 |
| Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Sydney Pollack,
Todd Field, Marie Richardson, Rade Serbedzija, Vinessa Shaw, Leelee
Sobieski |
|
 |
Anamorphic
widescreen |
 |
Dolby Digital
5.1 |
|
DTS |
|
|
Trailer(s) |
|
Featurette(s) |
|
Documentary |
|
Audio commentary
|
|
Deleted scenes
|
|
Concept art
/ storyboards |
|
Multi-angle
feature |
|
|
|
|
Alice
Harford (Nicole Kidman): I do love you and you know there is something
very important we need to do as soon as possible.
Doctor William "Bill" Harford (Tom Cruise): What's that?
Alice Harford: Fuck.
A
doctor becomes obsessed with having a sexual encounter after his wife
admits to having sexual fantasies about a man she met and chastises
him for dishonesty in not admitting to his own fantasies.
 Eyes
Wide Shut is a movie like no other mainly because of its handling
of some very adult themes (such as: sex, marriage, lust, orgies, female
objectification). This being a Kubrick film it moves like a ton of lead
with implications, so it hardly qualifies as casual viewing . More troublesome
is that the movie is far too long and completely bereft of any sense
of humor or perspective.
Tom Cruise, clearly out of his depth, delivers an awful performance,
never developing into an even remotely believable character you can
understand or empathize with. Nicole Kidman has the more difficult part
and beats her former hushand with ease in acting chops, and also gets
the best lines. As a director Kubrick seems to dwarf the rest of his
actors, cramping their style to such a degree that everything becomes
stilted and unreal: you may like it or not, it's the usual yes/no discussion
all his movies tend to ignite. Some prolonged scenes are so slowly paced
you almost expect the carefully staged tableau to freeze into a painting
and this causes the storyline to suffer. Though it all may be intentionally
confounding, the fact that certain plot elements don't make any sense
and all characters seem too weird to be true makes most of the film
a tedious exercise. But the visuals are gorgeous, the subtle music used
throughout is terrific in enhancing the right mood and as a movie it
dares to say things that are normally hidden in Hollywood fare. Those
things elevate this movie to acceptable, but it'll be a long time before
I'll sit through this again. |
|
 |
 |
|
|
Identical
versions are available in all regions, EXCEPT for the (director-approved)
digital masking of elements in the orgy scene on all Region 1 versions:
so if you can, steer clear of that one.
The
fullscreen image is framed at an aspect ratio of 1.33:1. We won't go
into the debate about Kubrick's explicit choice to present the full-frame
image straight from the negative rather than the matted 1.85:1 aspect
ratio that was shown in theaters. I'm not sure if the movie was shot
deliberately soft and with slightly grainy images (check for instance
the scene where the woman 'redeems' the Tom Cruise character during
his unmasking - the blues behind her back are full of grain) but that's
how it comes across on the DVD. I found most of the wide-angle shots
far too soft and whites too contrasty for my liking. I'm not sure if
the transfer is to blame (maybe I'm getting used to the extra resolution
anamoprhic transfers yield) or if this is all intentional. I thought
the newly mastered version of The Shining looked much better.
The film is further dominated by strong yellows, reds and blues, and
the transfer is indeed very colorful.
The audio is very well presented in Dolby Digital 5.1, with a wide soundstage
that gives full room to the resonating piano motifs. I found the city
noises to really come alive across the front stage, and dialogue is
always clear and understandable.
The
etxras are minimal: some brief interviews with Tom Cruise and
Nicole Kidman, both reflecting upon their experience working with Kubrick.
A specially recorded interview with Steven Spielberg on his friendship
and admiration of the director is overly gushing in tone but it seems
sincere. Also on board are the theatrical trailer and two TV
spots. Animated
menus are used both for the disc opening and the main menu screen with
music from the movie. Navigation is straightforward.
Gerard
Castelein
Reviewed: 2001
Click
here for IMDB info on Eyes
Wide Shut.
Click here
to return to the front page.
|
|
| |
