Eyes Wide Shut (Two-Disc Special Edition)
by Stanley Kubrick
List Price:
Our Price: $10.99
You Save: $16.00 (59%)
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Buy Used: from $8.95 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD details
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD details
Actor: Marie Richardson, Nicole Kidman, Rade Sherbedgia, Sydney Pollack, Tom CruiseDirector: Stanley Kubrick
Brand: Warner Brothers
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; French (Dubbed)
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 159 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-01-22
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Warner Home Video (INGR)
DVD Reviews of Eyes Wide Shut (Two-Disc Special Edition)
DVD Review: A Work of Brilliance
Summary: 5 Stars
I saw Eyes Wide Shut for the first time when I was 13 and was aware, even then, that I had just seen a masterpiece. Stanley Kubrick's final film, which he completed editing just four days before his death, was met with lukewarm praise like all of his earlier films yet Eyes Wide Shut is arguably his most misunderstood masterpiece. Unlike his earlier films, this one hasn't been re-accessed much over the years, but it has been embraced by many because of the spell it casts and six years after seeing it the first time I still found myself in awe of its brilliance.
Starring then-couple Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, the film opens brilliantly with a brief, elegant shot of Nicole Kidman disrobing. Kidman plays Alice Harford, Cruise plays Bill Harford. Bill is a doctor; Alice is a stay-at-home-mom to their seven-year-old daughter Helena. The film opens with them attending a lavish Christmas party held by one of Bill's wealthier patients Victor Ziegler (the late Sydney Pollack). This scene doesn't set the tone, so much as the theme of the film. Alice is hit on by a Hungarian man, while Bill is hit on by two beautiful women. Bill's rendezvous is interrupted when Ziegler needs his assistance with a girl who has OD'd. Later, after Bill and Alice have smoked a bit of weed, Alice reveals to Bill a sexual fantasy she once had about a naval officer. Bill leaves home, consumed by jealousy and embarks on a psychosexual odyssey that leads him to a grief-stricken woman expressing her love for him, an encounter with a hooker, and a mysterious costume party. In typical Kubrickian fashion, there is a cold detachment from the events. This is every frame a Kubrick film.
At 2 hours and 39 minutes, with long passages of little dialogue, Eyes Wide Shut may be slow-moving to some but I find it quietly hypnotic, endlessly fascinating, and never dull. Maintaining a dream-like feel, it gracefully draws you in and keeps a strong grasp throughout. There's a lot of mystery at the heart of Eyes Wide Shut and the fact that it's so impenetrable makes it difficult for some viewers to digest, yet even at an age when I was too young to understand the themes running through it I was engulfed in it's elegant spell. Kubrick was a master of atmosphere and, like most of his films; the atmosphere that hangs over this film exists only because of his unique style. There's not a film I can think of that engulfs me into the world it creates the same way.
Kubrick was an American who lived in London for the last several decades of his life and preferred to shoot his films there, substituting whatever setting his film required with London. Eyes Wide Shut takes place in New York, but his London setting never really looks or feels like the New York we're accustomed to seeing in movies. Some have pointed out Kubrick's "New York" as one of the film's major flaws. I think this is one of the film's greatest accomplishments. As a filmgoer, the dream-like atmosphere is reinforced and more effective by my unwillingness to accept the setting as New York. 30+ Woody Allen films and I've never seen New York have a more dreamy quality to it. There are six people credited for production design, art direction, and set decoration and they all did a flawless job here. Also flawless is the score by Jocelyn Pook, which incorporates previously composed music as well as original music and is an ominous, haunting, beautiful, and just marvelous score that stays with you long after the movie ends and is essential to the mood created throughout the film.
There is striking imagery and austere camerawork throughout the film, and I don't just mean the nudity that's frequently on display. Originally billed as an "erotic thriller" (which it's definitely not), there is much nudity but little eroticism. Even the controversial scenes that Warner Brothers chose to block with computer-generated figures in order to secure an `R' rating aren't pornographic or arousing in any way. Kubrick was not a director who filmed anything for gratuitous reasons. Warner Brothers rightfully restored these scenes to Kubrick's original vision in the unrated release (which claims to have both versions, but actually has only one...Which is fine, just odd). When discussing striking imagery, it's impossible to ignore the entire costume party sequence; a haunting, mysterious, and extraordinarily well-executed sequence as elegant as it is terrifying. This scene may perplex viewers, but it's a scene I haven't forgotten over the years and a scene only Kubrick could have filmed so gracefully. Had another director shot this scene it would have seemed too long, exploitive, gratuitous, and silly. Kubrick made it a work of art. Another favorite scene of mine is the scene at the costume shop, which is weirdly hilarious and memorable. Featuring a very young Leelee Sobieski and Mr. Milich (Rade Sherbedgia), one of Kubrick's most memorable minor characters, it's a scene that really puts Kubrick's dark sense of humor on display.
