Eyes Wide Shut.......What Does It All Mean???

[Mickey Brausch]

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Kubrick obviously felt that such things are normalcy and that our everyday world is completely contrived. What hogwash.

[/ QUOTE ] There are strong undercurrents running beneath "our world", our world as individual human beings, even when we are settled and happy (as in "happily married"). We know from psychoanalysis that we indeed "contrive" daily routine to keep neurosis at bay.

The insights of quantum physics allow some scientists to state half-jokingly that they cannot define reality any more. Well, I don't know what normalcy is, either. The natural state of Man is neurosis. (What is that saying about most people leading lives of quite desperation?)

Mickey Brausch

[andyfox]

I can. [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img] And it's far more brilliant than the "score" of Eyes Wide Shut.

Sometimes, there's just no there there.

[madnak]

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I think that's what particularly disgusted me about the film, that Kubrick obviously felt that such things are normalcy and that our everyday world is completely contrived.

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I've always been a fan of Thoreau. What do you think of the beginning of Walden, particularly "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation?"

[HDPM]

So Andy, did you like the film? [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

Interesting you mention the off kilter minds of Kubrick and Cruise. It has been a while since I saw the film and don't remember it all that well. At the time I thought it had something to do with Kubrick's view of consciousness which was influenced by his connection to Scientology. So it sort of doesn't surprise me something strange came from Kubrick at that stage of his life and Cruise. IIRC the movie had a bunch of religious symbolism as well. Maybe I should watch it again so I could see if I recall it right or am just FOS. At least I would get to see Nicole, which isn't too bad.

[CharlieDontSurf]

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"The score is brilliant."

"Score"? I can play "E" and "F" on the piano and change the octave. I used to do it when I was three years old.

My apologies to all in this thread if I'm coming across as condescending. I'm not attacking you, just the movie.

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No problem...just don't have good taste in film.
It happens sometimes.

[acoustix]

Andy- I can appreciate that you didn't like the film. I will defend the score to a degree however. Yes, it is basic, dissonant, and any talentless hack can play it. But, what I don't think you're seeing is that it is not complexity, but atmosphere. The score for Jaws is one of the most widely acclaimed in the business and it is not of particular difficulty to play. EWS's score is embedded beautifully within the happenings on screen and adds a great deal to the tension and mystery of the themes. That is what makes it outstanding.

[CharlieDontSurf]

Its one thing to not get or like a film...this is the case with me for many great films. But its another thing to claim a film is horrible when even a semi-retarded person can tell it is a very good if not great work of art..but is simply not their cup of tea.

[andyfox]

Certainly the mass of men who are as successful as Tom Cruise's character was in the movie do not.

[andyfox]

Even great artists create terrible works of art. The finale of Beethoven's 8th symphony, for example, is a travesty. I'm a Kubrick fan; I thought A Clockwork Orange, when I first saw it, was the best movie I'd ever seen. I think Nicole Kidman is far and away the best actress in cinema today. I had ran to see Eyes Wide Shut in eager and excited anticipation. This movie and Kidman's performance in it were horribly disappointing, not because they weren't my cup of tea, but because they were forced, slow-paced, stilted, and irrelevant.

[hmkpoker]

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Certainly the mass of men who are as successful as Tom Cruise's character was in the movie do not.

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The group of people who are as successful as Tom Cruise's character do not constitute the masses of men that Thoreau was talking about.