And then there was the deliberate, trancelike cadence of the performances. He was throwing all these compliments at me about this little film. In the final scene of "Eyes Wide Shut," Bill and Alice take their daughter shopping for Christmas toys, and Alice delivers the serious monologue: "I think we should be grateful. But the scene was more about the secret society of supremely rich hedonists who, under the shadows, orchestrate horrendous acts of violence and sexual manipulation. Jocelyn Pook (composer): Stanley said, Ive heard this piece from your album. Id love to hear more stuff. I remember a car came within a few hours to collect the little cassette I made. I made it very clear to everybody who came and their agents. When Stanley was looking at the tapes of rehearsal, he asked, What is that music?. For months, wed call them in once or twice a week and I would take a video camera and wed improvise a lot of stuff. They aim to work hard on their marriage so that they never face such tribulations again. JD: They came to us and said, Theres been a change of plans. They explained that the women would no longer be wearing their G-strings and that the men would be completely naked except for a cup over their bits. The Harfords standard of living raises questions about their money, and where it comes fromfrom Bills sparsely scheduled private practice, or the sorts of under-the-table services we see rendered upstairs at the party? [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.". When Kubrick died, the cut was known to be locked. AG: When all the other girls left, I was in this amazing position of being able to work with two incredible artists. Stanley Kubrick's final film "Eyes Wide Shut" is loosely based on Arthur Schnitzler's novella "Traumnovelle (Dream Story)," and transfers the action from 1900s Vienna to the late 1990s in Greenwich Village. For those with their eyes open, there are plenty of money shots. For director Stanley Kubrick, there was one film idea that he just had to finish before the year was over, and that was "Eyes Wide Shut." LV: There were certain things that Stanley wanted to use [in the orgy]. And apparently, there were some real-life influences for this story beat. Simply the Worlds Most Interesting Travel Site, The Truth About Stanley Kubrick's Most Controversial Scene, purchase the rights of Singin' In The Rain, The Truth About Tom Cruise's Character In 'Tropic Thunder', Heres Why It Was So Hard For Stanley Kubrick To Direct 'The Shining', Amy Poehler Compares Hosting The Golden Globes To A Stanley Kubrick Movie. eyes wide shut daughter kidnapped Of course, in recent years weve discovered that the indulgences of the mega-wealthy have little of the mysterious, cloaked menace of what happens in Eyes Wide Shut. Just then, a mysterious woman intercedes and sacrifices herself in order to save him. Julienne Davis (Mandy): Stanley said, Its not gonna be any of this, and he made a thrusting gesture. Executing the scene was far more complicated than the research phase. And that was because Stanley wanted this very particular body type, a sort of Barbie-doll type. Also rainbows are mentioned more than once! Eyes Wide Shut Symbols, Allegory and Motifs by Stanley Kubrick Eyes Wide Shut Symbols, Allegory and Motifs These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community. In terms of color symbology, I agree red is associated with sex (and maybe lust beyond the sexual -- money, power, etc). JD: Our rehearsals for that lasted a month. And then I had to find, of course, the people who were willing to be a part of that. He also sent over a lot of illustrations of secret-society rituals and the Black Mass [a satanic ceremony], mainly from the 19th century. I know they find clues as the night progresses, but it seems they immidietly know he doesn't belong? 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. I really enjoyed this. Loosely based on Arthur Schnitzler's novella Traumnovelle ( Dream Story ), Eyes Wide Shut is about an upper-middle class doctor (Cruise) who finds out his wife (Kidman) once fantasied about cheating on her husband. We put some CGI characters, both male characters in black cloaks and female characters, to hide certain areas of frame. Because two things are sure: first, Warner Bros applied several modifications to Kubrick's version . Jocelyn Pook was a composer I knew, [who had a piece called] Backwards Priests. I was using that in the rehearsal studio because it felt very appropriate. I was asked later to do the rest of the original music. For every movie he made, he was getting $20 million, $25 million up front. Its full of obscenities, full of implied or actual sexual entendres. For months, wed call them in once or twice a week and I would take a video camera and wed improvise a lot of stuff. Child sex slavery, rape, drug overdoses, money can be used to buy everything. The film's dreamy nature may be confusing, but what is important to remember is that ultimately "Eyes Wide Shut"is about the reconciliation of a couple who intentionally blinded themselves from the hard truths of their insecure relationship. The directors final film had become, somehow, a holiday