eyes wide shut ritual scene explained

During the course of shooting Eyes Wide Shut, the director filmed 95 takes of Tom Cruise walking through a door. He then begins a night-long journey to explore and possibly give in to his own temptations, stumbling upon a secret society participating in a masked orgy. The best musical instrument is a love triangle. Related: Heres Why It Was So Hard For Stanley Kubrick To Direct 'The Shining', "I think his vision of the orgy scene over the course of the time we worked on it became much more of a literal orgy," Yolande explained. Kubrick's erotic odyssey is ultimately about the nature of seeing: what is hidden in plain sight and what we choose not to see. By using our Services, you agree to our use of cookies. I went over, he spun me around, tied it on my head, and said, Now youre ready. I was the only person on set with their eyes shut. We had a lot of illustrations, contemporary and even much older, of some ceremonies. AG: Stanley said I reminded him of Lady Lyndon from Barry Lyndon. One of the problems was that they had to be totally natural. Things are happening and that means I have less time to dedicate to YouTube. Hes the one playing the master of ceremonies [in the red cloak] with the incense burner in the middle of the circle. The documentary shows photographs of his gang of droogs trying on every hat going in an effort for Kubrick to pick the most sinister for 1971s A Clockwork Orange, before settling on the infamous bowler that would become synonymous with sociopathic Alex DeLarge. I disagree with the association of blue with money. During the making of The Shining, hed put Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall through so many takes to figure out what he wanted, he notoriously caused Duvall to have a nervous breakdown. There was another house we used which had belonged to the guy who discovered Tutankhamens tomb. I went through every modeling agency, every dance academy. XXX PORN. YS: Stanley had a whole collection of Italian masks, the commedia dellarte masks. The ending of the movie Eyes Wide Shut shows us that Bill and Alice know too much about each other and the adultery they are capable of committing, yet they would prefer to live blissfully, ignoring it all. Firstly, this is because Stanley and his team had to make sure they weren't crossing too many lines. Alice also proposes that there is another thing that they must do as soon as possible: "F***." As the scene progresses, more carnal moments are revealed, as they really pushed audiences to the edge. For a few weeks, most of the rep houses in the city were screening Stanley Kubricks Eyes Wide Shut. It had been used during the war for a secret command center. He was great. 100 Times. There were so many crew, so many extras, so many people on set, and nothing was happening. We see her rolling deodorant under her arms (whilst looking in one of those ever present mirrors) as Helena brushes her teeth next to her, this mother/daughter grooming ritual repeated when we see Alice brushing the young girls hair. It used a vocal sampled from another earlier recording. "He supplied us with a lot of information about secret societies and sexual mores in Vienna at the time of Schnitzler. It's purely a matter of what I want to work on when I get the time. Great analysis. But that doesn't mean that there isn't any controversy attached to the film's release. Essentially, shrouded digital figures were placed in front of couples engaged in sex, partly blocking the audience's view." Paddy Eason (supervising digital compositor): Fairly soon after [Kubricks death], my producer Rachel Penfold and I were called up to the Kubrick place to have a meeting about something to do with Eyes Wide Shut, with the inner circle charged with finishing the film. Oh my God, the two biggest stars in Hollywood are going to be walking around naked. And it was Stanley and the fact that then he died. But really, [the orgy scene] kept getting pushed back and back and back in the shoot. And that was because Stanley wanted this very particular body type, a sort of Barbie-doll type. Stanley Kubrick's final film "Eyes Wide Shut" is loosely based on Arthur Schnitzler's novella "Traumnovelle (Dream Story)," and transfers the action from 1900s Vienna to the late 1990s in Greenwich Village. JD: Stanley had asked me to be in the orgy scenes, but I felt so vulnerable and uncomfortable with the idea of doing that kind of action in front of a crew. One time, I was working with somebody else, and we had to move along a wall and against each other. Me and Tom were among the last people he ever filmed; Stanley died before the dubbing was done. Eyes Wide Shut is a 1999 erotic mystery psychological drama film directed, produced, and co-written by Stanley Kubrick. He invited me to select the ones that were the most striking. LV: When Tom was shooting that picture, he was the biggest box-office star in the world. Or perhaps members of the nefarious secret society placed it there as a threat. [After] the emphasis shifted onto that, I went out with him and Leon and the production designer to look at different locations, one