But of course there are so many limitations when it comes to decency or obscenity. During the making of The Shining, hed put Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall through so many takes to figure out what he wanted, he notoriously caused Duvall to have a nervous breakdown. Of course, the movie was mostly about sex, so it's not surprising that there would be many sex scenes in it. Nobody had had the conversation with Stanley before he died about how he was going to square that circle, because the orgy scene as it stood wasnt an R-rated scene. Eyes Wide Shut | In-Depth Explanation and Analysis LUMOSHROOM 19K subscribers 1.2M views 2 years ago #EyesWideShut #Explained Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=27056817 Merry. Weve got romance, breakups, emotionally loaded dumplings this episode has a little bit of everything! Alice also proposes that there is another thing that they must do as soon as possible: "F***." We had a lot of illustrations, contemporary and even much older, of some ceremonies. Brunette Indian Dancing The Ritual Dance On Their Place. I was on the set with Tom and Stanley, finding things on our own. Along with how long it took to film the movie, Kubrick put his main two actors through a lot of intense experiences. Im not a prude, but I didnt see the point in doing that stuff, especially if Im in full mask. very persuasive. Julienne Davis (Mandy): Stanley said, Its not gonna be any of this, and he made a thrusting gesture. At the time I found it somewhat frustrating, cause I, as a woman, have a very different view of women. This email will be used to sign into all New York sites. Abigail Good (the Mysterious Woman): They took this space which is now a really beautiful hotel in St. Pancras. The film is also heavily entangled with the cult of Scientology, not least because both stars tied the knot in a Scientology ceremony in 1990 (they famously divorced not long after EWS finished shooting, gossip columnists at the time actually pinning it on Kubrick psychoanalysing the couples marriage for so long; Kubricks on-set wall of secrecy even divided Cruise and Kidman. She is still open with him about her past sexual fantasies, but in the end they stay loyal to each other, happy that their marriage and mutual sexual attraction have survived this long. 2:10:32. Women were posing in very graceful ways on the table, and at the same time there was this rather repelling kind of scene going on. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts, https://www.reddit.com/r/StanleyKubrick/comments/994q4h/what_eyes_wide_shut_is_really_about/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf. Eyes Wide Shut Ending Explained: No Dream Is Ever Just A Dream, 20th anniversary retrospective on the film. All rights reserved. I disagree with the association of blue with money. The Wagner opera returns to the Met for the first time in 17 years. I tried to create a visual experience, one that bypasses verbalized pigeonholing and directly penetrates the subconscious with an emotional and philosophic contentI intended the film to be an intensely subjective experience that reaches the viewer at an inner level of consciousness, just as music does; to explain a Beethoven symphony would be to emasculate it by erecting an artificial barrier between conception and appreciation. For me, the blue seems connected to illusion. I stuck to my guns about what I would do. Crucial to the directors vision is the films notorious central sequence, a ritualistic masked ball and orgy that Harford infiltrates on a tip from his piano-playing pal, Nick Nightingale (Todd Field). Firstly, the movie had to be censored to hit the R-rating, with the orgy scene taking a large hit. Legman also recommended Flicien Rops, a very famous artist who specialized in all sorts of weird erotica. The name of the costume shop is Rainbow, meanwhile when Bill asks the two girls at the party where they are taking him they reply where the rainbow ends.. Bill is used to having all of the power in their relationship, so her admission leaves him bewildered and emasculated as he aimlessly wanders the city streets. I had been sexually assaulted on the street in London just a few years earlier, and being attacked does things to you. Luckily, Yolande was there to help. Great analysis OP, a good read, well done! Charged as his last film is with symbolic references to death, we should not overlook the fact that in all of Kubricks films fear of dying is a constant presence and an apparent mirror image of his obsession with control. More importantly, it now demands that I re-watch the movie for the umpteenth time! I dont know if Martin Scorsese knows it was originally written for Eyes Wide Shut. Lines, roads, walking, processions towards a threshold or towards an altar. A yuppie who likes to smoke a little pot before bed, Harford embarks on a night-long endeavour, during which he infiltrates an unnamed secret societys masked orgy. It was supposed to inspire a sense of mystery. After hed died, I was looking for someone. To exaggerate the distrust between their fictional husband and wife, Kubrick would direct each actor separately and forbid them to share notes. 