tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294916540840535575.post8500955705134140163..comments2024-03-22T08:29:01.459-07:00Comments on Are the hills going to march off?: Eyes Wide Shut (1999) A Film by Stanley KubrickCarson Lundhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10164962777812861110noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294916540840535575.post-72029762864908571262010-04-20T12:17:46.957-07:002010-04-20T12:17:46.957-07:00I never understood why detractors had problems wit...I never understood why detractors had problems with this film on the grounds of it being "slow", "deliberately paced", or "too artificial". It's clearly designed to be a dreamy non-reality of some sort, so any claims of Manhattan being unrealistic are simply foolish. Not to mention the fact that all cinema is artificial; Kubrick is just exploiting the artifice a bit more than usual here, but perhaps not more than anything else he's done. <br /><br />As for the slow pace, I actually don't find it to be lethargic at all. Every scene is riveting and carefully crafted, building up a quiet tension that culminates during the orgy sequence. "Hypnotic" is the better word. I don't know why "slow" is a valid criticism in the first place.<br /><br />I've come upon this notion elsewhere that <i>Eyes Wide Shut</i><br />is to some people less distanced aesthetically, and therefore more "human". This is something I've never quite understood either. I think its formal rigor is equal to that of his monster hits like <i>Clockwork Orange</i> and <i>The <br />Shining</i>. To me, <i>Eyes Wide Shut</i> stands a bit behind these great works. He's always analytical, but for some reason it's considered a better thing if he's analyzing sex and marriage as opposed to more abstract ideas like the state of mankind or law and order. <br /><br />Jake, interesting thoughts on the way that the different roles of sex collide during the orgy sequence. You're definitely right to point out that the sex in Kubrick's work is always dispassionate.Carson Lundhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10164962777812861110noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294916540840535575.post-44349498957099959292010-04-19T21:53:09.671-07:002010-04-19T21:53:09.671-07:00I continue to grapple with Eyes Wide Shut, though ...I continue to grapple with Eyes Wide Shut, though I've long since accepted it as one of Kubrick's finest. I think that its hypnotic nature, often identified as lulling and aimless by detractors, works against the audience even as it serves as the crux of the film's allure. Kubrick always kept his distance -- a big reason I respond so positively to Barry Lyndon is the hilarious extreme to which the director takes this aesthetic remove, to the point that he moves far ahead of the plot. <br /><br />But here he moves closer even as his music selection creates a constant dissonance. What's most interesting to me is the way that Kubrick completely analyzes sex whilst looking like he barely pays any attention to it all. He recognizes sex's importance as a biological imperative, a jaunty divertissement and its usage as a method for wielding power. What makes the orgy sequence so disturbing, I think, is that it crashes these different aspects of sex, shown individually elsewhere, into each other with merciless precision. The only facet of sex not seen in the orgy is love. I think that's what drives Bill back to Alice: at first pinning his sexual inadequacies and insecurities on a stale marriage, he instead receives the wake-up call that it is the divorce of love from sex that makes it so...I don't want to say dirty because it makes me sound like a member of the Moral Majority, but I think that's the right way to think of the dispassionate uses of sex shown at the mansion.Jakehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09078001374402400232noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294916540840535575.post-89262711985773729082010-04-17T14:27:38.310-07:002010-04-17T14:27:38.310-07:00I didn't quite know what to make of Eyes Wide ...I didn't quite know what to make of <i>Eyes Wide Shut</i> when I first saw it, but of course this was because I was a Freshman in high school at the time (mind you, this was about six years after the film's release- and Kubrick's death!), and had only seen three other Kubrick films: <i>2001, Dr. Strangelove</i> and <i>The Shining</i>. The basics, I guess you could say. <br /><br />Today, the film is in my top five favorites of Kubrick's films. My order of preference would be: 1) 2001, 2) Barry Lyndon, 3) Eyes Wide Shut, 4) The Shining, and 5) Paths of Glory. As for <i>Clockwork Orange</i>, although I definitely like it a lot, it's far and away the Kube's most overrated (mostly because it's the most grossly celebrated among high school teenagers who don't even know who Kubrick is). But I need to revisit <i>Full Metal Jacket</i> someday. My response to it was the same as most other responses to it are ("Great first half, meddling second half"), but I suspect the film must go much deeper than that.<br /><br />Just thinking about it now, the orgy sequence in <i>Eyes Wide Shut</i> gives me chills. The rest of the movie seems ordinary at first, but I think that particular sequence betters the surrounding scenes, in a way that's difficult to describe.Adam Zanziehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14524618281515322239noreply@blogger.com