In the late 1990s, playwright David Hare adapted Reigen once again, this time into an English version called Blue Room, which premiered in London and was directed by Sam Mendes. It went on to open on Broadway in December 1998. The star of this play when it premiered—the actor who played all five of the female parts in the show—was Nicole Kidman.14 (Her male costar, Iain Glen, played all the male roles.) In Ben Brantley’s review of Blue Room in the New York Times, he praises Kidman but opines of the production, “There is none of the visual sumptuousness, set off by swirling waltzes and equally swirling camera movement, of the famous French film version.”15
The main character of Traumnovelle, Fridolin, is a doctor, and he is married to Albertine.16 At the beginning of the book, Fridolin and Albertine, who are saying good night to their young daughter, are anxious to continue a conversation they were having about the masquerade ball for Carnival they attended the previous day. The film, in contrast, begins with the couple—now Bill and Alice, who live in late-twentieth-century New York City—getting ready to leave for a Christmas party. Bill and Alice are played by Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, who were married when the film was made. The party is thrown by a wealthy friend and patient of Bill, Victor Ziegler, and the event allows the audience to assess the marriage of Bill and Alice before any crisis in the narrative. It also introduces the character of Ziegler, an invention of Kubrick and Raphael. Ziegler has been called the only “unambiguously evil” character in the film, because he is involved in a mysterious secret society that must protect at all costs the identities of its members (“If I told you their names—I’m not gonna tell you their names—but if I did, I don’t think you’d sleep so well”) and because he treats women as objects (he refers to a deceased young woman as “the one with the great tits who OD’d in my bathroom”). This supposedly evil nature is hidden beneath a layer of geniality and a seemingly genuine concern for Bill’s safety.17 James Naremore describes the way Sydney Pollack played the character: “[Pollack] gives the impression of an intelligent, kindly and rather earthy father-figure, and his performance creates a disjunction between the character’s outward charm and actual corruption.”18 Michel Chion adds Ziegler to Kubrick’s collection of flawed father figures alongside the drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket, Humbert Humbert in Lolita, Jack Torrance in The Shining, and General Broulard in Paths of Glory.19 Sydney Pollack was not the first choice for the role; Kubrick had originally envisioned Harvey Keitel for Ziegler, a choice that might have made Ziegler’s questionable nature a bit more readable. Harvey Keitel has often played criminals or corrupt men (Mr. White in Reservoir Dogs and the title role Bad Lieutenant—both from the 1990s—leap to mind) in his film career, while Sydney Pollack is best known as a director. In fact, Pollack directed one of Tom Cruise’s biggest successes from the 1990s, The Firm.
The film takes place at Christmastime, and Kubrick makes the most of Christmas lights for the lighting design. The effect is similar to the one in Barry Lyndon, in which faces are often illuminated by candles, a source of light that creates a soft glow. There is no definite motive for this change, although Raphael mentions writing parts of his first draft during the Christmas season. The Christmas lighting did have a great technical advantage in that the ubiquity of the light source in certain scenes allowed the camera operator free range of movement. The curtains of gold lights at Ziegler’s party and Millich’s shop might also be a reference to the sometimes-erotic artwork of Gustav Klimt. who had a “Golden Phase” in his artwork and who lived in Vienna at the same time as Schnitzler and Freud.20
The addition of Christmas to the film narrative, and the deletion of any reference to Judaism, is another thing that makes the film a bit different from the source material. There are a few places where Schnitzler made reference to Jews or Judaism in Traumnovelle. At one point in the story, Fridolin is menaced by a group of anti-Semitic fraternity boys, and Nachtigall (Nightingale in translation, Nick Nightingale in the movie), the piano player, is identified as Jewish. When Fridolin first runs into him by chance, Nightingale talks to him in what Schnitzler describes as “a soft Polish accent that had a moderate Jewish twang.”21 And as Fridolin remembers details about his friend, Schnitzler goes on to describe a man who was “the son of a Jewish tavern owner in a small Polish town,” who had “left home early and had come to Vienna in order to study medicine.” While still a student he played music in some fashionable homes, but this ended when he had an altercation with one of his hosts. After an affront, the host, “outraged, though himself a Jew, hurled a common insult at [Nightingale].” Nightingale responded with a slap to the host’s face, effectively ending his career playing in fashionable homes.22