1999 was a busy year for a lot of reasons. Solves the mysteries of Mandy's redemption, the masked man on the balcony, and whether Alice was at the ritual: https://wp.me/p6pteV-1U, I really enjoyed reading this. AG: The premiere was quite interesting. The director took take after take of the same scene, but not because he had a detailed vision in mind. But who left it there? She hadnt trained as a dancer, but she was a natural mover. The fact that it was Tom and Nicole caused a lot of press. Offscreen, he was one himself. LV: There were certain things that Stanley wanted to use [in the orgy]. A worthy read.My one disagreement with you is about Bill's reaction to Alice's confession. Dreams and the subconscious are powerful, and have the ability to transform our waking lives. While there's a lot of interesting history and questions revolving around "Eyes Wide Shut," unfortunately Kubrick isn't around to clarify anything. There's no doubt that his movies will continue to be seen as masterpieces for decades to come. YS: Im not sure that Stanley knew entirely what he wanted. Just as things are heating up, Alice interrupts the encounter with a phone call, again seeming to have a sixth sense about things. Breaking down the contenders in the seasons most unpredictable Oscar race. The emotional abuse he put his actors through was apparently worth it for them, but it's up to debate whether or not it improved the final product. Remember the South Park movie? We just did it again and again and again to get the timing right. All his films after and including 2001followed a similar vein, with Kubrick getting involved in everything that went on. They do change their balance a little bit. There is freedom in anonymity, but also isolation and a complete dearth of emotion" (Reel Views). It could be he's just curious based on Nick's description and didn't realize that he would be spotted. Eyes Wide Shut, the phrase itself, is a calling card among secret societies, meaning 'my eyes are shut to your misdeeds, brother.'. And when we were shooting Eyes Wide Shut, it took Tom as long as it would have taken him to make three movies. Eyes Wide Shut may have been great if it were shorter and had an eerie, melancholy, wandering/lost vibe and camera style to match. During the course of shooting Eyes Wide Shut, the director filmed 95 takes of Tom Cruise walking through a door. Very often, Stanley would say to me that I wasnt on my mark. We were playing around with different ritualistic formations. It was a collaborative process, but I did feel I was more of an artistic assistant for Stanley to develop a clearer vision of what that whole scene was. Then when he had a little break, he came straight over to me and put his hand out and said, Hello, Im Tom. And a lot of the characters stood still that was part of the style of the scene. The Christmas party is a facade. The last scene of the movie takes place at a toy store - a place full of highly symbolic items (more on it in the next article). All about Eyes Wide Shut Ritual Scene. Firstly, this is because Stanley and his team had to make sure they weren't crossing too many lines. Solves the mysteries of Mandy's redemption, the masked man on the balcony, and whether Alice was at the ritual: https://wp.me/p6pteV-1U 23 15 Related Topics Stanley Kubrick Movie 15 comments Add a Comment andrew_stirling 3 mo. His location photographer Manuel Harlan (also his nephew; Kubrick liked to keep a tight ship) estimates there were 30,000 photographs at one point; the whole of London. A year of documentation, Kubrick purveyed them all with tremendous excitement. His obituaries liberally spotted with words like perfectionist and recluse, Kubrick didnt need to go out because the whole world came to him literally in a box. most of the rep houses in the city were screening, Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. Sex and illusion, on the other hand, isn't an important contrast that would need to be symbolized. And the same with Nicole. The literal definition of telling instead of showing. In Full Metal Jacket, Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon and Lolita he chooses not to include the most shocking violence - especially sexual violence - from the texts he is adapting. Kubrick's obsessive filmmaking techniques were well-suited for the high tension of hispart-psychosexual thriller, part-marital drama about a doctor who goes on a labyrinthine journey through New York City after he learns that his wife fantasized about another man. "Eyes Wide Shut" opened on July 16, 1999, and did well at the box office and with critics. Bill is sent for by Ziegler to attend to a prostitute named Mandy who has overdosed and needs medical attention, which Bill provides. Can Anyone Predict Whos Going to Win Best Supporting Actress? Ive never been. We were kneeling up and down on four-and-a-half-inch heels. It is overly long. My perspective is that the ritual is not its own independent event, but rather a reflection of the earlier party at Ziegler's house. And then in the later scenes, its Leon [playing him]. Eyes Wide Shut is not Stanley Kubrick's best film. [After] the emphasis shifted onto that, I went out with him and Leon and the production designer to look at different locations, one of which was the big venue we eventually used. 2023 Vox Media, LLC. Brian Cook (first assistant director): I used to say to Stanley, We should get Adrian Lyne or Tony Scott to come and shoot this stuff for us. Like everything else in the world of Stanley Kubrick, the masks worn in the infamous orgy scene are symbolic; of Venetian carnivals and their reputation for being the centre of civil disorder, moral debauchery and eroticism. YS: There were a few male dancers we were working with initially on the erotic dances. I can tell. Thank you to everyone who's supported me thus far - you have no idea how much the lengthy comments mean to me.Timestamps:00:00 - Intro01:53 - The Film's Core04:27 - The Cycle of Exploitation07:03 - We Are All For Sale09:50 - Doubling and Mirroring14:07 - Was It All a Dream?16:48 - Fidelio18:53 - Miscellaneous23:58 - Colors26:46 - The Toy ShopThe Inspiration:The Take:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23akblYxUz0\u0026t=218sRenegade