Casey on Kubrick Part III: Eyes Wide Shut

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:24):
Hey, everybody, welcome to movie Crush. Uh, the continuing Casey
on Kubrick series, which by the way, is not stopping.
I say, we do. Uh, well, we'll talk about that. Yeah, sure,
pick out a new movie. But this week we were
going to be covering Eyes Wide Shut, which was Casey's
number three pick when this is only supposed to be
a three episode series. Uh. I watched it last night. Again,

(00:51):
I've seen it. I feel like that was probably like
my fourth time. How how recently had you seen it
before this most recent time it had been a minute,
but not like ten years. I've seen it within the
last four or five years ago think, and then saw
it in the theater when it first came out. And
we'll talk about all this, but um, it was a

(01:12):
movie when it came out at the time. How old
were you. I was, let's ninety nine, and I think
it came out over the summer, so I was fifteen
about to turn sixteen. So actually did not get to
see this theatrically. And it's the only Kubrick movie, um
that I was aware of and knew about as it
was being made, as it was about to come out. Um,

(01:33):
so that was kind of disappointing, did not actually be
able to go see in the theater. I have since
seen it theatrically, probably two or three times, but okay,
it's screening, but like much later in life, like in
my thirties, so which is probably about right. Yeah, what
do you do at fifteen with this movie? I mean
I loved it. I loved it at the time. By
the time I saw it, you know, it came out
on DVD like the next year, and um, I was

(01:56):
impressed with it right away. But certainly it's something that
has I understand it much more now and um yeah,
my my appreciation for it has only grown with age.
So yeah, but it was a movie. Where I was
going with that was it was a movie at the time,
and I don't know how much you were keeping up
with stuff as a sophisticated fifteen year old that you
were probably keeping up with it pretty well, but it

(02:17):
was Its legend was so large before it was even
released because it was Kubrick's follow up to I guess
Full Metal twelve years, Yeah, twelve years. He had, you know,
all these dumb stories about him being a seclusion exactly,
which if you talked to Kubrick, he was like, that
wasn't a seclusion. I was like living my life and

(02:38):
working on stuff. Yeah, he basically I was watching he
wasn't a hermit. Yeah. I was watching some some documentary
stuff yesterday and one of his daughters put it really well.
She was like he talked to everybody. He just didn't
talk to the press. But like that he's still a
person talk to the press. So it's just like he
was just like a normal person. Yeah. I remember Terrence
Malick when before he started making a lot of movies

(02:59):
again in a row, they asked him, I think it
was right around the red line what he had been doing,
and he said, you know, there's really something to be
said for not making movies. Yeah. Yeah, like, oh he
had a whole life between you know, days of Heaven
and uh yeah. But you get all you get the
sense from the press with people like Malik and Kubrick
that they're these weirdos castles exactly exactly, and like the

(03:22):
you know, to be fair, like the lack of communication
from their side just fuels speculation and so on, which
is fine, but you know, it's like it's like, you know,
there were there were stories of people in London for instance,
who would pose as Kubrick, who would kind of go
around and introduce themselves as Stanley Kubrick, and sometimes they
would be believed. There's like a whole movie made based

(03:44):
on The Prince with John Malkovich playing the impersonator called
Color Me Kubrick. Right, did you see that? I didn't
see it. I was there. Saw yeah. Interesting. Um, But
the legend of this movie was so great, and at
the time it was Kubrick's big movie come back, and uh,
the legend of the the movie was so large going
into it that I remember when I went to see it,

(04:06):
there was so much anticipation because it was the longest
film shooting history, and it it brought Tom and Nicole
to the brink. Yeah, the marriage and their life and
their sanity and like you just heard all these rumors
and stories and finally remember sitting in the theater just
being like, I have no idea what I'm about. Exactly, Yes,
And I think when I saw it, I was a
little disappointed, but have since grown to love it more. Yeah,

(04:29):
it was because of the build, Yeah, exactly. It's not
the movie that you know, anybody really thought they were
going to get necessarily, Um, and there were all these
rumors during the production because like Harvey Keitel was originally
going to be in it. I mean they shot with yeah,
and he just like tapped out and he yeah. I think,
you know, depending on like what source you're looking at.

(04:50):
Some put it down to just the fact that the
shoot went on for so long, because they started shooting
I think in November and they wrapped in like May
of nine, eight, don't want to say, and it was
supposedly a six months shoot to begin with yeah laugh,
And so you know, it's Kubrick, so you kind of
have to be available the whole time because he's shooting scenes.

(05:12):
And then four weeks later he looks at the edit
of it and says, oh, I feel like we didn't
get that the way I wanted it to. Let's do
it again, you know. So you know, some of the
explanation that has been given is just that it was
a schedule conflict thing. These are working actors. They have
to go out and make a living. They can't you know,
they're not Tom Cruising or Cole Kidman who can't afford

(05:33):
to like do a movie for not a ton of money,
probably for like eighteen months or something. Yeah. He um,
well I pulled this great Did you read the Vanity
Fair article? By the way, I did not, Well, not
not recently anyway, I've probably read it before, but it
was fifteen years later, so I guess it was about
four years ago. Okay, I have not read the great
Amy Nicholson, who is co host to the Unspoiled podcast,

(05:55):
which I love. Um, hoping to get Amy on the
show one day, but um, she wrote this great article
fifteen years on kind of a look a retrospective and
there's a lot of cool things in here. I'm gonna
kind of pull out here and there. But um, it's
insane the amount of time it took. Like the for instance,
the the scene with the with the sex worker Vanessa

(06:19):
saw great was supposed to be a couple of weeks
and they shot that scene for two months. Yeah, that one.
That's amazing, Like it's a great scene. But yeah, I
don't know how I mean, I think I think it
is this this sort of Cooper was was at a
place where he was like doing iterations of scenes where
you know, it's not just that like the coverage took

(06:40):
that long to shoot or something, but it's it's that
they probably did a whole version of it. He cut
it and then looked at it and thought, m let's
let's do something different, you know, even again at the
level of changing things about the background, the lighting. You know.
One one one comment that I saw, um it was
somebody talking about, you know, the high number of takes

(07:01):
Kubrick would do, and they said sometimes it wasn't at
all about performance. It was just that he would look
at the playback and then say that ashtray is like
facing the wrong direction. And I'd be like, Okay, give
me one exactly like you just did. But we're gonna
fix that ashtray issue and go again, you know. Yeah,
so man, I mean, uh, well, to clear it up
for the listeners. H Harvey Cattel was playing the Sydney

(07:23):
Pollock role. Yeah, yeah, Victor Ziegler. Yeah. By the way,
uh Sydney Pollock just oh, I love him so much
as an actor and he's such he was such a
legendary director. But some of my favorite uh Sydney Pollock
work is as an actor, absolutely, Husbands and Wives. It's
one of my favorite roles. Yeah, and Emily and I
still quote that line and husbands and Wives when he's

(07:44):
got he's dating the younger girl at the party and
she embarrasses him and he drags her out there and
he goes, you're a fucking infant. So we always that man.
But um, he said, uh, he said Sydney had the thing.
He said, the rest of us, poor bastards, were able
to get sixteen weeks of filming for seventy million with
a twenty million dollar star. Somehow Stanley worked at where
he could get forty five weeks of shooting for sixty

(08:06):
five million. Um. He just said he figured out a
way to work in England for a fraction of uh
what we pay here. So yeah, I guess it's just
he Kubrick did. It's just yeah, I think it's it's
the same reason that people do like Malex films, where
you know, George Clean will show up for like two
lines and thin red line or something, you know, and
with the possibility being cut in time. Yeah, exactly, exactly

(08:29):
like what happened with Adrian Brody on that movie. So
he wasn't in it right barely barely, and he was
supposed to be the star. Other story so interesting, and
he didn't find out to the premiere. Um. But yeah,
I think I think Kubrick was in that very very
rarefied air of director that actors will basically just say
yes to and sort of like move things around in

(08:52):
their schedule, do whatever it takes to basically get in
a Kuber movie, because I mean, like we were saying,
it had literally been twelve years just about out. I
mean when they started shooting its ninety six, so Full
mil Jacket came out in eighty seven, so it's been
like nine years, but still almost a decade since the
last movie. Just there's a lot of anticipation and anticipation.
And yeah, well Cruz is on record, he said his

(09:14):
quote from this article was, I remember talking to Stanley
and I said, look, I don't care how long it takes,
but I have to know, like are we going to
finish in six months? Like people waiting, writers waiting on
other things. So I say, Stanley, I don't care, like,
just tell me it's gonna be two years. And he
wouldn't do it. And that's part of the and and
Amy in this article too goes on to talk about

(09:35):
the process of you know, very famously like in the
one scene where Tom Cruise walks through a doorway he
had him do that nine times, and she said it
was a concerted effort on Kubrick's part to break them
down to nothing so they would have to build back
up again and forget that they were working on a
movie essentially that they were so sort of crazed and tired. Well,

(09:58):
there's like an amazing kind a home movie quality two
eyes wide shut um, even though you're working with like
two of the biggest movie stars in the world and
it's this highly anticipated project. Just the way that Kubrick
paired down the size of his crew, way the way
he was shooting with you know, um not available light.