Because he was to update the story to modern-day New York, screenwriter Raphael believed he could preserve these Jewish references but, according to him, Kubrick did not agree. “He wanted Fridolin to be a Harrison Fordish goy and forbade any reference to Jews.” In fact, Raphael explains that Bill and Alice’s last name, Harford, could be a shortened version of “Harrison Ford.”23 Part of Kubrick’s desire to make the characters non-Jews might have come simply from his desire to cast specifically Cruise and Kidman in the roles of Bill and Alice.24 It is interesting that the only character “coded as Jewish” is Victor Ziegler,25 the morally ambiguous character who is the flawed father figure, or perhaps even Bill’s shadowy doppelganger. Regardless of these readings, Ziegler is most certainly the character who “represents the economic and political power elite.”26
Despite its lack of reference to Kubrick’s familial heritage, Eyes Wide Shut can be read as an intensely personal story for Kubrick. James Naremore outlines some of the connections between the film and the life of the director: the Harfords’ apartment resembles the New York apartment where the Kubricks lived in the 1960s; Christiane’s paintings decorate the walls of the Harford home (as do works by daughter Katharina Kubrick Hobbs); and Nicole Kidman’s glasses and hairstyle seem to resemble those of Christiane. There are also numerous in-jokes in the film. At one point, Alice watches a film on television that was directed by Paul Mazursky, who played Sidney in Kubrick’s very first feature, Fear and Desire. Bill buys a newspaper from an uncredited Emilio D’Alessandro, Kubrick’s chauffeur and assistant. The name Leon Vitali shows up in the newspaper article Bill reads in Sharky’s café; Vitali, after playing the adult Lord Bullingdon in Barry Lyndon, became one of Kubrick’s trusted assistants.27 The story in the paper covers the death of ex–beauty queen Amanda Curran, whom Bill believes to be the mysterious woman who “redeems” him at the masked ball. In the article, it says:
After being hired for a series of magazine ads for London fashion designer Leon Vitali, rumors began circulating of an affair between the two. Soon after her hiring, Vitali empire insiders were reporting that their boss adored Curran—not for how she wore his stunning clothes in public, but for how she wowed him by taking them off in private, seductive, performances.
Leon Vitali also acts in the film; he plays the authoritative masked man in the red cloak at the masked ball.
Eyes Wide Shut also recalls Killer’s Kiss, the only other Kubrick film that takes place in New York City, Kubrick’s hometown. Both take place over three days, and both films are love stories of a sort featuring couples whose destiny hangs in the balance until the very last moment. There are other little details as well. At the beginning, people in an apartment are getting dressed to go out. Also, Nick Nightingale supposedly goes back to his family in Seattle, just as Davey was preparing to do in Killer’s Kiss.28 Ciment interprets the relationship between the two films a little differently, calling Eyes Wide Shut a “pentimento” for Killer’s Kiss. A pentimento, from the Italian word for “repent,” is a change in a painting that shows the artist has re-thought a particular part of the image. We know a change has been made because there is evidence of the original, like a sketch underneath the paint or something that has been painted over. In 1953, just after finishing Fear and Desire, Kubrick spoke about shooting “A ‘Lo
ve Story of New York’” that would use locations from all over the city. Whether that idea turned into Killer’s Kiss, we cannot be sure, nor can we know if Kubrick felt like Eyes Wide Shut was a “do-over” for the earlier film, but it is an interesting theory.
Production on Eyes Wide Shut took an unusually long time, even for Kubrick. Some reports say that the film was in production for four hundred days—a record for a live-action film.29 Although because Kubrick preferred—as Harlan explains—“to put his money into time, having as few people as possible on set,” Kubrick often worked with a skeleton crew, which greatly lowered production costs on a day-to-day basis.
An interesting side note: in searching Kubrick’s motives for making a story with such an important focus on sex, Raphael recalls Kubrick telling him about a conversation the director had with Terry Southern (screenwriter for Dr. Strangelove) about making a “blue movie with name actors and great photography.” In 1970, Terry Southern penned a novel called Blue Movie, in which a famous genius auteur, Boris Adrian (who goes by “B”), directs an expensive pornographic film with established movie stars. Many have assumed that the character of “B” is based on Kubrick, and indeed Southern describes “B” thusly: “Although he was thought of as a ‘director’ he was really a film-maker—in the tradition of Chaplin, Bergman, Fellini—an artist whose responsibility for his work was total, and his control of it complete.”30 The book’s dedication reads: “To the great Stanley K.”
Censorship
Kubrick was no stranger to controversy during his career. Kubrick was the first major filmmaker to attempt an adaptation of Lolita; he pulled A Clockwork Orange from theaters in England after reports of copycat crimes; he subjected global politics to brutal satire in Dr. Strangelove. Eyes Wide Shut, likewise, was not without controversy. In the original U.S. version, in order to garner an R rating from the Motion Picture Association of America, Warner Bros. had to digitally add figures into the masked ball sequence to obscure some sexual acts. Jan Harlan explains that Kubrick would likely have changed the scenes himself rather than having Warner Bros. do it for him. Had he lived, Kubrick would have likely shifted the focus from the participants to Bill and the other voyeurs.
If the alterations had not been made, the film would probably have gotten an NC-17 rating, which would have limited possibilities for distribution. The version available on DVD in the United States does not have the digital figures, and no such alterations were needed in international theatrical versions. There was also a complaint from the American Hindus Against Defamation citing the use of a sacred chant in the masked ball scene (see below). When the film was released on DVD, there were a few other minor alterations, including Nicole Kidman’s redubbing of a line from “we made love,” to “you and I made love,” to make it clear she was talking about her husband and not someone else.
Choosing Music
Music, as one might expect, is a very important part of the film. In Eyes Wide Shut, Kubrick, as he had in earlier films like 2001, gave music the important job of conveying information, making it as important as dialogue or the voice in carrying the story.31 The dialogue is, at times, banal, perhaps purposefully so. And the parroting of lines slows down the rhythm of the words said by the characters. Bill in particular repeats the things that people say to him, as when Ziegler says, “I had you followed,” and Bill replies, “You had me followed?” Music also signifies Kubrick’s presence in a way because the audience has come to expect more from his musical choices than those of other directors.32 In Eyes Wide Shut, music shows us Bill and Alice’s idealized marriage, rather than one that has trouble brewing under the surface; music points to those times when Bill is feeling fearful; and music underpins Alice’s dreams and fantasies. Kubrick again chose a piece by Ligeti for the score, the second movement of Musica Ricercata, marking the composer’s third appearance in a Kubrick film. There is also a brief excerpt from the “Rex tremendae” from Mozart’s Requiem, Nuages gris, a piano piece by Liszt, and a waltz by Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich. There are also jazz standards and Chris Isaak’s bluesy “Baby Did a Bad, Bad Thing.” Kubrick also worked with contemporary composer and violist Jocelyn Pook.
Soundtrack
The commercially available soundtrack to Eyes Wide Shut featured many of the pieces used in the film. The first music heard in the film, Shostakovich’s Waltz for Variety Orchestra, is actually the second track on the CD. The first track on the CD is a piece that has come to be very closely associated with the film: the second movement from Ligeti’s Musica Ricercata. This stark piano piece caught viewers’ attention and is, in some ways, the anthem of the film. The version of Jocelyn Pook’s “Naval Officer” on the soundtrack features a solo cello that Pook did not use in the film version, because it would have been too distracting. Track 9, “Migrations,” has been the source of some controversy because it appears at the masked ball—as Bill roams from room to room watching various couples and threesomes engage in sex acts—and it features the recitation of a verse from the sacred Hindu text, the Bhagavad Gita (part of the Mahabharata). In a letter to Warner Bros. in August of 1999, the American Hindus Against Defamation protested the use of the shloka (recitation) in the film saying, “there appears to be no connection, or apparent justification for the use of this shloka.” The letter also translates the verse “paritranaya sadhunam, vinasaya ca duskritam, dharma-samstapanarthaya, sambhavami yuge yuge,” as “For the protection of the virtuous, for the destruction of the evil and for the firm establishment of Dharma [righteousness], I take birth and am incarnated on Earth, from age to age.” 33 Although Warner Bros. did not make any changes in the U.S. theatrical version (they cut the chanting from the UK version, which was released after the U.S. version), they removed the chanting from all DVD releases. All recordings of the soundtrack, however, seem to have the chanted excerpt. A complete listing of the cues on the soundtrack are as follows:
Musica Ricercata, II (Mesto, rigido e cerimoniale)—György Ligeti (performed by Dominic Harlan)
Waltz 2 From Jazz Suite [sic]—Dmitri Shostakovich (Riccardo Chailly and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra)
Baby Did a Bad, Bad Thing—Chris Isaak
When I Fall in Love—The Victor Silvester Orchestra (Victor Young and Edward Heyman)
I Got it Bad (and That Ain’t Good)—Oscar Peterson Trio (Duke Ellington and Paul Francis Webster)
Naval Officer—Jocelyn Pook
The Dream—Jocelyn Pook
Masked Ball—Jocelyn Pook
Migrations—Jocelyn Pook
If I Had You—Roy Gerson (Shapiro, Campbell, and Connelly)
Strangers in the Night—the Peter Hughes Orchestra (Snyder, Singleton, and Kaempfert)
Blame It on My Youth—Brad Mehldau (Oscar Levant and Edward Heyman)
Grey Clouds [Nuages Gris]—Franz Liszt (performed by Dominic Harlan)
Musica Ricercata, II (Mesto, rigido e cerimoniale) [Reprise]
Even late in his career, Kubrick’s musical collaborations retained some of the expected interactions between director and composer: Kubrick asked for a cue; the composer brought him some music; Kubrick made suggestions to help the cue fit the scene better. What sets Kubrick apart, of course, are two things: first one may assume, based on the sheer number of cues composed for The Shining, that Kubrick required a rather large number of musical options from which to choose, more perhaps than a composer would be expected to produce on another director’s film; second, and most important, Kubrick might ask for cues without showing the composer any film. Kubrick asked Carlos (on The Shining) and Pook to write music without showing them footage. Without the opportunity to “spot” the film for the music, Carlos and Pook essentially scored their cues “blind,” and once Kubrick heard something he liked, he worked with the cues the same way he worked with the music of Beethoven or Mozart.34 The composers were of course free to do whatever they wished with the unused cues.
The pieces Kubrick chose are only part of the story; Kubrick’s unused choices
are interesting as well. Kubrick, at one point, thought he might use a song from Richard Wagner’s set of songs, the Wesendonck Lieder. Wagner, of course, is best known as an opera composer, and almost none of his non-operatic works are still performed today with the exceptions of the instrumental piece Siegfried’s Idyll and the Wesendonck Lieder. The set was published in the late 1850s under the title Fünf Gedichte von Mathilde Wesendonck für eine Frauenstimmen und Klavier (Five Songs by Mathilde Wesendonck for Female Singer and Piano). The five songs are (in English translation) “The Angel,” “Stand Still!,” “In the Greenhouse,” “Sorrows,” and “Dreams.” Both “In the Greenhouse” and “Dreams” were what Wagner called “Studies” on musical themes he would use in his opera Tristan und Isolde. “In the Greenhouse,” Kubrick’s choice for Eyes Wide Shut, was the last of the songs to be written. Jan Harlan describes Kubrick’s choice:
Listening to Stanley Kubrick Page 30
