Non-Submersible Units

Kubrick said that any film should contain large narrative elements that constitute “non-submersible units.” These were the core of a film. In this chapter we provide a new analysis of these key scenes as well as the connective narrative tissue between them. We use material from the preceding chapters, our archival research, as well as critical commentary about the Eyes Wide Shut, to consider the various ways the film can be read and understood, from the opening through the closing credits. While not a final or conclusive reading, we attempt to explicate new and fresh ways in which the film can be interpreted.

“It’s Probably Going to Be the Hardest Film to Make”

Stanley Kubrick wanted to film Arthur Schnitzler’s Traumnovelle since the early 1950s. His interest lay in Schnitzler’s fascination with sexuality and domesticity. The intersection of Schnitzler’s writings with those of Sigmund Freud was of particular interest. Kubrick’s favorite director, Max Ophüls, had adapted some of Schnitzler’s plays, and this also attracted the author to Kubrick. Even though he kept putting off the making of the film, its ideas percolated into those films he did make, from Fear and Desire through The Shining. During this long period of gestation, Kubrick entertained many ideas for writers and stars. At one point, he wanted to make it as a comedy. Only after the failure to get his Holocaust film or his science fiction film, A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, made did he finally turn to directing Eyes Wide Shut.

“A Genuine Work of Honest Art”

Outside of Japan and southern Europe, Eyes Wide Shut met with a poor reception. Reviews were not universally negative, but there were few raves. Those who liked the film understood its intricacies. Fairly quickly, serious critics and film scholars began analyzing the film with the attention it deserved, focusing on its themes and structure. The film began to enter popular culture, with its title, key scenes, and music turning up in unexpected places, including television, movies, video games, music videos, and art. Online conspiracy theorists made much of the orgy sequence, writing about the Illuminati and other dark meanings supposedly buried in the film. The establishment of the Stanley Kubrick Archive has helped scholars understand the valuable details of Eyes Wide Shut and Kubrick’s other films.

“They Absolutely Took Their Skin Off”

This chapter provides a clear and detailed chronology of the longest shoot in the history of filmmaking, which came about because its director wanted perfection in every scene. Performances, particularly those of the central characters, were carefully crafted, moving beyond realism to a heightened state. The length of the shoot caused actors like Harvey Keitel and Jennifer Jason Leigh to leave and to be replaced by Sydney Pollack and Marie Richardson. But the change of actors were only part of the churn of the production. Locations were dressed and then abandoned for others more suitable. The orgy was meticulously choreographed. Every element of the production had to suit Kubrick’s scrutiny and attention or be changed to do so.

Introduction

The film that became Eyes Wide Shut was on Stanley Kubrick’s mind for much of his creative lifetime and it was consistently pushed to the side in favor of other films seemingly very different from what finally appeared in 1999. Once he decided to make it, once Kubrick was ...

Epilogue

The epilogue considers how Eyes Wide Shut fits within modernist aesthetics, the European art film genre, and how it incorporates film history into its form and content. The film is not only a summation of Kubrick’s own work, but of his thinking about film in general. Full of allusions to other filmmakers, acknowledging their influence, giving a nod to his colleagues and friends. Kubrick has been called the last of the high modernists and he proves this through his concentration on the formal elements of his art as well as its allusive nature. Eyes Wide Shut is not an isolated phenomenon. No film is. Kubrick absorbed film like a sponge; he knew its history and he had his favorites.

The Knishery

As with all his other films, Kubrick did a prodigious amount of research in preparation for shooting Eyes Wide Shut. He marked up not only Schnitzler’s Traumnovelle but other works by the Viennese author as well as critical works about him. He went through a number of possibilities for the main characters before deciding on Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Casting of the other characters also went through a careful process of auditioning under the guidance of Leon Vitali. Specific body types were stipulated for the women taking part in the orgy. Hundreds of masks from Venice were photographed, as were locations in London that might stand for New York. In the end, most of New York was built in the studio. Costumes underwent a similar research process.

“Mayhem”

Stanley Kubrick died shortly after screening his final cut of Eyes Wide Shut. This chapter clears up the debate of whether the film was “unfinished.” Kubrick had indeed left undone many details of the editing of the film, the choice of whether or not to use voiceover narration that had been written, and the completion of the music score. The final decision to create digital figures to black out some of the orgy scenes had to be made to avoid receiving an NC-17 rating. Decisions about marketing and distribution, which Kubrick used to handle himself, also had to be taken.

The Jewish Tailor

The process of writing the screenplay for Eyes Wide Shut involved ongoing differences with chosen screenwriter Frederic Raphael. The chapter traces the long process and ongoing difficulties in preparing a workable script, examining Kubrick’s markup of Raphael’s drafts until he finally took over polishing the screenplay himself. One of the main sources of conflict was the level of the inherent Jewishness of the source novel that Kubrick wanted removed, another source of conflict with his Jewish screenwriter. The chapter also examines some possible origins of the film’s title and the creation of the character of Ziegler, which was Raphael’s invention.