Posted by Brodie at 12-248-5-235.client.attbi.com on February 09, 2003 at 17:42:08:
In Reply to: EYES WIDE SHUT may well become a classic posted by Vincent on February 09, 2003 at 15:36:07:
Kubrick is the the very definition of a visionary film director. The argument that Eyes Wide Shut is in any way a Kubrick film is dismissed in the simple ways it deviates from the directors vision through outside forces. Does anyone actually belive that if these outside forces didn't intervene, (and by outside forces, yes, I include "Death"), that the film would be the same as it is now?
Eyes Wide Shut is the seed of an amazing and breathtaking achievment. But is it finished? Would the man himself have allowed the digital interference? Would he have recut it on a whim? Would he have reshot entire sequences of for that matter the entire thing? He's done it before, whos to say he wouldn't have again? None of these questions can be answered.
I'll file Eyes Wide Shut as a "lost" or incomplete film that shows exception promise and a more frustrating glimpse at what could have been. I agree that as time goes on it will be better understood, but also will continue to peak interest as to what it would have eventually become...
There is Stanley Kubrick, and then there is everyone else...
But then again, who asked me?
: Almost every Kubrick film has grown in stature years AFTER their initial releases, and EYES improves like a fine-wine with subsequent viewings (I just noticed something in the production design that I'd never seen before while watching the DVD the other day- in the opening party sequence, almost all of the Xmas-tree lighting fixtures hanging throughout the party are shaped like gigantic female breasts). I think EYES WIDE SHUT may well follow the same route, although I suspect that Kubrick would have kept tinkering with it in the 4-months between his death and its release had he lived and the final film would have been more streamlined.
: Vincent
: : He's only made one film that isnt a classic (Eyes Wide Shut). Like Coppola has made classics like the Godfather Trilogy, The Conversation, and Apocalypse Now, but Kubrick has made even more classics. EWS is good, but not a classic like the rest.