Sinister: two cents on Eyes Wide Shut debate (no B&S content!:))

[Christopher McQuain]

I've sworn off posting, but I had to write in response to some
innacuracies. I LOVED Eyes Wide Shut, and think that its 'slowness' is
merely relative. There is no rule how many events must happen within a
certain length of time in a film.  The film has an aura of too-bright
Christmastime with something rotten inside, and it's maintained from
beginning to end in each visual, plotting, and even musical respect. In
the 12 years since Stanley Kubrick's LAST 'slow' masterpiece, our
attention spans have shrunken to microscopic proporions, and the film
biz has changed for the (EVEN) worse! It's been so long since a truly
didactic (and I don't use this term pejoritavely AT ALL) film has been
allowed to be made even on the indie circuit, let alone a studio film
starring Cruise and Kidman, that people can scarcely believe the
ice-cold dissection of a universal human conundrum that awaits them. But
it's a Kubrick film and that's what he does, and it's done well in Eyes
Wide Shut.

Oh, I thought it was wholly inappropriate all the  laughter that Marie
Richardson (who in fact is NOT the prostitute who saves Tom, but the
girl whose father died) was greeted with when she appeared on screen.

Let's consider some Marie Richardson/Eyes Wide Shut facts, shall we?

-Marie is Swedish, and a VERY fine actress. She has been featured in
many latter day Bergman offerings (written by Bergman, not directed of
course, as he's retired) and was presumably hand picked by Kubrick for
her acclaim. Her accent may have contributed to the misunderstanding of
the scene, but the informed film-goer, aware of who Richardson is, her
nationality, and her stature in the acting community, will recognize the
accent as entirely natural and frankly not out of step with the serious
tone of the film at all. I'm sure there's many a wealthy international
heiress residing in upper-crust New York. Her character is one of them. 

-Her character has just experienced a profound emotional loss. Her
reaction on screen, though laughed at as too corny or melodramatic, is
in fact the very kind of hysterical, dazed reaction a person would
likely have when presented with the stark shock of the death of a loved
one.

-The irony of the scene is precisely the same as that of the final
scene, and in fact several scenes throughout the film. Richardson's
character has experienced this emotional devastation, but her animal
instincts take over. She throws herself at Cruise in a panic,
uncontrollably, desperately, and I thought rather sadly, while her
father's freshly dead body lies in the background. The horrifying
arbitrariness of this instinct is driven home when her boyfriend arrives
and is revealed, in fact, to be just as fine a specimen as Cruise is.
Why would she do this, behave in such a pathetic way when her father is
dead and she's already comitted to a man equally accomplished and
sexually desirable to Cruise's doctor? The point of this scene is the
point of the film; you can ask "why", evaluate, explore, and discuss the
issue all you wish, and your only answer will still be: As a human
being, you're stuck in an endless balancing act between your animal
drives and your evolved ones. 

Viva Kubrick!

-2 or 3 Things I Know About Chris 
Post-post test courtesy of miranda july 

Section 5: Word Use
Pupil uses three given words in one sentence. 
Example: Disco/Hope/Apocalypse:
"When the apocalypse comes, I hope I'm at the disco."

1. Merchant/Bread/Buy
2. Wake/Up/Bitch 
3. Slap/Slap/Slap
4. River/Fish/Boat

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