(10:18):
I would never say that about his approach, but certainly
we will get into more this later. But the way
the movie's lit, it's it's a lot of practicals, it's
a lot of Christmas tree, Yeah, exactly exactly. So you know,
it has this very like even even in terms of
like the the amount of grain that's present in the image.
It you know, it's thirty five, but it feels almost

(10:40):
like sixteen sometimes because it is a little bit noisier
than where accustomed to seeing in like a big budget movie. Um,
there's like a real like handmade quality to this film.
I think that gives it that that super personal, super
kind of like I said, handmade quality. Well, and I
think there I didn't see a ton of like Kubrick
is known for those just super long tracking shots and

(11:03):
dolly shots. Yeah, there's not a lot of that in there.
There's like some steady cam, but that's about it. I
think he ever does a handheld but I mean there's
there's like a handful of dolly shots when it's like
Tom Cruise walking down the street, and there's the shots
that are where the camera's kind of parallel to him. Yeah. Um,
but yeah, other than that, it's it's just about all
either very very um cleanly done handheld kind of operation

(11:29):
or steadicam or tripod. Yeah. I know the handheld is
most notable to me in the scene the really long
scene where I know that doesn't narrow it down, but
the really scene with Nicole Kidman argument. Yeah, yeah, the
fight scene that really kind of sets up his whole
left turn into his weird, weird night. Um, there's a

(11:50):
lot of handheld that in that scene. That scene is
long and should have been long and fits and she's
so good. Yeah, when she's like doubling over with laughter,
the way the camera hands down, and it's the operations
incredible because it's like her timing and the way the
camera just follows her immediately, they're like perfectly in sync.
And you can tell that probably took who knows how

(12:12):
many takes or days to get that well and then
with her performance like knowing that she did that god
knows how many time Yeah, and still feels completely fresh.
So yea, and Cruise, I think in that scene he
gets he got hammered in the press, and I didn't
realize how widely his performance was panned, but um, I thought,
I mean, listen, Tom Cruise is a world class flake

(12:36):
when it comes to scientology and things like that. But
I think the guy is a legendary and an amazing actor.
And if you as much as I hate to admit it,
sometimes yeah, I mean you look at his performance and
like Magnolia from right around the same time, like he
can bring that that that realness and that intensity and

(12:56):
so on, um and really kind of disappear into a
character and play ends type and all that kind of stuff. Um,
He's completely capable of doing that. So I think, you know,
whatever else you can say about Eyes, watch shut or
about his characters performance and so on, Like it's exactly
as it was intended by Kubrick. Yeah, Like Dr Bill
is a very reserved guy. Like he he doesn't outwardly

(13:18):
emote much. No, there's a lot going on in his being.
He's meant to be kind of an everyman, kind of
just an average guy in a way. Although he's he's
you know, he is a doctor. He's like upper middle
class but time yeah yeah, yeah, but you know, at
the same time, he kind of um, you know, he
goes home, he sits down on the couch, he watches
football and has like a Budweiser like which to me,

(13:42):
those shots are always so funny to me because I
don't completely buy Tom Cruise as that exactly is that guy.
Both times that he opened the button again, I was like,
come on, yeah, he's not doing that, but um, but
that is his character. That's that's what Kubrick is is
kind of going for. It's like this sort of just
the middle of the road, you know, very mainstream kind

(14:02):
of guy, which is weird that he cast Tom Cruise. Yeah,
it was probably part of it. Well that that was
always his kind of idea. I think um was to
work with these you know somebody that was super well known.
Like even the character's name Harford was you know, basically
a reference to Harrison Ford. Um. Not not that he
wanted to cast Harrison Ford, but just this idea of

(14:23):
like leading man, you know, somebody who can like hold
a movie and is like well known to people as
this Hollywood kind of royalty, but at the same time,
is going to be put in this role and kind
of play against type. And yeah, he didn't do a
lot of he's so into I mean, I think the
Mission Impossible series is pretty great. Um, but it seems

(14:45):
like he's sort of only playing those roles now. Yeah,
he's kind of like he had that more kind of
you know, take me seriously as an actor phase, and
it does seem like now he's kind of moved beyond
that where he's more interested in maybe like doing the
practical stunts himself. And I wonder if it's because he's
getting older. He's like, this is my last shot. Yeah, yeah,
and then I'll have maybe Yeah, that would be incredible.

(15:09):
I actually I'd love to see that for him to
like kind of do like a light late life turned
back to like he's going to have any serious drama
kind of rolls. You can't keep jumping off a building. True, yeah,
you know, breaking his breaking his legs. Uh. And it
also dawned. I mean, like Nicole Kidman, she has become
one of the best actors of her generation. Tastic, like
when you look at her body of work and especially lately. Yes,

(15:31):
she's just in great movie after great movie. Now. Yeah,
you know one of my favorites of hers, um, his Birth.
Have you seen Birth? Jon Blazer film? That's that's almost
another one like to do like an episode or something
about but um, it's very Kubrickian and it has this
incredible scene of Nicole Kidman sitting down in the audience

(15:53):
like an opera performance. Um. And it's it starts on
this extremely wide shot and then it's a slow Cooper
n zoom all the way into a close up of
her face and you're hearing the music. There's no dialogue,
but you're seeing these emotions play out over her face
unbroken take and you see this entire emotional transformation and

(16:14):
realization and reckoning and she breaks on into tears and
it's it's one of the you know, greatest like single
shot performances of any actor I can think of. She's amazing.

(16:34):
So this movie is about it's about marriage fidelity, but
it kind of hit me more than ever last night.
It's really about sex and almost every way Yea. Like
every character in this movie almost they're driven by some

(16:57):
sort of sexual transaction or sexual tension happening. And obviously
with the the Illuminati party, yeah yeah, yeah, that's the
obvious thing. But like the Alan Cumming is the hotel desk,
Clark is just like eating him alive with his eyes,
and the two women, the two models at the party

(17:17):
early on are just writhing and like it's so sexual,
like they're practically dry humping him. Yea, in this party,
and the guy, the bear and the Hungarian whatever. Emily
last night, by the way, does not love this movie.
She just kept yelling things at the screen. I was
watching it, but she was like, dude, get out of

(17:38):
her fucking face, Like he's just so predatory. Yeah yeah, yeah.
The whole movie is like when he rinsed the costume,
that could have just been a very simple costume, right,
but it's daughter shipping out the daughter of these Asian
uh guys in drag Yeah yeah yeah, sex everywhere, Yeah, yeah. Yeah,
even even the patient's house that he goes to and

(18:01):
she confesses supposedly that she has this for him. Yeah,
he's like, what are you talking? He's like, I don't
even we we've never we've never had a conversation outside
of your father's health. And let me ask you something
with that character later in the movie, after I think
it's oh he calls again. Yeah, and I'd forgotten about
that scene, did too? What is that? Is he trying
to reach her? Yeah? I think he's I think he's

(18:23):
sort of like, I've struck out here here here is
that the deal? And he's kind of like, well, you know,
I've got this other kind of like iron in the fire,
I could maybe recondole And because is that your take
is that he has uh once he learns that he
about Nicole Kimman's story about the naval officer yea and
even though nothing happened, he is not the center of
her life. Yeah, he's trying to get the worldview has

(18:45):
been rocked. Yeah, and I think, yeah, I think, you know,
I I don't know if he's like single mindedly, if
that's the only thing that's motivating him is to go
out and have sex with somebody. But but but it is,
it's definitely a strong element that's mixed up in there
where he's trying to sort out his feelings of jealousy
and betrayal and you know, just just like he was.

(19:07):
He was so secure in what he thought was you know,
his marriage and his relationship and so on, and and
to have that that certainty just completely demolished. Yeah in
the route, like you man, he just doesn't know what
to do with that. He doesn't, he didn't know how

(19:28):
to handle it. So um, I do think that was
his motivation for calling back. And then of course when
it's the boyfriend that comes to the phone in that
second scene, which pulled me out, by the way, because
that fucking guy from Darmott and Greg oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah that's true. I didn't I didn't, I didn't recognize him,
But now that you say it, I totally get Yeah, yeah,

(19:49):
that is him. Yeah. So she tells him that she
had this fantasy of this naval officer kind of destroys
his world because he very sort of I don't know
if it was cocky, but just very confidently was like, well,
of course, I know you've never cheated on me. Yeah.
I think that's what bothers her is that he is

(20:10):
so sure of it that it shows in a way,
even though what he's trying to say, I think is
that he trusts her, he has confidenced her. He he
just holy believes that she would never do anything to
hurt him in that way. But there's still kind of
like you still want to have that one or two
percent of like a little bit of jealousy just because

(20:32):
it shows that you care in some way, you know well.
And it's also the message he sort of delivers is
like you are not a sexual creature through me. Yeah. Yeah, yeah,
it's like you know men, Yeah, we all know what
men are like, you know, because you're a beautiful woman. Therefore,
he definitely would have wanted to sleep with you. That's
like the only possible motivation a man would have to

(20:53):
like hit on you, talk to you or whatever. Um,
He's like, that's what men are like. But you know,
women are different there he doesn't say this, but the
implication is like they're more maternal, they're more domestic, they're
more like, you know, their their sexuality is not so
like wide open as a man'sas and she wants to
tell him, like, don't be so sure of yourself, like, um,