Tom Cruise gives one of his strongest, most quietly powerful performances with his then-marriage to Kidman adding an additional dimension to their dynamic. Bill Harford may not be a fully fleshed-out character that gives Cruise a lot to do, but he tackles this role with quiet menace. He plays much of the role with his facial expressions and his eyes, much as Kidman plays much of her role with her body. It is Kidman whose presence, seductive prowess, and body are responsible for some of the film's most well-known and identifiable shots. Sydney Pollack does some great work too as the malevolent Ziegler, as does Todd Field (an accomplished director) as Nick Nightingale, whose actions bring Bill into the dark underworld he ends up in.
There is something new I discover and question each time I watch Eyes Wide Shut, a film that only deepens my opinion that Kubrick never had a "peak" as a director. Even right before his death he was making a challenging, mesmerizing film that continues to be debated over just how good (or bad) it is. I personally can't comprehend the indifference that many have met this film with. It's such a marvelously textured film that I find more fascinating and more awe-inspiring with each viewing. Kubrick was a director of infinite skill and talent, who ended his brilliant career on one of his greatest and most misunderstood films and whose death is still a crushing loss to film-lovers even twelve years later. While time hasn't been much kinder to this film's reception, I hope in the years to come it will be acknowledged as the terrific film it is. Even the title Eyes Wide Shut is so perfect, as your eyes must be wide shut to not appreciate this film for the tremendous work of art it is.
GRADE: A
Description of Eyes Wide Shut (Two-Disc Special Edition)
Stanley Kubrick s daring last film is a bracing psychosexual journey, a riveting suspense tale and a career milestone for stars Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Cruise plays a doctor who plunges into an erotic foray that threatens his marriage and may ensnare him in a murder mystery after his wife s (Kidman) admission of sexual longings. As the story sweeps from doubt and fear to self-discovery and reconciliation, Kubrick orchestrates it with masterful flourishes. Graceful tracking shots, rich colors, startling images: bravura traits that make Kubrick a filmmaker for the ages are here to keep everyone s eyes wide open.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
Bestsellers in DVD
![The Story of Jeremiah [VHS] Image](/images/noimg.gif)
The Story of Jeremiah [VHS]Vision Video; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Wresting With God [VHS]by Vision Video
Vision Video; Published: 1990-10-01; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Price in other shops:
Study Bible Video with Workbook [VHS]Spring Arbor Distributors; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $7.95
Price in other shops:
Tempo:Childrens TV Favourites Video [VHS]HarperCollins Audio; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $9.17
Price in other shops:
Tempo.Herbs:Parseley'Sb/ Party Video [VHS]HarperCollins Audio; VHS Tape; VHS Video
![Strike the Original Match [VHS] Image](/images/Strike-the-Original-Match-VHS-0001374079-X.jpg)
Strike the Original Match [VHS]New Liberty Films; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Price in other shops:
![Medjugorje The Miracles and the Message [VHS] Image](/images/Medjugorje-The-Miracles-and-the-Message-VHS-0001373293-X.jpg)
Medjugorje The Miracles and the Message [VHS]JPN Film Production; Release date: 1995-12-15; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $29.99
Mayo Clinic Echocardiography Review Course for Boards and Recertification DVD 2008by Mayo
DVD
Price in other shops:
Pediatric Diagnostic Imaging DVD: Single Userby Oakstone
DVD
Price in other shops:
Cost Accounting [VHS]by Charles T. Horngren, George Foster, Srikant M. Datar, Howard Teall
Pearson Canada, Toronto; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Similar DVDs, VHS Video, Audio CDs
Shakespeare in Love (Miramax Collector's Series)Shakespeare; Release date: 1999-12-07; DVD
Best price: $5.50
Price in other shops:
AmadeusWarner; Release date: 1997-12-17; DVD
Best price: $4.54
Price in other shops:
Cold Mountain (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)Buena Vista Home Video; Release date: 2004-06-29; Published: 2004-06-01; DVD
Best price: $7.29
Price in other shops:
Basic Instinct - Director's Cut (Ultimate Edition)Lions Gate; Release date: 2006-03-14; DVD
Best price: $4.78
Price in other shops:
Full Metal JacketWarner Brothers; Release date: 2007-05-15; DVD
Best price: $4.64
Price in other shops:
LolitaWarner Brothers; Release date: 2007-10-23; DVD
Best price: $4.80
Price in other shops:
Barry LyndonWarner Brothers; Release date: 2007-10-23; DVD
Best price: $8.87
Price in other shops:
MagnoliaNEW Line Home Video; Release date: 2007-05-08; DVD
Best price: $3.74
Price in other shops:
The Shining (Two-Disc Special Edition)Warner Brothers; Release date: 2007-10-23; DVD
Best price: $8.96
Price in other shops:
A Clockwork Orange (Two-Disc Special Edition)Warner Brothers; Release date: 2007-10-23; DVD
Best price: $5.80
Price in other shops: