- Tom Cruise thinks he's being Tom Cruise
-- "Dr. Bill Harford" also thinks he's being "Tom Cruise," or whatever the equivalent of "Tom Cruise" is in his universe.
-- Stanley Kubrick thinks both Tom Cruise and Dr. Bill are being smug jerks with not half the mad ladykilling skillz they think they have.
-- Red-haired roomie is all "lol u might have AIDS, Tom Cruise"

Kubrick wins, and both Tom Cruise and Dr. Bill are none the wiser.

you don't usually go to kubrick for good performances, but this being what it is, ie a psychological drama where not much really 'happens', good acting is required, and, in this case, not forthcoming.

^nonsense^

bad actors ... (Joan Crawford, Ali MacGraw, Keanu Reeves, Scarlet Johanson, to name a few)

really, Ali MacGraw stands alone in this group. The others are frequently good movie stars.

jed is so OTM re: "Self Control"

really, Ali MacGraw stands alone in this group. The others are frequently good movie stars.

"stars" exist to be manipulated.

blowin' minds

a good performance is when you can tell the actor's committed to something that exists in the world of the film (even if that thing is "getting high and watching tv")

Can we talk about "Self Control" some more? Then again there's this thread:

"Self Control" by Laura Branigan

Alex in NYC, prophet!

Actually, it looks an awful lot like "Eyes Wide Shut," complete with horny strangers wearing masks. I'm not even joking.

-- Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, February 28, 2005 1:11 PM

a good performance is when you can tell the actor's committed to something that exists in the world of the film

Extra points when you stop seeing the actor as "the actor" and just buy into the veracity of the character.

Kubrick was clearly not trying to get naturalistic performances out of his actors. Especially that opening party scene, everything is chopped and screwed. Whether it is effectively dream-like is up to the viewer.

if you men only knew

See it all, or see NOTHING. Anything less is THEFT.

i love when she's just gotten stoned and can't look at tom cruise's face without cracking up

Extra points when you stop seeing the actor as "the actor" and just buy into the veracity of the character.

Gene Hackman and Vanessa Redgrave to thread.

My theory has always been that the baubled lights in every scene (party lights, christmas lights) are little baubles of germs and AIDS and the clap that show the threat of nonmonogamy, so that when they turn off the Christmas lights in their home at the end, they're commiting themselves to a good clean monogamous marriage.

lololol try watching 'wetherby' and not see it as 'vanessa redgrave takes on thatcher'.

whoa eazy that's crazy. i always noticed all those touches of light.

this dress is KILLER

http://img.slate.com/media/32000/32119/Kidman.jpg

try watching Wetherby without falling asleep.

in support of eazy's theory, for a reason i could never until know figure out we were shown eyes wide shut in sex ed as a pro-abstinence film...btw kubrick died of syphilis...

Well, the theory also makes sense considering that Kubrick started thinking about this movie in the late 80s/early 90s, when the idea was in the air that cheating would kill you.

btw kubrick died of syphilis...

Uh?

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a150/tuesdayweld/eyeswideshut1.jpg

And they really are in most of the sexy scenes in the movie.

good shot

the good doctor

http://i31.tinypic.com/2cxeyr6.jpg
This shot is the one that gets me

I like the theory about the coloured baubles. They're everywhere: "Don't you want to go where the rainbow ends?" Also, Bill goes to Ziegler's pool room near the end, where he says he's 'just knocking a few balls around' - i.e. Ziegler just messes people up for his own amusement.

I just remembered - I've played on that pool table! It's now in a hotel in Birmingham.

wow!

eye-balls

tis the season for this movie

http://www.black-scale.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/ews-2.jpg

i totally love EWS

― omar little, Wednesday, July 2, 2008 1:34 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark

Pancakes Hackman otm.

Rewatched this again last night after seeing this thread. Dr. Bill fails to get this infidelity thing because he's approaching the whole thing as a question of control -- either comes off as a smarmy jerk (two girls at the party, the hooker) or thinks he's got some sort of upper hand until he gets smacked down (hooker roommate drops the "she has AIDS" bomb, he thinks he can wander around the masquerade orgy but then gets penalized, gets called away at the party to clean up someone else's mess instead of flirting).

Kidman's character is great because she's not necessarily breaking this whole "men active, women passive" thing, but showing that there's just as much power in her approach. She comes off as flirty but not smarmy with the Hungarian at the party, and she's the the one who draws the lines in the whole interaction. So she's actually more involved with defining these lines, whereas Cruise's character just kind of goes along when he's offered sexual situations.

Also, how great is it that Dr. Bill has all this amazingly messed-up stuff happening all around and all he can mentally return to is the idea of this guy with his wife?

i find that totally realistic. like, that's what i would be thinking about.

This was on TV last night, I saw 20 minutes of it. It was terrible.

fascinating

i saw this on a tv station that heavily edits everything it shows. i also saw evil dead ii on this station. i feel like maybe i should like rent it or something.