(21:15):
because this thing happened. Yeah, because this thing happened, and
I really want it. But you know, if if things
had gone a little differently, maybe maybe it would have
happened and she still remembered it however many years later. Yeah,
and that's what drives his like every action from that
point forward. He's obsessed with this. Yeah, and I should
mention that the one part of this movie that I
really I still don't like was the flashback to the

(21:39):
naval officer. I agree he shot it was I agree
very it dates it. It looks very nineties. Yeah, it's
just not the what do you call that method, the
step printing, I guess, the kind of the you know,
it's shot at like twelve frames a second or something
like that. It just to me, it's kind of like
the best way I can like sort of rationalized that,

(22:02):
I guess is that he's trying to visualize the kind
of um, I don't know, old fashioned nous of these
visions that Tom Cruise is having. That he's having these
very almost kind of because you know, it's I guess
we'll talk about the source a little bit, but it's
based on this like nine twenties, you know nothing about

(22:22):
the novel Um by Arthur Schnitzler, which is set in
the Vienna and like the nineteenth century. So it's you know,
you've got kind of like Freud, You've got kind of
um repressed sexuality playing in there quite a bit more.
And I think it's something the reason those those shots
of the naval officer Nicole Kibbin are so kind of

(22:44):
like corny feeling. I think it's almost that he's going
for this kind of old timey feel. But I agree
it's completely you know, that's that's not what you know,
like an American man in the nineties would envision, you know,
it would be like softcore porn or something you know,
would would be more the visual style to go for. Yeah,
And evidently Kubrick, you know, rather purposely tried to uh

(23:10):
funk with Tom and Nicole's marriage during that scene especially yeah,
but not allowing Tom to be on set. Yeah, didn't
let him on set, wouldn't allow her to say what happened.
And then evidently when they shot it, spent a couple
of weeks for what ended up being seconds to flashback
where he put them, it said, in more than fifty
erotic positions. And just like this is I think where

(23:33):
all of the Kubrick think came to such ahead of
him being a manipulator as a director, because they suffered.
And they both are on record in this Vanity Fair
article about how it really the lines became blurred and
it really did funk with their marriage. Yeah yeah, um yeah.
Something I was watching last night on Nicole Kibbin talks

(23:56):
about what what really excites her about forrmants as like
an actor, and she said, it is those moments where
the line between your personal life, in your in your
character start to blur and you can't see that line anymore.
She said, It's a very exciting thing. It's also a
very dangerous thing. Yeah yea. And Cruise, Uh, well, well

(24:18):
here's the deal. Everyone knows Tom Cruise is um like,
regardless of what you think of his talents, he is
one of He is one of the hardest working actors
at his craft. He is is very well known for
just uh and it's not just like hey, I do
my own stunts, but like will do anything to to

(24:40):
nail his part. And now he's working with the master
of all time but not necessarily known for being the
master director of actors, and he wanted to please him
so much. He got an ulcer during the filmmaking, but
would not tell Kubrick about it because he didn't want
to give him that And then Todd feel, um, who's

(25:00):
great in this movie? Or I think Todd Fields ulcer
came later when he was dealing with the studio on um,
either Little Children or in the Bedroom? Where did he go?
Those are great? You know, I love those both of
those films, and he's a great actor in this movie too.
I really enjoy his his performance. Um. But I distinctly
remember reading about uh, Todd Field having to go back

(25:22):
and forth with maybe it was Harvey Weinstein or somebody,
but it's kind of a nightmare producer scenario and he
just got like a massive ulcer from the stress of
of that situation. Well, he as a as a director,
he certainly knows what he's talking about. But he said that, Um,
he said, You've never seen two actors more completely subservient

(25:43):
and prostrate themselves at the feet of a director than
Tom and Nicole did. Yeah, and I believe it that
it was working with Kubrick and there were rumors already
that this could be his final picture, and I think
Tom and Nicole were at a place where they, like
he said, they could he could afford to take off
that time and not make another. He probably well, probably

(26:05):
two times with the time it took, right, Um, but
I could see them being just like, what we'll do
a thousand take, Stanley, if that's what you want, because
you're a genius. Yeah, and he was. It's like, oh man,
I've got these two. Yeah, I could so funk with them,
and I am going to I was reading or listening
to something where the cinematographer Larry Smith said something to

(26:28):
the effect of, U Kubrick didn't do as many repetitive
takes on this film as he had on other films,
maybe because Tom and Nicole were more prepared than usual. Um. Yeah.
He said that some scenes would take two hours and
some would take two weeks. But um, but there, you know,

(26:49):
Kubrick had maybe backed off a little bit on that
sort of almost compulsive urge to like, um, you know,
at least at leased on certain scenes anyway, and then
others he walks to the door nine of course. Yeah,
you know we talked about how on Barry Lyndon. You know,
Leon vitally only had to do the vomiting scene once,

(27:10):
you know, so it could be it could be something
like that where he he just caught such a natural
reaction of Tom Nicole that he was like, we're never
going to do that. Better, let's move on, but I
still need you to walk through the door ninety five
times or whatever is vitalis in this too, right, he's
the red cloaked mastermind of the ceremony, but exactly yeah,

(27:31):
he's the one who speaks yeah, yeah, asked for the
second password and all that. Yeah, all right, we'll get
to that stuff, because goddamn man, what interesting turn that
movie to Sydney pol I love. At the beginning of
this movie, he's got this Christmas party and then the
next thing you know, he's he's with a sex worker.
He's shooting up a speedball in the upstairs room and

(27:54):
she's like basically dead and revives her justing you know,
open your eyes with yeah, yeah, Mandy, opened your eyes,
which is kind of interesting. But god, polic is so good.
He's I mean, I love Harvey Catel, but I'm so
happy that ended up being Polock in this film because
Polock just has that like Hollywood royalty. He's he's he's

(28:17):
very charismatic, he's very like he's somebody that you know,
you would feel completely comfortable, like letting watch your kids
or something. But at the same time, he also has
this kind of like he's played so many roles where
he's like the older kind of corporate guy or whatever
who like knows where all the bodies are buried, but
but in a very nice way at the same time.

(28:37):
So he's such a wonderful stand in for kind of
what I think kuberc Is is kind of gesturing towards,
which is this idea of like old money, old power,
old kind of like just like the American aristocracy kind of.
He's like the perfect symbol of that, whereas Kytel, I think,
is a little more eccentric, a little more like uncontrollable

(28:58):
and you know, just just wouldn't not a stable for sure. Yeah, yeah,
I don't think he would really read nearly as well
in that in that part. And while I'm thinking about also, um,
the other actor that was either replaced or had to leave,
Jennifer Jason Lee was going to play the daughter of
the patient who passes away and confesses her love to

(29:19):
a Tom Cruise. Yeah, I didn't know that actor who
played her in this. I don't know that she's done. Yeah,
I'm not familiar with her either. And she looked a
little unhinged. Yeah yeah, yeah, but that's just interesting. Those
those two, you know, didn't didn't make it through the production. Interesting. Yeah. So, uh,
going back to Sydney Pollock and in the party and
all that, Yeah, well, I think he after the the

(29:41):
big night out, which we'll talk about in greater details,
he comes back and the whole next thirty minutes or
so is him sort of trying to undo the things
are like, he literally goes and checks in on every
kind of retraces his footsteps time. He finds out Nick
Nightingale believes has been abducted and killed. He finds out that,

(30:04):
which is funny too because Alan coming in that scene,
did you notice anything weird? And he's like, well, just
these nine things funny? Funny you should ask because actually,
you know, he had a black eye, and he had
these intimating guys around him, and they whisked him away
and they said, you know, we're going to forward his
mail and all this kind of stuff, and Tom Cruise
is being flirty back in that scene. Yeah, yeah, I
think because he wanting to get what he wants and

(30:26):
he knows that this guy is just like, you know,
licking him up and down with his eyes. Yea, let's
say looking or looking. He sounded like you said looking um.
But he finally gets to Sydney Pollock once he finds
out that the woman from that odeed that tried to
help him at the party, and Sydney Pollock's like, first

(30:46):
of all, like you don't want to be asking questions,
and second of all, like nothing is wrong. Yeah at
nine Gales with his family, she just odeed. He's talking
out of both sides of his mouth. He's like, you've
been way out of your depth for the last twenty
four hours. Yeah, but I don't know what to trust though,
is if you were still well, I think that's um,

(31:07):
that's deliberate. On Kubrick's party, I I really became way
more conscious of the kind of dual reading you could
have of like the last fifteen to twenty to thirty minute.
So this movie is Nick night gil Dead? Is Nick
Nighty Gill dead? Maybe he is? Maybe because Tom Cruise
doesn't have like a phone number you can call him at.
So maybe he really is back in Seattle, you know,

(31:29):
with Miss Nightingale, or maybe he's not you know, uh there,
maybe they ode the woman. Yeah, yeah, somebody somebody pointed
out that, um, you know, when Sydney Pollock is talking
about that in particular, he's like, hey, the door was
locked from the inside. The police are happy, there's nothing
to see here. It's like he doesn't quite say, why
does Sydney Pollock know the circumstances of the scene quite