staple. Of course, the movie was mostly about sex, so it's not surprising that there would be many sex scenes in it. LV: Elveden was this house that was owned by the Guinness family. Kubrick, left, on set with Cruise, Kidman, and Sydney Pollack. After Bill and Alice return home from a Christmas party (where they both flirted with strangers), they have sex and smoke weed; in their late-night haze, Alice reveals that she once daydreamed about leaving her family to run off with a handsome Naval Officer she spied on their Cape Cod vacation. The narrative is not completely successful. "I did feel I was more of an artistic assistant for Stanley to develop a clearer vision of what that whole scene was," Yolande said. Id look down and I had my three lasers, so Id say, Well, I am on the mark, Stanley. And one time Tom Cruise whispered to me, Just move the camera, Pete. [I realized] it was just code for saying that Stanley wanted to put the camera in a different place. Lines, roads, walking, processions towards a threshold or towards an altar. By using our Services, you agree to our use of cookies. 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. Written by Timothy Sexton The Star of Ishtar What matters more than who put itthere is whyit's there: as a bold reminder of how Bill hides from what is real. Although many people are familiar with his abuse of Shelley Duvall on the set of "The Shining," some might not know just how crazy it was to make "Eyes Wide Shut," the director's last film. Stanley Kubrick was a very particular man. Throughout the night, Bill meets various strangers who attempt to engage him in sex. You know, theres apparently an Eyes Wide Shut club in L.A. It was supposed to inspire a sense of mystery. And then I had to find, of course, the people who were willing to be a part of that. 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. and gives me extra appreciation to Kubricks ideations. 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. YS: Im not sure that Stanley knew entirely what he wanted. BC: When we were doing the glimpses of Nicole Kidman [with the naval officer], I used to have to go with pictures, blown-up pictures, and ask her what she was prepared to do. The blunt delivery is a bit comical, but it comes from an honest place. YS: We did a lot of work with [the models], doing yoga to get them a little more flexible, spending a lot of time getting them to do things in perfect unison, which was a challenge. The way it is set up, it is very plausible that Bill would react to Alice's confession by pursuing an adventure of his own. "Eyes Wide Shut" is not an easy film to decipher because of its dream-like quality, where nothing is as it seems. Ive never been. "Masked Ball" plays during the black mass/lesbian homoeroticism part and "Migrations" during Dr. Hartford's wandering through the mansion afterwords. 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. National reviewers myopic focus on sex, and the shallow psychologies of the films central couple, the Harfords, at the expense of every other element of the film-the trappings of stupendous wealtheven the sum Dr. Harford spends on a single night out-says more about the blindness of the elites to their own surroundings than it does about Kubricks inadequacies as a pornographer. When we were shooting, somebody said I think it was Tom Do you think these places really exist? And Stanley said, Well, if they dont, they will soon.. Bill wanders through the concrete jungle in search of his own adulterous experience and ends up at a secret society's masked orgy. (aka R-rated version). While there's a lot of interesting history and questions revolving around "Eyes Wide Shut," unfortunately Kubrick isn't around to clarify anything. On his films, he did everything: fix the sound machine, operate the camera. There were two parties. Im not going to lie. 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 TikToks Favorite Celebrity Couple Is Kim Kardashian and Michael Cera. Legman also recommended Flicien Rops, a very famous artist who specialized in all sorts of weird erotica. We wanted something warm and sensual but that at the same time could be a part of a ritual. That was her voice. But who left it there? Introducing Sociology The theory goes that to protect the nefarious leaders, Warner Bros quietly had the picture re-editedand now denies this ever happened. The film is a confounding story, and even two decades later, fans and critics alike continue to debate the meaning behind "Eyes Wide Shut" and whether the final cut was what Kubrick really wanted. The ritual is all that remains, but it too is inverted. Chronic disillusionment. And he was a very hands-on editor. It seems to appear whenever Bill is wrestling with the underlying lie of his situation. It was the weirdest place youve ever seen. Prostitution is literally the oldest profession but none of us realized the interplay of money/sex/power until you tripped into the room with your heavy-handed, intentionally confusing story meant to add mystery to something thats not mysterious. ! Wow, yes, thank you Kubrick. 