Eyes Wide Shut

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.

evil dead ii i mean; this looked p rubbish

best kubrick movie

i can't watch kubrick movies; they make me seasick

Trick to Kubrick is you really have to watch them so many times you forget about the actors and plot and focus on the details in the background.

I think there could have been a great movie here with two leads that actually had chemistry. Cruise actually has some good moments, but none of them are in a scene involving Kidman.

some great moments; I enjoy it more than it deserves. Cruise is pretty great it in.

lol yeah pretty much agree with Matt, iow

been kinda obsessed with this movie lately, partly because after all this time and dozens of viewings, im not entirely sure what it's "about," and that's certainly not for the movie lacking the sense that it's about something. (if that makes sense)

more and more i think a lot of takes on the "fantasy" elements of the movie, while obviously not far off, don't really account for what seems to be a very weird subtext about power, or maybe the rituals of power or how its constituted, and that maybe what happened is that Cruise somehow peeks beneath the curtain (maybe led there by his own fantasizing) and saw something he wasn't supposed to see. something about that orgy scene, and especially his unmasking and the "sacrifice" it sets in motion, seems very primal, for lack of a better word.

anyway, it's just a weird, totally beautiful and ultimately elusive movie.

sometimes i think this is kubrick's best looking movie. the use of lighting is so striking

a very weird subtext about power, or maybe the rituals of power or how its constituted, and that maybe what happened is that Cruise somehow peeks beneath the curtain (maybe led there by his own fantasizing) and saw something he wasn't supposed to see. something about that orgy scene, and especially his unmasking and the "sacrifice" it sets in motion, seems very primal, for lack of a better word.

this is exactly what the film suggests, but if it's a puzzle, there seen to be several key pieces missing. you get this suggestion of a relationship between desire, fantasy, wealth and power, but it never congeals, remains a dream. the "primal" quality you note winds up being little more than the propulsion engine that draws us through the labyrinth, and it dissipates entirely once we emerge on the other side. fascinating, but also quite frustrating. the paranoiac in me has always wondered whether or not it's really the film kubrick was trying to make...

and, yeah, i agree that it's one of kubrick's best-looking films, if not the best.

i especially like that the amazing final scene with Sydney Pollack is basically "you didn't see what you thought you saw." There's this massive draw back or dissembling that seems to be going on, and then yeah Kidman says we need to fuck and poof--wherever things seem to be leading is left off, unactualized.