(31:52):
so well, Like the rest of that sentence could very
well have been because we came in through the exactly exactly. Yes, yes,
there's that, Um, you know, there's there's when you know,
as as Tom Cruise is going to leave, Sitney polic
says something to the effect of, but of course, you know,
life goes on until it doesn't. You know that, right, Bill,

(32:14):
You know you know that better than everybody or a doctor.
It's a threat. I think, well, that's the thing. But
he's he's smiling and he's he's happy when he says it,
but hes Tom Cruise on the shoulder and Tom like
flinches and he's like, you know, he's facing away from
and he makes us face like he might have he
might have been expecting a knife or something. So and

(32:35):
of course the very next thing you see is the
mask sitting on the pillow next to Nicole Kidman, right
with the implication that she found it where he had
hit it. That's the thing. It's so carefully constructed, the
what they say, what they don't say, how they react, everything.
You could read the scene probably more than two ways.
But the two that jump out to me are either

(32:58):
he forgot the mask somewhere in the apartment. She found
it and knows, you know, not not exactly what happened,
but she has some idea that he hasn't been telling
her the truth about where he's been going at night,
you know, so she has put it up there on
the pillow as like an accusation. That's one reading. The
other reading, of course, is that this secret society has

(33:19):
broken into their apartment put the thing off the pillow
while she's asleep, just as a as a kind of
like poke to say, we know where you live, we
we have access to your family. Anything can happen to
you if you keep pushing on this thing. So just
forget about it. Because he had got that letter that yeah,
you know, yea give up your inquiries which you are

(33:40):
what you're worthless and just go away, go back to
your little life, you know. And those dudes, since we're
on that that face the guy, yeah, the Henchman's the
guy that delures the letters, the two gentlemen that greet
him as he arrives at the party at the gate
like so, kub yes, they only exist in the world
of Stanley couperbsolutely because in any other movie they would
be these big like Musli Hinchman, but in Kubrick's they're

(34:03):
like the sixties something. You're old British man who looked
like they've killed a thousand men, which is it's very
like it takes me back to like the Shining or something,
you know, um, which you know, I mean it's this
is this getting off track a little bit, but I
think this movie has a lot of connections thematically with
the Shining, with the idea of the Overlook Hotel representing

(34:23):
some kind of like older power that's been around for generations,
you know, not only in America but in England as well,
the kind of like colonial empire power. Um. And I
think I think, you know, when when he's giving them
the tour of the Overlook Hotel, and he says, all
the best people stayed here, Like Sydney Pollock's characters also

(34:45):
quote unquote all the best people. You know. It's it's
that same class of like the one what do you
want to call them? You know? Yeah, he loves that world.
And Mary Lindon very much the same thing, where it's
like you see him ascending the ranks and starting to
rob elbows with these people and um. Again, like in
Barry Lyndon, even though he's risen to a certain level

(35:06):
by marriage, he's still kind of has his low status
in in the in the kind of final view of things,
because he doesn't have a title, he doesn't have proper
ownership of this of this estate. And so when he
is introduced in that one scene to the king, all
the King says to him is just kind of like, good,
raise up a company, go go fight the American rebellion,

(35:28):
you know, um and uh. And it's like to the king,
he's he's nothing, you know. And even though he has
status relative to his like his servants and so on,
he's ultimately a nobody in the bigger in the grand
scheme and It's the same with Tom Cruise and Eyes
White Shut, where it's like he's a doctor. He has
this nice apartment, he's you know, his his status as

(35:51):
a doctor does kind of grant him access to he
can move in the world. You know. That's what I'm saying.
It's like a detective, I'm a doctor. I mean that,
you know the I think, um like, writers have talked about,
especially the detective story, as a way for a character
to kind of traverse the whole spectrum of like from

(36:15):
the upper crust to the underclass. You know, they can
move throughout these different worlds, and it's a way for
writers to kind of depict the whole kind of variety
of of people and statuses and classes in society. Um.
The his sort of medical license is kind of like
his version of the badge. And in Eyes White Shut,

(36:36):
he's able to you know, he's able to check in
on a body at the morgue, but he's also able
to like get a costume at three in the morning,
you know, like he can it allows him to kind
of move through society, but ultimately when he comes into
conflict with some of you has real power. Sitting Polock character,
he is like put in his place very quickly. Yeah,

(36:56):
and feels like a pawn, Yeah, which he is. Yeah.
And it larger game that he has no idea you've
been about. He didn't even know it existed. You know,
he just catches this glimpse, like this whole other subterranean
world that he had no idea existed. And you know
when in in the in the final scene of the
film where we're in Nicole Kidman or I think Tom

(37:16):
Cruise says Nicole Kidman, Yeah, and the toy stories, He's like,
what are we gonna do, which again could be either
about what are we gonna do on our marriage? Are
we gonna stay together? We're gonna split up? That's how
I read it, or what are we gonna do? We've
been threatened, they've been in our apartment everything. Yeah, he
tells her everything, And um, you really could read it

(37:37):
either way of like was it a dream? Was it? Reality?
Is the is the reality of one night? What is
that next to an entire lifetime in committed relationship Versus
what is the reality of one night where you are
exposed to this creepy, you know, secret society versus the
world you've known the rest of your life, you know,
was that real? Was that imagined? Um? Was there really

(38:00):
a sacrifice? Was there not? Yeah, he's he's really playing
on this kind of duality of like dream versus reality
on multiple levels. And again, like I said, they don't
they don't tip their hand as to exactly what it
is they're talking about in those final scenes. Yeah, for
surely really well done. Well. I think for Nicole she's
talking about she takes it as the marriage. I think

(38:20):
for sure, because it very famously ends with you know,
one important thing we have to do? Yeah, what's that? Fuck? Yeah?
I love that. Fun is the last word. And film,
you know, it's like the cap on the careers. Yeah.
Again with the sexuality, I mean not only with all
the characters, but at one point he's driving in the
in the taxi and just looks out the window and
sees that couple like looking like they're about to have sex. Yeah. Yeah,

(38:43):
and it's just everywhere. It's just soaked through this movie.
And right after he uh, right after Nicole you know,
tells him the big story with a big fight, which,
by the way, it's like, I don't think you have
to be married to get that, but that was such
a marriage thing to like get in a fight, to
almost pick a fight because just like because you feel

(39:03):
like fighting. Well, it's like when Tom Cruise has that
great line exactly, He's like, I don't even know what
we're arguing about. She's like, we're not arguing. That is
in a marriage to it. Yeah, sometimes sometimes you just
take it out on the person closest to you, whatever
moved you're feeling, and that's he's the worst of you. Yeah,
but this sends him out. Um, well, he does get
the call to go see Yeah, it is true, he

(39:25):
gets like he does have to go out, like, but
he doesn't just leave. He leaps at the chance that
when this sex worker on the street basically says you
want to come upstairs, which, by the way, I wasn't
even totally convinced he was a sex worker, So I
think she was, was she? Yeah, because I almost was
like for some reason last night when I saw it,

(39:46):
had the read to me of she just thought he
was cute, asked him upstairs, and then all of a
sudden it became a money transaction. No, because I think
you know, when she's she does kind of like approach
him on the street. Yeah, and she he is using
coded language because you know, he like, you want to
come upstairs. Yeah, well it's like you know, you you
want to come inside. I live right around here. Um,

(40:09):
we could like go inside and get more comfortable something
like that. It's warmer in there than it is out here.
I think I think it reads says, yeah, she has
a roommate, but I think they're both sex workers probably,
or maybe that's how I read it anyway. That that also,
I mean the Vanessa Shaw character, she might also be
like a student. Um, there's there's like a whole other

(40:30):
This is like a bigger topic. We can get into
more later. But um, when Tom Cruise takes the phone
call from Nicole Kidman, he walks over by Vanessa Shaw's
like bookshelves, and there's this book facing out says introducing sociology,
And um, I should mention that introducing Sociology is also
the name of a fantastic essay on Eyes Wide shot

(40:54):
by a critic Tim Crieter k R E I D
E R, which you can find if you just google
introducing Sociology kubric it should come up. Um. But it's
a lot of this kind of class based analysis of
the movie. Um comes from that essay, and so I
definitely want to encourage anyone who's interested in this kind
of line of thinking about the film to to check

(41:16):
that out, because it's one of the best pieces of
writing on this film I think I've ever encountered. So
I think the idea is that maybe she's like a
student at n y U, but she's also doing this
on the side, pay for tuition, you know, um, because
that's what it feels like. It feels like a couple
of don't think. Yeah, I don't think she's like, you know,
she doesn't read is like a a sort of tragic

(41:36):
street walker that's like hooked on drugs or something like that.
She she still seems like she's kind of, you know,
somewhat educated, somewhat like from probably a middle class kind
of background, but she has she's she's chosen this line
of where portrays the sex worker. Yeah, but when he
comes back two it's interesting when he comes back the

(41:58):
next day and he's kind of retrace his steps. There
is like a negative consequence on everything, Like he goes
back to see her first of all, he walks in
in a very bizarre scene, just meets this roommate and
is practically having sex with her. Yeah, yeah, a minute. Yeah,
he's like there's just this crazy tension going on, which

(42:19):
is why I took it to mean that she was
also potentially a sex worker, and that she had heard
from her roommate that this is a really handsome guy,
nice guy. You know, we we didn't even have sex
and he still paid me all this kind of stuff
like that's that's probably she was probably charmed by him,