Cut:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEbLC-_goVIWisecrack:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qa2aLkXw3OAWhat it all Meant:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXwy7M7Udmg Collative Learning (Rob Ager):https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94OfggPdzow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QKHOCB1sao\u0026thttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixvYHHMNayohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86s8b7PlEW0 #EyesWideShut #Explained #BestChristmasMovie YS: I think his vision of the orgy scene over the course of the time we worked on it became much more of a literal orgy. They were erotic, but there was no humping going on. The director died six days later, on March 7, 1999, at the age of 70. Things are happening and that means I have less time to dedicate to YouTube. The vocalist had been improvising and had used some words from the Bhagavad Gita. It's purely a matter of what I want to work on when I get the time. The film is full of puzzles, riddles, and games, symbols helping to reveal the truths of the unconscious mind, this large symbolic dimension helping foster emotional involvement. Even though it had Tom Cruise as its star, it was not a successful movie and therefore not seen as one of Tom's most profitable movies. That was my brief! I like cats and Danzig. But there is a sobering moment of reality that completely rattles Bill. JD: Stanley had asked me to be in the orgy scenes, but I felt so vulnerable and uncomfortable with the idea of doing that kind of action in front of a crew. But it meant a lot to Kubrick that his other films did not. I didnt think the orgy really needed a lot of choreography in the end, from what it became. this was some brilliant stuff. Stanley Kubrick died six days after he sent Eyes Wide Shut final cut to Warner Bros. And this, if you know Kubrick's perfectionism, doesn't mean in any way that the version of Eyes Wide Shut that we know is the one he really wanted, neither it means that it was the perfect version. I know they find clues as the night progresses, but it seems they immidietly know he doesn't belong? It currently holds a 75% on Rotten Tomatoes. And who you can expect to see performing and presenting. It seems to appear whenever Bill is wrestling with the underlying lie of his situation. The placement of the eight pointed Star of Venus is again undoubtedly purposeful. Harford is a condensation of Harrison Ford, due to Kubrick stating Harford should be like Ford, the whitest bread guy Kubrick could think of), who is shocked when wife Alice reveals she contemplated having a one night stand with a naval officer a year earlier. Me and Tom were among the last people he ever filmed; Stanley died before the dubbing was done. Im glad he wasnt alive to go through this whole [MPAA] thing cause it was ridiculous and stupid. (aka R-rated version). This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google But he was conscious that we were treading in pretty dangerous territory. Conspiracy theorists argue that Kubrick had never been shy about ratings (A Clockwork Orange was originally given an X-rating). AG: I remember being on set one day. There are pictures readily available on the internet from a large gathering in the 1970s that the Rothschild family hosted with masked guests and somewhat disturbing table decorations of shattered porcelain baby dolls. Bill wanders through the concrete jungle in search of his own adulterous experience and ends up at a secret society's masked orgy. After this encounter, Bill finally realizes the dark side of this world of sex and anonymity, returning to his wife Alice's side. What was fascinating for me was how, depending on the particular angles and the particular shots, the circle of women would be reorganized every time. Id love to hear more stuff. I remember a car came within a few hours to collect the little cassette I made. *A version of this article appears in the June 24, 2019, issue ofNew YorkMagazine. Plus, sex/money is a thematically important dichotomy in the film, so it makes sense that they would each be assigned a color. The movie is based on a German novella from 1926 called "Traumnovelle," or "Dream Story," which focuses on a man in Vienna who finds out his wife has fantasies of other men, and goes on a two-day journey dealing with personal realizations about sex, individualism, and morality. He had his unique fascinations, which is ultimately what led him to purchase the rights of Singin' In The Rain. Blanchett was a rising star during the "Eyes Wide Shut" post-production phase. What matters more than who put itthere is whyit's there: as a bold reminder of how Bill hides from what is real. But we had every piece of research for years and years to do this stuff with. Hed allowed the dreamy, Mitteleuropa-n mood of Schnitzlers original novella to seep into his picture. The mansion in which the orgy scenes were filmed also just so happens to be Mentmore Towers in Somerset, England, built for the Rothschild family in the 1850s, a family with many ties to conspiracy theories because of their history of running the banking industry; which effectively made them the wealthiest family in human history. In one of the final scenes, Bill comes home and as he comes to bed he sees Alice ( Nicole Kidman) sleeping next to the same Venetian mask he wore at the party. On his films, he did everything: fix the sound machine, operate the camera. I was asked later to do the rest of the original music. Photo: Warner Bros. What do you fancy doing? Shed say, No Absolutely no Maybe Yes No Thats okay.. The clincher for me