Seinfeld

SEINFELD BLOG

Eyes Wide Shut (R-Rated Edition)

starring: Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Madison Eginton, Jackie Sawiris, Sydney Pollack
directed by: Stanley Kubrick

: Eyes Wide Shut (R-Rated Edition)
See Larger Image







Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 9780790747064
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC
ISBN: 0790747065
Label: Warner Home Video
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Number Of Items: 1
Picture Format: Pan & Scan
Publisher: Warner Home Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: March 07, 2000
Running Time: 159 minutes
Sales Rank: 21641
Studio: Warner Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: 1999



Related Items:

Editorial Review:

Amazon.com essential video:
It was inevitable that Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut would be the most misunderstood film of 1999. Kubrick died four months prior to its release, and there was no end to speculation how much he would have tinkered with the picture, changed it, 'fixed' it. We'll never know. But even without the haunting enigma of the director's death--and its eerie echo/anticipation in the scene when Dr. Bill Harford (Tom Cruise) visits the deathbed of one of his patients--Eyes Wide Shut would have perplexed and polarized viewers and reviewers. After all, virtually every movie of Kubrick's post-U.S. career had; only 1964's Dr. Strangelove opened to something approaching consensus. Quite apart from the author's tinkering, Kubrick's movies themselves always seemed to change--partly because they changed us, changed the world and the ways we experienced and understood it. And we may expect Eyes Wide Shut to do the same. Unlike Kubrick himself, it has time.

So consider, as we settle in to live with this long, advisedly slow, mesmerizing film, how challenging and ambiguous its narrative strategy is. The source is an Arthur Schnitzler novella titled Traumnovelle (or 'Dream Story'), and it's a moot question how much of Eyes Wide Shut itself is dream, from the blue shadows frosting the Harfords' bedroom to the backstage replica of New York's Greenwich Village that Kubrick built in England. Its major movement is an imaginative night-journey (even the daylight parts of it) taken by a man reeling from his wife's teasing confession of fantasized infidelity, and toward the end there is a token gesture of the couple waking to reality and, perhaps, a new, chastened maturity. Yet on some level--visually, psychologically, logically--every scene shimmers with unreality. Is everything in the movie a dream? And if so, who is dreaming it at any given moment, and why?

Don't settle for easy answers. Kubrick's ultimate odyssey beckons. And now the dream is yours. --Richard T. Jameson

Amazon.com:
It was inevitable that Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut would be the most misunderstood film of 1999. Kubrick died four months prior to its release, and there was no end to speculation how much he would have tinkered with the picture, changed it, 'fixed' it. We'll never know. But even without the haunting enigma of the director's death--and its eerie echo/anticipation in the scene when Dr. Bill Harford (Tom Cruise) visits the deathbed of one of his patients--Eyes Wide Shut would have perplexed and polarized viewers and reviewers. After all, virtually every movie of Kubrick's post-U.S. career had; only 1964's Dr. Strangelove opened to something approaching consensus. Quite apart from the author's tinkering, Kubrick's movies themselves always seemed to change--partly because they changed us, changed the world and the ways we experienced and understood it. And we may expect Eyes Wide Shut to do the same. Unlike Kubrick himself, it has time.

So consider, as we settle in to live with this long, advisedly slow, mesmerizing film, how challenging and ambiguous its narrative strategy is. The source is an Arthur Schnitzler novella titled Traumnovelle (or 'Dream Story'), and it's a moot question how much of Eyes Wide Shut itself is dream, from the blue shadows frosting the Harfords' bedroom to the backstage replica of New York's Greenwich Village that Kubrick built in England. Its major movement is an imaginative night-journey (even the daylight parts of it) taken by a man reeling from his wife's teasing confession of fantasized infidelity, and toward the end there is a token gesture of the couple waking to reality and, perhaps, a new, chastened maturity. Yet on some level--visually, psychologically, logically--every scene shimmers with unreality. Is everything in the movie a dream? And if so, who is dreaming it at any given moment, and why?

Don't settle for easy answers. Kubrick's ultimate odyssey beckons. And now the dream is yours. --Richard T. Jameson



Customer Reviews
Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - A movie about power
I feel that too much emphasis is placed on the Cruise and Kidman characters. Their fears, desires, ... Read More


Rating: 3 out of 5 stars - Eyes Wide Shut (Unrated) - Blu-ray Info
Title: Eyes Wide Shut - Unrated
Version: U.S.A / Region A, B, C
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Read More


Rating: 1 out of 5 stars - What was kubrick thinking?
Tom Cruise is a horrible actor who wrecks whatever chance the movie had. This is also one on the most ... Read More


Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - Only understood with a mind wide shut...
I make it a point to watch this movie at least once or twice a year; for it is one of those films that ... Read More


Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - If you didn't like it the first time, see it again, your opinion might change
This is truly a movie that you don't forget after it has finished. It gets in your head and stays there ... Read More

More Eyes Wide Shut (R-Rated Edition) Reviews

Browse for similar items by category:







Copyright ©2003, Mark Carey.