(42:40):
and so that's why I think. And and the fact
that Tom Cruise knows that she knows he was already
there to pay for sex anyway, I think kind of
like it's like an icebreaker between the two of them
where it's like immediately sex is kind of on the table.
It's like a possible thing because they're having that conversation
about like she's out right now, I don't know when
she's going to be back. She may not come back

(43:00):
at all, And like they're they're in that narrow kitchen
and she has to kind of scoop by him at
the table and they're like just a couple inches apart
kind of rubbing on each other. So you know, the
sexual tension he cut with an eye for sure. Yeah,
And then the consequences overnight, Yeah, he learns that the
other Vanessa Shaw is HIV positive. So it's this weird

(43:24):
thing where it's like it's the movie is all about sex,
but there's always this negative consequence. Well that's the Victorian
kind of like um, you know, nineteenth century like the
sort of like repressed vibe, the kind of Freudian vibe before,
which came from the source material exactly exactly like this
idea that I mean that was That was kind of

(43:44):
Kubrick's idea, I think was his His thesis was sort
of that you know, relationships, sexual relationships, romantic relationships had
not perhaps changed so much since that era that we
we flatter ourselves sometimes is living in this like modern,
enlightened kind of world, but maybe it's a little more

(44:05):
old school and kind of still like repressed and kind
of um, you know, just just not as modern or
as sophisticated as we might think. Yeah, because his uh,
he's portrayed as sort of repressed, not necessarily sexually, but
like there's that one notable shot of our sequence of
him uh doctoring, and you know it goes from like

(44:28):
a little kid to like an old lady too. One
of those Kubrickian models. Yeah, yeah, naked, and it's all
very just Matt clinical, which is what he swears is
the truth to Nicole, Like the last thing in my
mind is ever this, and he portrays that on the screen,
So that is the truth, it seems like. But apparently

(44:49):
a lot of stuff was cut out of the original
script where he struggles with interesting the sexuality of his
patients interesting. Um. And there was a voice over too
that was cut out, like Tom Cruise voice over that
talked a lot about like how he was feeling interesting,
which I would be really interested. That's fascinating. Yeah, yeah, wow,
you know, I'm thinking about that sequence where you do

(45:11):
see kind of like Tom Cruise going through his day
at work. That's also intercut with Nicole Kidman at home
largely you know, teaching her kid, doing the mommy stuff.
It's like all the domestic labor. And I think that's
that's a really interesting kind of scene that because I
think it's a it's a very very deliberate thing the

(45:32):
movie is doing, showing that they're both working even though
she is quote unquote unemployed, even though she's a homemaker
mother or whatever, that they're both performing labor. They're both
you know, um, kind of playing a role in society,
and and that they're both kind of workers in a
certain sense. Um, and yeah, I mean that that's a

(45:54):
whole other thing. Just Nicole Kidman's place in the relationship
as somebody that has she had an art gallery, but
a win under she's not working right now. Um, she's
kind of like a kept woman. She's kind of like
the trophy wife or something. Um. You know, the first thing,
the first line of dialogue that Tom Cruise, first first

(46:16):
line by anybody in the movie is honey, have you
seen my wallet? So if you if you reduce it
to that, she cruizes like the wallet, he's the he's
the the breadwinner and so on. The provider. Um. One
of the one of the first things that Nicole Kibbin says,
I mean she answers him. She says like it's on
the bedside table. She has a few like incidental lines,
but the first line she has when the camera come

(46:38):
follows Tom Cruise into the bathroom is how do I look?
So it's like money and looks are like the two
defining aspects of both these characters. That she is her
her kind of job. Quote unquote is to be beautiful,
to kind of parties, go to these parties, raises child,
you know, um, and his job is go out do

(47:00):
the doctor thing, you know, provide this big apartment and
you know that that is they're they're living in a
very traditional, old school kind of single income family kind
of style. Yeah. Yeah, really interesting because like the mundane,
the mundane nous of that is stands in stark contrast
to this night that he had. Yeah exactly. He's like

(47:21):
he's coming from the most kind of cliche, normal, middle
of the road, average kind of existence. You know. I
mean they are living in New York City, so it's
not like they're like in the suburbs or somewhere rural,
which maybe be a little bit more to that you know,
common lived experience. It would have been a little on
the nose. Yeah, I'm kind of surprised it wasn't like,

(47:43):
you know, a Connecticut suburb. Yeah, exactly exactly. So he's
still you know, he's a little more and he's a
little more like he he kind of moves in these
like slightly more rarefied circles. But he's basically an upper
middle class guy and U but he but he has
access to you this you know, more kind of rarefied air. Yeah,

(48:04):
it's interesting. He's always um, he's always in a suit
almost unless he's like in bed or something. But then
that last bit, uh pre toy store, that last next
day scene, basically after he breaks down, says I'm gonna
tell you everything. There's three things that you don't see
at all in the movie up until that point. Uh.

(48:26):
You see a Christmas tree turned off in the background. Interesting,
and throughout the whole movie they're just beaming with light,
colorful light, Christmas trees turned off. The cole Kiman has
no makeup on and her eyes are red from having crying.
And he is not in a suit. He's wearing like
a shirt and a sweater. Yeah. Yeah, And and it's
they never look more their life never looks more ordinary,

(48:49):
And it's kind of stripped down scene at the end,
which that was really interesting. I love that. Yeah. I
love the effect that he creates because he's going from
one of the more hyper stylized scenes in the whole movie.
The way the bedroom is lit when you know, when
it's night and he comes home and the mask is
on the bed. Yeah, and you have that amazing piano track,

(49:09):
God any single note? Yeah, Dan, Yeah, ding ding ding
ding ding ding dinging. It's really gets under your skin.
Over two hours and forty minutes or whatever, and him
him breaking down and just weeping and saying, I'll tell
you everything, I'll tell you everything, and then that hard
cut to Nicole kidman, red eyed, smoking, looks like they've

(49:32):
probably have literally been up all night, you know, shooting
this thing. Yeah. I mean he reeks of exhaustion through
the whole movie. Yeah, yeah, because he I don't even
know if he It never shows him going to sleep,
does it. I mean, it seems like, certainly that second night,
it seems like neither one of them slept after he
got home, because he was like four am. Yeah, yeah,
and it's early morning. It's probably two or three hours

(49:53):
later at that point, and she says, you know, our
kid's gonna be up soon. We promised her we'd take
a Christmas shop, so we have to both kind of
like get collect ourselves, you know, get our ship together,
and like present the outward appearance of like normal stable parents. Again,
Is this a Christmas movie? Yeah, it's a Christmas at
Christmas movie. I think it's the Christmas movie well, let's

(50:14):
talk about the lighting a little bit. Um beautiful. I mean,
I think Stanley Kubrick said it at Christmas just so
he could use these lights. Well, I think this is
derailing us a little bit from cinematography. But the choice
of Christmas I think is extremely important aramatically as well,
just because what is Christmas. Christmas is this sort of
like consumerist ritual that we have an American society, and

(50:38):
it's really a pagan holiday. Yeah, it's really a pagan holiday.
And you know, on the one hand it purports to
be about Christianity, religion, you know, all that, but at
the same time it plays such an important part in
our economy where like the fourth quarter for retail especially
is just like it is where you make your money

(50:58):
for like the whole year of if you're in certain business.
So Um, it's this duality of American society that we
we put kind of like more of like a um
a meaning on certain things, but underneath it there is
just a kind of like um brute consumerist capitalist kind
of thing happening. UM. And I think that's kind of

(51:20):
a metaphor for like the whole film. I think about
it in terms of like, um, just the performance of
like the idea of like the masks that everybody wears.
The metaphor of the mask at the orgy is is
just the most literal version of the mask that everybody
is wearing at different moments in their lives when they're performing,

(51:40):
you know, when he's performing the role of a doctor
as opposed to the role of a husband, as opposed
to the role of a father or something. You know,
like when when Sydney Pollock and his wife greet them
as they come into the Christmas party, they're performing the
role of this like you know, uh older married couple,
very successful. You know, they probably have a whole kind

(52:01):
of philanthropic kind of presence in the world where they're
like at these award galas and so on, you know,
giving to charities and so on. They probably have like
a very respectable name in place of society. And then
not ten minutes later, he's upstairs with a hooker o
ding on a speedball and you know, he's pulling up
his pants and he's like this stays between us. It's

(52:23):
like there's there's there's always multiple levels of reality happening
at the same time. And I think the Christmas is
definitely a deliberate choice, not just for the kind of
visual possibilities which it absolutely does afford, but also because
it does comment on it's it's a way of of
extending that duality to like American society. Yeah, I mean

(52:43):
the lighting with the use of Christmas, the colored Christmas
lights on the trees. Uh all of them are colored lights.
And then those gorgeous walls of string lights and Pollock's apartment,
and then even like it's so funny, uh so like
over stylized, but that the costume shop, It's like so incredible.