is the image of the man in the red cloak with two anonymous men in blue standing extremely conspicuously at his side. According to aVanity Fair article detailing the film's production, his "theory was that once his actors bottomed-out in exhaustion and forgot about the cameras, they could rebuild and discover something that neither he nor they expected." I took a seat at the keyboard and started rehearsing Backward Priests. At a certain point, the music stopped. He then begins a night-long journey to explore and possibly give in to his own temptations, stumbling upon a secret society participating in a masked orgy. PE: The cut was sacred; they werent going to change one frame of it. I'm pasting the relevant section from my piece below. Home; Videos; Categories; Webcams; Eyes Wide Shut Ritual Scene. Read this thread it is almost definitely the meaning behind the film https://www.reddit.com/r/StanleyKubrick/comments/994q4h/what_eyes_wide_shut_is_really_about/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf. When Kubrick died, the cut was known to be locked. One of Stanley's assistants even started to show the models images from the Kama Sutra, according to the interview with Vulture. Kubrick's erotic odyssey is ultimately about the nature of seeing: what is hidden in plain sight and what we choose not to see. He also sent over a lot of illustrations of secret-society rituals and the Black Mass [a satanic ceremony], mainly from the 19th century. But, again, it is a good story for a thriller, so give it a view . Fifteen years ago, on July 16, 1999, Stanley Kubrick's final film, "Eyes Wide Shut," opened nationwide. LV: Elveden was this house that was owned by the Guinness family. We had the couches and beds and chairs and armchairs, and all the little choreographies that we made were on and around pieces of furniture in these different groupings of quartets, trios, couplings. Bill wears a mask in order to infiltrate the private ritual, but he also wears a figurative mask in real life to be an ideal husband and conceal his own sexual curiosity outside of his relationship with Alice. And apparently, there were some real-life influences for this story beat. TikToks Favorite Celebrity Couple Is Kim Kardashian and Michael Cera. The directors final film had become, somehow, a holiday staple. In one of the final scenes, Bill sees the mask on his pillow beside his sleeping wife. The sex orgy party has a dream like quality as it's completely unrealistic but while this can indicate it's mediated by Bill's subconscious it can also be attributed to the fact that we are watching a commercial, major studio film and what can and cannot be shown has always been a factor with Kubrick. LV: When Tom was shooting that picture, he was the biggest box-office star in the world. One time, I was working with somebody else, and we had to move along a wall and against each other. One of the problems was that they had to be totally natural. However, the 1999 film also contained a famously controversial scene with multiple naked women taking part in a ritual with a bunch of masked rich men. Not only did he ask the pair to pose in over 50 sex positions, he banned Cruise from the set and forbade Kidman to assuage her husbands tension by telling him what happened during the shoot.). I've known a few couples over the years that retaliated against each other when one of them strayed, And, yes, I've also know spouses to become more controlling and watchful- i.e., insecure. It wasnt his stuff, to be honest with you. Bill is in a state of denial about both his wife's sexual autonomy and his own temptations. It felt like a sort of research period, with me playing around with ideas and presenting them to him, and him looking at them and feeding back. This pushes Bill into a sexual odyssey, where he wanders through the night, spontaneously ending up at a secretive masked ball . She was trying to get a more kind of sensual approach to it. Tom Sandoval and Ariana Madix have broken up after he allegedly cheated on her with Raquel Leviss. Alice is not suggesting they engage in the kind of unfeeling coitus Bill observed at the orgy, but a raw physical intimacy that can only come from a deep, emotional bond forged over many years of commitment. Yolande Snaith (choreographer): I spent a lot of time in the rehearsal studio with the models. What do you think? And Stanley wanted the smoke coming out of the incense burner to be in the shot in a particular way, and smoke is fairly uncontrollable. Stanley could change a whole scene just because it suddenly made sense to him in a different way. And a peculiar one too. Though his films had always had provocative elements, the director had never tackled something so directly about sex and jealousy and fantasy before. Those shadow men are pretty obvious. And as with Kubricks earlier The Shining (another initially dismissed film that is now a classic), there have been plenty of conspiracy theories around it, mainly from overzealous viewers connecting the films secret society of possibly murderous, mega-wealthy hedonists to all sorts of shadowy organizations allegedly operating in the real world. The real pornography in this film is in its lingering depiction of the shameless, naked wealth of millennial Manhattan, and of its obscene effect on society and the human soul. During his career, the prolific actor inhabited an array of troubled characters. The director cast Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, husband and wife at the time, as the main couple in the story named Bill and Alice. We had a lot of illustrations, contemporary and even much older, of some ceremonies.
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