Let me start this in the dumbest way possible. I first became aware of Eyes Wide Shut around 7 years old at the local Hollywood Video in Freeport, Illinois. Eyes Wide Shut was a brand new release and there was an entire wall of VHS tapes where Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman appear to be nude. I vividly remember thinking “oh my god that film’s about SEX! When I’m growed up I’m watching that!”
Thank you subliminal messages for teaching me about fucking.
Eyes Wide Shut is still exciting to watch all these years later because this type of movie wasn’t being made on a regular basis in 1999 and it sure as fuck isn’t being duplicated in 2019.
From 2001: A Space Odyssey on, Stanley Kubrick really proved himself to be this mystical creator and was given free range to do whatever he wanted, no matter how long and questionable the process was. There are directors since who aspire to be Kubrickian judging by how they frame shots, but nobody has carved out a platform for themselves where they’re convincing a major film studio they deserve $60 million and 400 shooting days (a Guinness world record) to make a movie where the centerpiece is a mysterious sex cult. That type of artistic curiosity was on its way out and it’s practically nonexistent in 2019. The closest we have now is Ari Lester grabbing $10 million from A24 and having 30-40 days to shoot Midsommar.
According to what’s been reported this 13 1/2 minute scene took almost 4 weeks to complete and 200 takes.
Another way this movie feels like a glance into a nonexistent time is the way it has A list performers acting out this film’s bizarre dream state. One of many times I was completely drawn into this movie was when Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman are smoking pot in their bedroom and have an argument. Nicole Kidman is in her panties and a see through shirt falling to her knees, laughing in the most hysterical way. That scene, like most of this movie, feels like a risk to the acclaimed image Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman have. It’s hard to imagine performers having a platform like Stanley Kubrick’s to experiment in and it’s hard to imagine A listers daring to step outside of a comfortable box.
“When she is having her little TITTIES squeezed, do you think she ever has any fantasies about what handsome Dr. Bill’s DICKIE might be like?” Like many moments, Nicole Kidman’s performance here is so captivating it puts you in a trance.
Eyes Wide Shut is an incredible experience. It’s the type of movie people don’t duplicate so whenever you come across a journey like this it feels like a privilege. It takes a great deal of skill to be a director like Stanley Kubrick or David Lynch creating a dream world that isn’t just meaningless gibberish. It’s fun to explore this mysterious environment with Tom Cruise and constantly question exactly what we’re seeing symbolizes.
“Oh this room’s tinted in blue, oh all the streetlights are red, WHAT DOES IT MEAN?!?”
It’s nice when a movie causes questions to bubble to the surface of your brain and it’s cool to know there’s no definitive answer. As shown in Room 237, multiple people can approach someone’s work and have their own interpretation. The mystery is always more fascinating when nothing is clinically explained.
While Tom Cruise appears to have weathered an endless amount of takes and molded in the exact way Stanley Kubrick wants him to operate, side performances like Alan Cumming and Rade Serbedzija are colorful and seem to bring their own energy to the set.
This is the second time I’ve seen Eyes Wide Shut and while I’m certain I enjoyed it the first time, I was really taken with it this time. There are few adult experiences to be found in movies anymore so revisiting this $60 million perverted Stanley Kubrick film neck deep in dream logic ages better with time as it becomes even more of a rare experience than it already was in 1999. Financially lucrative franchises and the weekend box office were already dictating culture in 1999 so it can’t be understated how lucky we are to get something as satisfying, fulfilling and stimulating as the wonderfully strange journey this film takes across perfectly built sound stages resembling New York City.
Few films have the power to pull you out of the real world like Eyes Wide Shut does. Even all these years later it still puts you in a trance with its dream logic as you feel the shame and fear Tom Cruise feels. It makes you wish more movies made on this type of grand scale were also interested in rearranging your brain before suddenly spitting you back into the real world like Eyes Wide Shut does.
This film really captured people’s imagination for the concept of a sinister sex cult attended by the elite. There’s even a recent Newsweek article that credits this film for capturing the horrors of Jeffery Epstein.
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