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. It doesnt make it genius.. YS: By the time we got to working on the orgy scene, I had a commitment to a project that I was doing with my company. 262K views 5 years ago The scene known as Masked Ball", depicting an occult satanic ritual orgy, from Stanley Kubrick's final masterpiece Eyes Wide Shut" - when played in reverse, it is. Subscribe Now! I can tell. (aka R-rated version). But all the [CGI] figures are moving slightly. Things you buy through our links may earnVox Mediaa commission. There were so many crew, so many extras, so many people on set, and nothing was happening. The placement of the eight pointed Star of Venus is again undoubtedly purposeful. Like there was a bit of an homage to Clockwork Orange. We were playing around with different ritualistic formations. Dude . Terms of Service apply. 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.. 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. For me, the blue seems connected to illusion. All this seems to suggest that she is all seeing, her eyes are wide open. AG: We were sitting there for hours and hours, and they had to bring frozen peas for our knees. I was having trouble holding on to some of the girls Id found because they had other obligations and jobs. 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. That was my brief! 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. this was some brilliant stuff. Wedding mother and sonny gut and ritual son-in-law bang mother. 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. This has also fed some theories that the orgy scene was at least somewhat inspired by the Rothschild family and those they associate with. I stuck to my guns about what I would do. This pushes Bill into a sexual odyssey, where he wanders through the night, spontaneously ending up at a secretive masked ball . I remember one of our animators, Sally Goldberg, talking about animating what people do when theyre standing still. AG: Leon came back one day with pictures from the Kama Sutra and said, Stanley would like you to draw inspiration from these images, at which point we were all sort of like, Okay, thats not really what we signed up for. But we knew each other very well at this point, so taking on more of a sexual nature was not so shocking. Finances are a separate issue. LV: I spent years getting telephone calls from Illuminati fans, and theyd always start off with Wheres the power? The actress was coming off a breakout performance in 1997's "Oscar and Lucinda" and then a star-making . In the end, the Kubrick family felt rather uncomfortable about it, and they recalled all the films and I had to rerecord it again with a different vocal. Your email address will not be published. In one of the final scenes, Bill sees the mask on his pillow beside his sleeping wife. "After a few weeks, he started to talk to me about the ritual, the masked ball, and the disrobing ritual. Of course, it was a very intimidating situation to be in, because I hadnt ever scored a film before. No Botox, no breast enhancements, anything like that. RT: I remember getting very, very precise instruction from Stanley Kubrick and Tom Cruise about the timing for that scene, about when Tom Cruise enters the room. It used a vocal sampled from another earlier recording. But when I look at the scene, I think what we did in the studio [during rehearsal] definitely influenced the whole feel of that scene. Most of the 'Greenwich Village' street scenes were shot on the elaborately detailed outdoor set at Pinewood (the proliferation of T-junctions is a dead giveaway), but for a few shots, London streets were dressed as New York. He initially enlisted one of Britains top choreographers to help conceive a far more surreal and suggestive series of vignettes and tableaux for the orgy. Kubrick has no clothes. It wasnt his stuff, to be honest with you. The master directors swan song and unconscious spiritual testament, which meditates on such ontological questions as life and death, as well as on cinema viewed as a visual art at the crossroads between concreteness and abstraction. One time, I was working with somebody else, and we had to move along a wall and against each other. 100 Times. LV: When Tom was shooting that picture, he was the biggest box-office star in the world. A Review of Eyes Wide Shut by Tim Kreider. As shady and super wealthy Victor Ziegler says at one point, If I told you their names I dont think youd sleep so well. Also note the very title of the film is a reference to the 1%ers who know exactly whats happening but dont say a word about it. It was an expensive mess-up. After a few weeks, he started to talk to me about the ritual, the masked ball, and the disrobing ritual. LV: It was Cate Blanchett! Eyes Wide Shut is a 1999 erotic mystery psychological drama film directed, produced, and co-written by Stanley Kubrick. By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy and to receive email correspondence from us. 