(53:03):
He has this almost museum and I feel like it
was a little Barry Linda, not because there's that one
outfit on the mannequin from the colonial era or whatever,
but it's such a like like this, this is not
what a costume shop withou upstairs in the in the
Green Village, and you could you could say the same
about New York as a whole, because you know, getting
back to Kubrick's kind of quote unquote reclusive style, he

(53:26):
he refused after a certain point reportedly to like fly
on airplanes, which whether he actually did or whether he
just wanted to say, yeah, I just wanted to say,
I want to have a rock solid reason for why
I can never fly to l A or something. You know,
I'll tell them I won't fly. Yeah, I mean, Kubrick
got his pilot license at one point, so you know,

(53:47):
he was very familiar with aviation and UM, so it's
not that he was averse to the idea of flying.
It could just be that once he saw kind of
how the sausage was made from a flying standpoint inwood,
he didn't feel comfortable, you know, getting on a commercial
plane where you don't know who's piloting the thing. He
knows how much can go wrong or something. But yeah,

(54:08):
it's interesting though, like he very famously recreated uh Greenwit's
village in London um and sent his assistance to have
like a whole second unit go to New York. Yeah,
like apparently like measuring the distance between newspaper boxes to
get it perfect. But it doesn't feel like New York though, No,

(54:29):
Like when I was watching it, and I think that
some of it's London, like the um the scenes where
you see again where it's those tracking shots of Tom
Cruise from the side walking down the street. Apparently some
of that is actually like London. Streets. Um, but it
doesn't ever feel like New York. Yeah. And when even
though it's a dressed up when when it's the straight

(54:50):
on shots that are tracking back with Tom Cruise where
you see the background you know, behind him and he's
directly facing camera. Uh, those are like rear projection plates.
They were actually shot on the street in actual New York.
But I think, you know, and Tom Cruise is just
on a treadmill and they're and they're basically like you know,
they're projecting this image of the car scenes too, right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, Um,

(55:12):
I think Kubrick was going for a for a deliberately stylized,
deliberately dream like it's New York, but it's not quite
New York. That's what I like. That's what I took
from it last night because I was like, I've been
to New York so much since I first saw this movie. Yeah,
I was like, man, that you not New York. But
it gave it this off kilter field, um right down
to like you know, the Gang of Tufts. Yeah that

(55:35):
basically kind of called Tom Cruise gay. Yeah yeah yeah,
and it's uh, that's a very interesting scene, like it
borders on a hate crime. Oh yeah, totally. Uh and Cruise.
You can tell. It's like I kind of want to
like to me, I was like Ethan Hunt these motherfuckers. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Well it's so interesting because that's so that is so
against his usual persona, where he is the one who

(55:58):
acts on the world and you know, rises to you know,
kind of strike back against opposition and so on. And
in that one, he is just he's outnumbered, like I
think he did. I think he was like and he's
just like, I'm gonna get my ass kicked if I
even do anything. So all I can do is just
suck it up and like, you know, just take it,

(56:19):
just try to like be beyond it. Yeah, but it
fits because it's a it's a movie so much about
his sexual frustrations because he's always striking out. Yeah, and
then in that scene he's he's basically his masculinity is
called out, but he can't do anything about anything about
once again, it's another form of sexual frustration just piling
on him. Yeah, he's just getting dumped on left and
right in this movie. All right, let's get to the orgy. Um.

(56:49):
The movie takes a very strange turn when he meets
up with Nick Nightingale at the Sonata Club, which again
looks like no jazz club in New York ever incredible looking. Um,
and uh, he tells him about this crazy thing like
you wouldn't believe it. They blindfold me. I'm paid to
play the piano, but the blindfold, like you know, last time,
it slipped off a little bit. And so he gives

(57:11):
him the Fidelio password, which I've used that as a
joke a lot. No one ever gets it. Um, I'll
bust that word out and everyone's like, what, uh did
you say Flatio? Uh. So he goes to this this
mansion I guess in Connecticut or upstate or somewhere supposed
to be like Long Island or something. It's like way
out and um, all of a sudden, it's this. It's

(57:37):
this Kubrickian like nightmare. It's like the most uncanny, nightmarish, bizarre,
surreal thing. And you know, even before you're fully told
by Sydney Poblock later, you know that these are they
are very important people behind those masks, yes, and that
it's very secret. And uh, everyone keeps telling him heatedly,

(58:00):
like you have no idea? What kind of danger? You're in, like,
these people will fucking kill you so the secret doesn't
get out. This is yeah, this is the idea is
just sort of like these are the people who really
control society or something. You know. It's like, what do
you want to call it, like the Illuminati or the
one person or the elite or whatever. Uh, It's it's

(58:20):
just kind of like these these are the real movers
and shakers in the world, who you know, the President
takes their phone calls and you know, kind of takes
his marching orders from what they're telling him, you know. Yeah,
but all it's it's so weird to like, part of
me is just kind of cracking up at it last night,
Like all they're doing is seven sex, but it's it's

(58:41):
couched in all of this weird ceremony, right with the
women in the circle that which, by the way, like
the uniformity of their bodies yea types so very specific
types that he kind of went for. Yeah freaky to me.
Yeah yeah, tall, broad, broad shoulders, and they all are
obviously perfect the cast to be these nameless sort of replicas.

(59:04):
Yeah yeah, um, but like what was going on there?
What the fund was that all about? It's very very
eerie or just don't question it? Is that? Is it
just to set a tone? Yeah, I don't know. I
mean it almost feels to me like they have like
like you said, they've they've all been chosen for for
a certain kind of physical uniformity. But there's just something

(59:24):
so ominous about that because it was terribly The uniformity
of it just implies that they've they've probably had to
go through so many more like where are they finding
these women? Like what happens to the ones who don't
make the cut, Like it's just very very very odd line.
It reminded me when Tom Cruise is like because yeah,

(59:45):
they're like, you know, you know what this means if
you take his you know, if you take this on
for him. Yeah, she's like, yes I do. And Tom
Cruise with Sydney POGs like you know what the funk
happened to her? And he was like she got a
brains exactly ex Yeah, it's like she was, We put
her in a car and sent her home. She was fine,
it was nothing, there was nothing wrong with her. But
I don't I don't think I believe that for a second.

(01:00:06):
Well he says, you know, he's like you know, it
was only a matter of time. It was the same
one you already saw od that one time at my party.
So he's I think he's really leaning hard on the
fact that, like, this is somebody that would have oded
at some point anyway, So what's what's the what's the
problem if we sped that up a little bit, you know,

(01:00:28):
we kind of slid the timeline up a few months
or whatever. That's kind of what he's saying. I think
he's like, don't don't look at this as somebody who
has lost you know, another same ship for life, the
years of their life or whatever. He's just kind of
like she was already headed for the grave, So what's
the big deal? You know? Well, what I want to
know is how did he get found out. We know

(01:00:49):
that he got found out with the password and the
fact that he arrived in a taxi and the fact
that he had a receipt in his pocket. The thing is,
he didn't get found out from the password though, because
there was no second password. So well he said at
the end, yeah, yeah, there was no there was no
um like when he said Fidelio, that was the correct answer.
But it was more the fact that he showed up
in a taxi, whereas everyone else showed up in a limo,

(01:01:13):
which is kind of you see a little bit of
that you know, economic kind of classic fied there the
fact that when they took his uh, his his costume, uh,
there was a receipt from the rental shop in the pocket,
so they also knew that this is something you don Yeah, yeah,
you don't own it. And and and you just did

(01:01:34):
this like ten minutes before he got here kind of thing.
Well how is he found out to her though? Because
he enters uh sort of pretty quickly gets paired up
with her, and she's like, what are you doing here there? Yeah?
Like how does she know? Maybe maybe it's that's the
one part, the choice of mask, or just the fact
that he's arriving later after everybody else is there clear

(01:01:58):
and he gets I mean you get that first great
Barry Lyndon of the two creeps of which is probably
Sydney Pollock. And and somebody has been suggested anyway that
they had this like crazy like bloodshot I kind of
see through the mask. Um, but I think the implication
is that that's Sydney Pollock kind of clocking him as
he comes in, realizing if not that it's Tom Cruise

(01:02:22):
yet at least realizing there's somebody here who doesn't belong
and we've all kind of picked up on that, but
we're going to kind of for now hold our breath
and just kind of see what happens. Uh. And so
he wanted to run this party, and is it I think? Uh?
I remember that there were digital people added for the

(01:02:43):
for the for the American version, the theatrical American version. Um. Yeah.
The reason for that is, you know, we haven't talked
about it, but Kubrick died literally within days of finishing
his kind of like final cut of the movie because
he didn't he edit this forever too? Yes, yeah, I think,
I think because they wrapped up shooting uh in like
early and it didn't come out until summer, So it

(01:03:06):
was like, I think, a good year plus of post production.
Did he have anyone in his corner saying like post
posthumously saying like you can't funk with this movie? Yeah? Well,
the thing is that Kubrick had final cut with Warner Brothers, um,
but he also had in his contract because of the
nature of the film, because there was going to be
some sex in it, he was contractually obligated to deliver

(01:03:29):
an R rated movie. So it's like you can make
it can be as long as you want, you can
have whatever scenes you want, but you have to get
an R from the m p a A. We can't.
We can't put out a sixty million dollar, you know,
C seventeen movie. It just won't work for for any
number of reasons. Um And so because Kubrick was dead

