Kubrick's mediocre testament; an incoherent review

Rating: Null/10 (17 July 2000)

I love to read. I love to write. I love films. Hence, IMDB is a website I visit on a daily basis. Often amused, sometimes bemused I read the reviews of films I saw or am interested in. Almost every film has people absolutely loving or absolutely loathing it. In the case of Stanley Kubrick films, and especially this one, the reviews are extreme, fierce. Many reviews of Eyes Wide Shut have an almost pleading character. I haven't read all 800 or so of them, but the fifty or so that I DID read (like: `It takes a certain intellect to understand this film, and people who didn't like this film surely didn't understand it'), made me feel thankful for the existence of the internet; put all 800 or so people who commented on this film in one room and you'd have world war III.
Obvious, hidden, or even non-existent deeper meanings have always been the driving forces for some reviewers. For example, Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert saw something he didn't like in Blue Velvet and dismissed it as a film full of hatred of women. The same Ebert saw some kind of message in the piece of crap that `Last House On the Left' is, and called it a masterpiece. Both films contain the rape of women, but whereas the first one is a rather professional, well-written, well-acted, well-directed, and well-photographed film, the latter is an amateurish and cheap looking slasher-film, made by people who apparently didn't even have the slightest idea of how to hold a camera. Ah, yes, the power of subtext. The power of seeing what you want to see. John McCarthy wrote in his book `The Modern Horror Film', that, at first, he didn't like `The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, part two'. When a friend pointed out that the film contains (how original) an anti-violence message (making it a preparatory-study of Natural Born Killers), McCarthy changed his mind and called the film a masterpiece. A satire of modern day mass-consumption. How original! How profound! Yeah, it really is one of the greatest achievements in contemporary cinema. Give me a break.
I made a couple of shorts myself. Most people who saw these, understood the symbolism and the use of allegory, but, even more, some folks saw things that weren't there. Some people got wild over a simple 'special effect' shot of an animated person looking out of his bedroom window and seeing CNN footage of a battlefield. All kinds of wild theories flew through the room before people got quiet and turned their heads to me. I could just smile sheepishly and state that, at the time, it just seemed like a great visual idea to me. The whole short was improvised as I just happened to have a camera for a few hours.
Not every filmmaker is making films to make a point. Not all inspiration comes from political standpoints, traumas, or what have you. You see, unlike what Boston University's Ray Carney believes, even sincere...no, ESPECIALLY sincere filmmaking is about the fun of it. Furthermore, films aren't books. If the subtext said it all, screenplays wouldn't be made into a film; they would be published. A film doesn't tell a story, it SHOWS a story and in that regard it doesn't really matter whether it's an intelligent story full of great dialogue (like Pulp Fiction) or a 'mindless' campfire story (Evil Dead). A sincere filmmaker's film comes from the heart; a critic reviews films with his mind, his intellect. No wonder that the relationship between critics and filmmakers isn't one of love and tenderness.
As Stephen King metaphorically pointed out in his non-fiction book `Danse Macabre', you can examine a butterfly by catching it with a net and take a closer look at it, after which you can let it go again. But you can also kill it, put it underneath a microscope and start to dissect the insect, taking away its mystery and beauty. All my reviews are based upon what can be seen on the screen.
I don't want it to be a decision whether I liked a film or not. Just like when looking at a painting or listening to a song, I want to undergo the experience and not letting a possible deeper meaning be the reason for liking or disliking it (or something in the middle).
Don't get me wrong, I like subtext. I like to discuss a possible deeper meaning. Films, too, are like a Rorschach-test as the images can be interpret in a million different ways. But more often or not, the interpretation says more about the creativity and fantasy of the reviewers than it does of the filmmakers and/or their intentions.
One of my favorite reviewers on IMDB, Hitch 1899, wrote a killer review on Eyes Wide Shut. It even made me run back to the videostore to rent it again and give it a second look. It didn't change my ambivalent feelings, however. Stanley Kubrick was the real star of his films. He might have been an enigma, but I guess it's fairly save to say that stubbornness was part of his personality. Kubrick already wanted to make this film in the early seventies and even when the story dated over the years, this didn't stop him. He wanted to bring Schnitzler's work to the big screen and he did just that. In this film, we are more than ever aware of him and his camera and editing. More than ever, we are aware of him cutting, re-shooting, creating, re-creating. Almost obsessively retaking shots, editing different versions. Thereby eventually killing his work, not allowing it to breath. The film looks contrived, lacking freshness. The film is very uneven; like different shorts, glued together, it uneasily lingers from drama to comedy to thriller. The film isn't taut, it's meandering, thereby loosing most of the tension it could have had. Kubrick does put a rope around our neck, he just doesn't pull it. There's a difference between being slow and subtle and slow and boring. Kubrick's Barry Lyndon was slow and subtle. Eyes Wide Shut is slow and boring. Only two scenes really worked, in my opinion: Kidman's story about the naval officer and the quiet scene in which Cruise visits the morgue. The symbolism found (or created) by Hitch 1899 may hit the spot, but even the most beautiful subtext can't change these fundamental flaws and/or imperfections.
7 out of 10.