1999 - EYES WIDE SHUT, Kubrick;'s final film.

Rummaged through my collection and pulled out Eyes Wide Shut, Kubrick's last film. I viewed the film in 30 minute pieces while on the treadmill, so it allowed me to think about it each day. I doubt this was the viewing experience Kubrick had in mind when he made it, but hey you go with what works.

 

This film is about SEX. It has major stars in it, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Since it was directed by a male director, guess which star gets to take her clothes off, a lot. But this is in an odd way a very anti sex film. Apparently all of the critics are in agreement that the movie kicks into gear with the confession by the wife to her husband of a sexual fantasy. This freaks the husband out and sets him off on a night of supposed sexual debauchery which he never fulfills. 

The night reaches a climax in a high class orgy where men and women run abound in cloaks and masks. Correction, the women run around with no clothes on while the men run get to wear their clothes. After this scene we still have another half an hour of red herrings.  It seems that Kubrick was trying to build some suspense but it just seemed to add length to an unfocused story. The movie ends with the husband confessing his wild night to his wife (or lack of it) and the implication is that they will have a stronger marriage. There's no place like home I guess

 

 Kubrick was in his 70's when he made this, but it's no masterpiece. As an older filmmaker was this his attitude towards relationships at the end of his life?  Is he just a voyeur sending the Tom Cruise character through a series of weird sexual situations staring at lots of naked young women, only to have him running to his wife at the end of the film? So what, what's the point? Maybe the point is Kubrick gets to film "neeked" women.

Kubrick kind of lost his way after 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. It seems to me that his later films lacked a clear structure. I like Barry Lyndon, but Barry Lyndon is pretty slow moving. His films were always very well made, but somehow they always seem to be lacking something. I can't put my finger on it yet. He has been described as a cold filmmaker. The films are fun to watch for their technique but it's really only on a movie nerd level that a film like this can be appreciated.

159 minutes, screenplay Frederick Raphael and Stanley Kubrick.