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. Somewhere in that scene, he said, there was a light out. The True Origins Of THAT Scene . He was also known as being a very challenging director to work with. In Barry Lyndon the narrator's dialogue and the filmed action often contradict each other. At a certain point, it became clear to Stanley he wanted it to be a circle. But Kubrick wasnt after realism with these scenes. ago I really enjoyed reading this. I also reached out to Yolande Snaith, a choreographer with her own dance company. But red and blue! In truth, fashioning the orgy and the scenes around it may well have been one of the biggest challenges of Kubricks career. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own. Just as things are heating up, Alice interrupts the encounter with a phone call, again seeming to have a sixth sense about things. It was quite fun to us when certain people who were arguing negatively about this would point to certain figures in the scene and say, Oh, thats CGI. The documentary, filmed at the Kubrick household in St Albans, England one half of the house taken up by these boxes, relics explores among other things the photographic research for 1999sEyes Wide Shut, everything from doorways to mortuaries and every costume shop in the South East of England. Its somewhere up in the Hollywood Hills, or around that area. "Instead, he said it would be more a kind of modern dance with the inference of sex.". It was actually Tom and Nicole who came up with the idea of Cate. Firstly, this is because Stanley and his team had to make sure they weren't crossing too many lines. The vocalist had been improvising and had used some words from the Bhagavad Gita. There's no doubt that his movies will continue to be seen as masterpieces for decades to come. A member of the Blast Beat Network. An uncompromising film, placing a heavy intellectual burden upon the audience, compelling each viewer to unravel for himself its deeper meaning and significance. Having sex will help them find their connection to one another again. AG: I remember being on set one day. Offscreen, he was one himself. Create an account to follow your favorite communities and start taking part in conversations. I'm pasting the relevant section from my piece below. 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. 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. Currently, he is both a writer and an editor at TheThings where he specializes in entertainment, film, and celebrity news. Grateful that we've managed to survive through all of our adventures, whether they were real, or only a dream. But of course there are so many limitations when it comes to decency or obscenity. PE: The cut was sacred; they werent going to change one frame of it. 1999 was a busy year for a lot of reasons. What you're talking about isn't "Masked Ball" (the song brought up in the OP), but rather "Migrations", the subsequent track. AG: The premiere was quite interesting. Nobodys been here, nothings been touched. Yes, there is. There was a very extensive museum in his basement. No Botox, no breast enhancements, anything like that. As Tim Kreider points out in his essay Introducing Sociology A Review of Eyes Wide Shut, Kubrick and his collaborator, Frederic Raphael, discussed exactly how much money a New York doctor like Bill Harford must earn per year. All about Eyes Wide Shut Ritual Scene. The best musical instrument is a love triangle. 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.). But look hard enough at this tale of an embittered husband seeking sex in the wake of his wifes admission of adulterous longing, and you can sense a familiar structure. He was great. Kubrick tested this idea on his powerhouse stars Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise in their roles of Dr. Bill and Alice Hartford. 2:10:32. *A version of this article appears in the June 24, 2019, issue ofNew YorkMagazine. Next: Amy Poehler Compares Hosting The Golden Globes To A Stanley Kubrick Movie. It was only after months of rehearsal and improvisation that the sequence took its final shape. One of the problems was that they had to be totally natural. While he almost gives in a few times, he makes it through the encounters unscathed until he gets to the main event, the secret society's weird orgy. It was built by a [maharajah] in the 1800s, with a corridor that is hand-carved marble. Layering unrelated symbolism behind a story full of plot holes and unrealistic situations is just lazy. 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. The most famous version has it that he used Eyes Wide Shut to rat on the Illuminati, who retaliated by having him killed on 7th March, 1999666 days before 1st January, 2001 a gruesome nod to his most famous film. 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. You make some very interesting points throughout your analysis. This essay will not engage in that kind of analysis.]. Britains royal family cheats in the most boring ways. The object that shields the truth sits in clear view, causing him to break down and reveal to Alice the details of his journey. how is he recognized when he enters the party? Of course, 'Eyes Wide Shut', the phrase itself, is a calling card among secret societies, meaning 'my eyes are shut to your misdeeds, brother.' This anonymity is required of participants, in order to cloak society's moneyed elite.