(01:03:51):
and couldn't get into a battle with the m p
a A. You know, he couldn't. He couldn't like write
to them and argue with them and say, you know,
here's these ten other movies he's given R rating two
and they have this much nudity, and why are you
messing with me? Yeah, exactly. He couldn't do any of that.
And they, of course, they didn't want to edit the
film down. They didn't want to change the pace of

(01:04:12):
the scene. They didn't want to like leave shots out.
Their only real choice to like maintain the film as
close to what his intention was was to put these
c G I figures standing around basically just kind of
like fig leaves, you know, in front of like the
more kind of like explicit parts. So it's really it's
very obvious. It's very very unfortunate, like the digital effects

(01:04:36):
were not like up to snuff today, you could probably
do it a little better. Um, but yeah, it's it's
just it doesn't work. And I'm sure also like the
fact that it was mandated by the studio and it
wasn't Kubrick like supervising it. I'm sure if he'd been
around to do it, they could have gotten it looking better.
But I also think he would have probably figured out

(01:04:57):
a way to just get it past the m p
A anyway, you know. Um, so yeah, there there are
c g I figures if you get like the American
DVD from a long time ago, I think by now,
if you buy it on Blu ray and I I knew
this sort of fact, if you buy it on Blu
ray or DVD or stream it online at this point,
I think the n C seventeen is like the cut
that every sees. Yeah, yeah, they've I mean there's nothing

(01:05:21):
like crazy explicit going on. There's there's just like some
more kind of like yeah, it's it's it's really not
that exploit it's pretty tame. I mean you can see
what's going on. H Yeah, and it's it's yeah, it's fine.
You know what, I had never noticed about the sex
scene until this most recent time. I don't know why
I never picked up on this, but there's a scene
where he walks into one of the rooms and there's

(01:05:43):
a couple having sex. And I always thought they were
having sex on like a like a small table or something,
but it's actually a person on all fours wearing like
a black suit there, like one of the butlers or
whatever at the party, and they are they are like
having sex on the back of this person and that
and just shows you, like the power play and the
kind of dominance in the sort of like you know,

(01:06:05):
putting people in their place like you are nothing, Like
you're just like a table for us to screw on,
you know, like that's what we think of you as
a person. Yeah, so so well. And there's something about
the masks too, which, by the way, they're great, great masks.
Um It it appears like there's no joy in any
of this for any of those people. Um And it's

(01:06:27):
partially because you can't see expressions, but no one's like partying,
Like there's this buccanalien orgy going on for about a
third of the people you know, at any given moment,
because I guess there are only so many girls, but
the rest of the people are just standing around watching,
not doing any but they're not serious, they're not masturbating

(01:06:47):
to it. Like, yeah, it's not like the Orgies I've
been to. Yeah, exactly, exactly is very different. But um
and when he uh, well, one of my favorite parts
is when he gets told that his his, when he's
totally found out, and he says, your limo driver or
your taxi driver needs speak to you, and they walk
through the saddest uh slow dancing strangers, the strangers, which

(01:07:11):
totally reminded me of kind of the ballroom scene in
The Shines deliberately, so I think, yeah. And then but
he when he walks through, and I've seen this movie
four or five times, but when he's like, oh, sure,
I'll go get to my taxi driver and he opens
the door and it's fucking everybody yes looking at him. Yea.
And just last night again, I'm getting chills. Was just like,

(01:07:33):
as soon as he walks in that room out loud,
I went, oh, fun, yeah, you know you're in some
deep Yeah. I don't even knew what happened, but it
was still so powerful. Yes, so creepy. Oh, it's just
that it's that uncanny thing. It's that there's something about
the way he composes an image. Yeah, man, like the
symmetry of it, the lighting of it. Everybody's in these
kind of like darker cloaks, and he's, you know, the

(01:07:55):
Master of the ceremonies is in the red one in
the center, and you just know like you've you've arrived
at this kind of like tribunal council whatever. Yeah, it's
totally Yeah, it's like you've been called in by like
the principle, you know, and like you're about to get
chewed out. I'm surprised they let him go because when
I first saw it, I thought he's he's kind of

(01:08:17):
getting trained pulled on him or suffer the worst sexual Yeah,
you know, they do. You know, they kind of they
kind of skip over what happens because they tell him
and then the next thing is he's kind of I
don't even remember what the next scene after that is.
But while he comes out, maybe well the lady stands up.
That's right, that's right, that's right, that's right. Okay, Yes,

(01:08:40):
but I'm surprised they let him go yeah, um, and
he comes back the next day. I think it's you know,
just crazy. I guess you could say, like if maybe
they maybe they decided we have to let this guy
go because he's tied too closely to the Zigglers. Yeah,
Sydney Pollock's character, and um, it's a little messy if

(01:09:01):
we if we bumped this person off. Was he behind
the scenes even saying like, hey, listen, I know this guy. Yeah,
like we've got too many connections here. Like, I think
the practical thing is, you know I can talk to
this guy. Um, well, why wasn't he invited? That's a
good question, you know. Yeah, well he's not in most ways,

(01:09:22):
I bet. Yeah, But but I think maybe he's a
little he's a little too common. He's a little too
really even as a like a wealthy in New York
docor that's his place, you know, he's that really exactly
exactly there there there are several tears above where he's at,
you know, because I mean you look at you look
at Tom Cruise, Nicole Kibn's apartment. It's a nice place.

(01:09:42):
I mean it's it's a very nice place for you
in New York. And you know that's that's millions and
millions of dollars. But it's not Sydney Pollock's place. Yeah,
it's not a mansion, it's not he doesn't have an
entire wing of Renaissance you know, sculptures and stuff upstairs,
like you know, Sidney Pologus is many magnitudes. Well, I

(01:10:05):
think that's one of the I mean, this movie has
a lot of things to say, but I think Wealth
and Status has a lot to do with it, which
is a kind of through line and a lot of
Kubrick's work. Yeah, it's a through line and a lot
of his work. And I think this movie, like you know,
we're talking about that that book that's in the Hooker's
Apartment um introducing sociology, Like I think that is you know,

(01:10:27):
when you said earlier, like the whole film is about sex,
I think it's also about money. And it's about you know, money,
because he's always buying his way out of things. That's
that's I mean, even even his name, Dr Bill, it's
kind of a pun, you know, because he he he's
always buying his way out of stuff, like whether it's

(01:10:48):
the i'll pay you two times over rental feed for
the costume or wait here in the cab rip up
that I was just like, Kenny, can you take that together?
Is that still a valid currency? Yeah? You can. And
there's a certain out of serial numbers you have to
be able to read to make it like relevant currency
or whatever. But it is sort of like whatever problem
comes up, he can just throw money at it. When

(01:11:09):
when um Vanessa Shaw, Yeah, when when Vanessa Shaw says, um,
how does a hundred fifty sound, He's like that sounds
wonderful because that's like nothing to him, you know, He's like, oh, totally,
I would have done like five hundred, you know whatever. Well,
and the costume guy he's like, I'll give you a
hundred over yeah, yeah, and he went two hundred, and
he's like fine, fine, sure, like he could have said
a thousand, yeah exactly exactly, and he's just been like

(01:11:30):
I gotta go to the a T. But yeah, that's
and people have kind of counted up, like tallied up,
what's you know, how much money is he spending on
this one kind of wild night out the costume? Yeah, yeah,
it's it's probably seven hundred, like a thousand dollars that
he spent like it was nothing, you know. So so
he's he's definitely at a at A he's insulated a
certain extent from stuff that would worry most people. But

(01:11:54):
he doesn't have you know, money, Yeah, he's not Illuminati
right right style. Uh And I think, um, I think
that's kind of Kubrick's commentary because when we think of
you know, American society, I think our perception is, you know,
there's there's rich people and they're like doctors or lawyers
or you know, that's that's who. Like a rich person
is like they have like the nicest house in the neighborhood.

(01:12:16):
Rich and wealthy are two different things. Yeah, but wealthy
is like you never see those people because they keep
kind of a low profile and they live in like
a gated community. They just they go to you know,
the vacation in the Hamptons. Like you just don't see
these people, you know. Um. So that's there's like this
whole other world that like when when you're talking about

(01:12:37):
who the really wealthy people in society are, it's something
that mainstream American society barely even realizes exists. Yeah, And
I think that's played out for sure with this weird
sex culture of wealthy, like clearly deciders of world policy,
because I think the idea too is that, like you know,
Dr Bill is, he's living in this world that is

(01:12:58):
very like conventional. It's also like conventional morality, you know.
And um, even even like the sexual jealousy that starts
to happen in his marriage is tied to this idea
of like monogamy and fidelity and fidelio and all that
kind of stuff. Um, Whereas it kind of makes me
wonder Sidney Pollock and his wife, is he really running

(01:13:20):
around behind her back? Or does she know and she's
okay with it? Do they have some kind of like
understand Yeah, yeah, yeah exactly, Like you start have this
idea that like there's this exchange I believe it's f
Scott Fitzgerald and um Hemingway. One of them says to
the other, are there rich really so different than us?

(01:13:41):
And the responses, yes, they have more money. You know.
The The idea is that, like, yeah, it's kind of
that simple, like like money really changes things, and among
the things that it changes, it can change somebody's kind
of moral and ethical outlook on things. So it's like
once you're like for Tom Cruise, he has to live

(01:14:04):
in this kind of nuclear family unit where he has
the wife, the kid. But once you're once you kind
of ascend to a certain level of wealth, it's like, well,
do you have to really be married? You have to
really like you there? There's so much more that your
money can do to to buy you out of these
situations that the whole idea of like monogamy and exclusivity

(01:14:25):
and all that gets very very you know, confused or
can anyway. And it's kind of like if you're worth
probably billions, like Sidney Poloquez, like what you know, your
your your whole moral calculus is just very very different.
So it seems like he and his wife, I don't
think it that that she is in the dark about

(01:14:47):
what's going on. You know, maybe she has men that
she goes with or whatever. You know, Yeah, I totally
totally agree. Uh Well, for Cruising Kidman's part, they always
have pretty much been on it. They've never come out
of Ton and talked about like the negative experiences. They
tried to stay pretty positive and be like, you know,
we we love Stanley and like I think they still

(01:15:09):
have worship him. But Cruz did say and it closes
out this Vanity Fair article from Amy Nicholson. Um. He says,
I didn't like playing Dr Pill. I didn't like him.
It was unpleasant. Um And this was a year afterward.
He said, but I would have absolutely kicked myself if
I hadn't done this, which isn't quite the same thing

(01:15:30):
as saying I had a great time. I loved that.
I'm happy I did. He's like, it's it's more of it. Well,
I would have regretted not doing it fear of missing
out kind of. Yeah, I would have spent the rest
of my life saying what if I had played that
role instead of what I did. Yeah, that's true. It's like,
you know, he's sort of saying, I loved that I

(01:15:51):
got to work with Kubrick. Maybe I would have preferred
it to be a different Kubrick movie or something, you
know what, an experience. Maybe it didn't have to be
my marriage. They got caught in between it or something. Yeah.
And I think no one really knows except those two
because Kubrick had all these private therapy sessions with him
as the therapist. Yeah, they said that he was They

(01:16:11):
got like really really deep into their marriage, like marriage
counselor kind of Nicole both and and Kubrick were all
like while he was alive or like this, no one
is ever going to know what we all talked about. Yeah,
just between us take it to the grave. I mean,
this isn't movie making like regular movie makes, no, No,
it's kind of something else. Yeah, I mean to me,
you know, I think there are some you could probably say,

(01:16:34):
like in in kind of experimental theater maybe where actors
are there's there's like there's not even a script, there's
not even a where where it's kind of about performance
and improvisation and all that kind of stuff. Like you
could probably find some of that going on between like
a theater director and some actors that want to do
some really deep personal almost kind of like psychoanalytic kind

(01:16:58):
of work. It's almost unheard of and film, you know,
and and and with actors of that prominence, it's like
no one's ever done that. You know. Yeah, they had
the time, which usually that's usually your biggest enemy on
a film set as time. Yeah, time and money, and
uh that's I mean Kuber understood that more than anybody
that like, you know, um, yeah, you have to have time.

(01:17:21):
You have to be able to just go follow something
through until you are completely satisfied with it. Like nothing
nothing ends up on screen that he's not happy with completely. Well, yeah,
and Amy Nicholson makes a point like that, if Tom
Cruise is getting panned for his performance and they're doing

(01:17:42):
thirty takes, and that's what Kuberc wanted in there out
of all those that like, that's very purposeful. Yeah. Well,
we had that conversation during the shining about you know,
the difference between like take one take or whatever. Um,
when I was looking at some interviews for this um.
By by the time I'm Kubrick is doing the post
production on Eyes Watch Shut, we're already kind of getting

(01:18:05):
into the realm of I think he's still editing on
you know, he's editing on film. He's editing on like
a flatbed. But but he he does have like the
dailies transferred to video, which wouldn't let Cruise watch. Yeah,
and so he he actually had like a multi screen
heads up display where he could play multiple takes at
the same time, or or at least have them queued

(01:18:26):
up to play take one, take thirty, take sixty five
one after another like that. And he he apparently raved
about how easy this made it to compare the takes,
because of course, when you're strictly on film, you would
have to be rewinding the film, would have to be
kind of queuing it up, and and there there would
be like a much larger kind of um gap in

(01:18:49):
time between seeing the different takes to where you could
kind of you wouldn't be able to A B compare
it quite so easily as you could and the kind
of digital video you know. Yeah, so it's interesting that
he he kept kind of adapting his post production techniques,
you know, into as you would expect, as he did

(01:19:11):
in every other arena filmmaking. But um, yeah, even with
like the multiple takes thing, you just imagine how difficult
that must have been on like the Shining where it's like,
can we see number eighty five again? Okay, pull up
forty seven one more time, and let's also look at
three and then try to make a decision. It's just,
you know, it's wild sad that he died. I wanted

(01:19:31):
another one. Yeah, yeah, it's um but I mean, what
a movie to go out on? Yeah, what a movie
to go out on. In a way, I think this
movie appropriate, it's sort of appropriate. It feels like it's
it's it's him kind of branching out in a weird
way because he had never done certainly like a movie
that was as a tune to like human emotions and

(01:19:54):
you know, the dynamics of like a marriage of a relationship.
That's something that he had talked about going back to
like the sixties, Um, that he wanted to make this
kind of film. Um, he had briefly kind of considered,
i think making a film called Blue Movie and the Sixties,
which was based on a Terry Southern book, a Terry

(01:20:14):
Southern idea. Um, Terry Southern that he had worked with
on Dr Strangelove, And Um, there was this whole thing
happening in like the sixties going into the seventies of
like porno chic, where movies like Deep Throad and so
on were kind of playing in like more mainstream theaters.
And you know, it's like that scene in Taxi Driver
where Travis Bickle takes her on the date to porn

(01:20:36):
theater and she doesn't like it. But that's something that
like couples were doing a little more in that era
than than today. Certainly. Um. So Cooper had this idea
kind of from early on that like he would like
to make something very human, you know, almost the exact
opposite of something like two thousand one, where it's the
machines are almost kind of the main character in a way. Um,

(01:20:59):
he did. He did have this other side of him
that he wanted to see real human emotion, jealousy. Yeah,
as as Kubrick, which is very different. You know, it's
not it's not like a Bergman film or something, you know. Um,
but I think that's cool that he went out on
a movie where he was still trying new things. He

(01:21:20):
was refining his his approach from from other films, but
he was also at the same time trying to do
something very different and very kind of you know, who
knows where he would have gone from from there, you know,
and it is sad that that he didn't get to
go further. But at the same time, I think this
film contains so much of his past films. You know,

(01:21:41):
there's so many parallels to the Shining to Barry Lindon.
Um even two thousand one, when when there's a shot
of him walking into the hospital and this revolving door,
it feels very two thousand one, you know, and and
knowing Kubrick, I mean, there's probably a hundred different revolving
door instances they looked at, and he picked that one
in particular that has this kind of space age feel

(01:22:03):
to it. So I think there's a lot of these
little nods throughout the film where he's kind of in
a very gentle way of looking backwards at all his films,
and it feels like he's integrating them all into this one. Yeah,
it feels I don't know if it's retrospective tagging, but
it feels it has a feeling of finality to some reason.
And I'm sure Kubrick was was, you know, was aware

(01:22:24):
of his own mortality to it to a large extent,
and maybe didn't. I mean, one thing that that is
very strange, UM that I didn't really pick up on
until watching it this most recent time is that when
he goes over to the patient's house who's passed away,
and she's talking about, you know, he had such a
good day yesterday and um, and then he said, I'm

(01:22:46):
a little tired. I'm gonna go lay down ticket nap.
And I went into the room and I was cooking dinner,
and then half an hour passed by and I came
in to check on him, and I thought he was
just sleeping, and then I realized, like he he passed
away in his sleep. His character did. But that's also
what happened to Kuber because he died in his sleep.
And and also in you know, Tom Cruise is reassuring her,
I'm certain your father didn't suffer at all. Yeah, Kuber

(01:23:06):
had the exact same kind of death where he passed,
you know, gently, like in his sleep, and there was
no prolonged medical kind of cancer for Fin exactly exactly,
so he just kind of went to sleep one night
and didn't wake up. You know. It's interesting that though
that he kind of it happened in the movie too,
you know. All right, dude, well that's it for this one.

(01:23:29):
What do you want to do? Like part of me
was thinking, all right, let's move on and tackle like
Godard or Trufa or Kurasawa. Yea, yeah, yeah, but my
head is so in Kubrick. Well that like I feel
like we should just throw another Kubrick in there and
just kind of keep on this train. I think if
we we're gonna stick with Kubrick, I think the natural
kind of next film to talk about would be Paths

(01:23:49):
of Glory, all right, because we'll get into it, but
but it has thematically, it has a lot in common
with say, Barry Lyndon and the Shining Eyes White Shot.
All right, it's another piece of that puzzle. We're gonna
keep the Kubrick train rolling with Casey. Look forward to
Pads of Glory in a month or so. Yeah, and
I look forward to that. I haven't seen it. Awesome,

(01:24:11):
Thanks stand Thanks movie Crush. Its produced, engineered, edited, and

(01:24:33):
soundtracked by Noel Brown and Ramsey Hunt at how Stuff
Work Studios, Pot City Market, Atlanta, Georgia,

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Casey on Kubrick Part III: Eyes Wide Shut