of which was the big venue we eventually used.". In one of the final scenes, Bill sees the mask on his pillow beside his sleeping wife. Women were posing in very graceful ways on the table, and at the same time there was this rather repelling kind of scene going on. The most famous version has it that he used Eyes Wide Shut to rat on the Illuminati, who retaliated by having him killed on 7th March, 1999666 days before 1st January, 2001 a gruesome nod to his most famous film. It seems to appear whenever Bill is wrestling with the underlying lie of his situation. "After a few weeks, he started to talk to me about the ritual, the masked ball, and the disrobing ritual. Youve got some Janning to do! Setting records for the longest shoot in movie history, it was an excruciating labor of love for lead stars Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman -- one that would often be traced back to the alleged start of their marriage's decline. The theory goes that to protect the nefarious leaders, Warner Bros quietly had the picture re-editedand now denies this ever happened. LV: Elveden was this house that was owned by the Guinness family. Kubrick's obsessive filmmaking techniques were well-suited for the high tension of hispart-psychosexual thriller, part-marital drama about a doctor who goes on a labyrinthine journey through New York City after he learns that his wife fantasized about another man. It currently holds a 75% on Rotten Tomatoes. I've known a few couples over the years that retaliated against each other when one of them strayed, And, yes, I've also know spouses to become more controlling and watchful- i.e., insecure. A sinister gathering attended by the rich and powerful there are sleek limousines waiting outside, while our hero unwittingly arrives in a yellow cab its a cavalcade of carnality filled with couplings and triplings and quadruplings that ends with Harford humiliated and threatened. Audiences had expected to see married co-stars Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman play . It currently holds a 75% on Rotten Tomatoes. Jason Statham and Aubrey Plaza do not seem like a match made in action-comedy-chemistry heaven, but it somehow works. The length of the shoot caused a lot of press. If the man represents Ziegler (and I think the evidence is extensive that this is the case), the men in blue must correspond to the power of his money. The way it is set up, it is very plausible that Bill would react to Alice's confession by pursuing an adventure of his own. The owner of the New England Patriots allegedly patronizes low-rent massage parlors. Great analysis OP, a good read, well done! And so on and so forth. The second half of Eyes Wide Shut sees Bill being given ominous warnings from this secret society, and he can't seem to find his mask from the party. Crucial to the directors vision is the films notorious central sequence, a ritualistic masked ball and orgy that Harford infiltrates on a tip from his piano-playing pal, Nick Nightingale (Todd Field). it followed the nocturnal pursuits of Tom Cruise's Dr. Bill Harford. What you're talking about isn't "Masked Ball" (the song brought up in the OP), but rather "Migrations", the subsequent track. In truth, fashioning the orgy and the scenes around it may well have been one of the biggest challenges of Kubricks career. And it's not clear what his intentions are regarding that. Kubrick has no clothes. Stanley asked my opinion a lot. Most of the 'Greenwich Village' street scenes were shot on the elaborately detailed outdoor set at Pinewood (the proliferation of T-junctions is a dead giveaway), but for a few shots, London streets were dressed as New York. Lots of really good points, Wow . JD: They came to us and said, Theres been a change of plans. They explained that the women would no longer be wearing their G-strings and that the men would be completely naked except for a cup over their bits. The director took take after take of the same scene, but not because he had a detailed vision in mind. They had a huge problem. It is based on the 1926 novella Traumnovelle ( Dream Story) by Arthur Schnitzler, transferring the story's setting from early twentieth-century Vienna to 1990s New York City. EYES WIDE SHUT, regrettably, continues that trend, even though some mainstream critics (and filmmakers) are still struggling to shower Kubrick with undeserved kudos. Subscribe Now! And apparently, there were some real-life influences for this story beat. This again could be considered symbolic of Kubrick using the film as his own mask through which he is able to say much more than would be otherwise possible. I'm pasting the relevant section from my piece below. The story is strange and winding, adding to the dreamlike quality of filmmaking that takes influence from the original "Dream Story." Simply the Worlds Most Interesting Travel Site, The Truth About Stanley Kubrick's Most Controversial Scene, purchase the rights of Singin' In The Rain, The Truth About Tom Cruise's Character In 'Tropic Thunder', Heres Why It Was So Hard For Stanley Kubrick To Direct 'The Shining', Amy Poehler Compares Hosting The Golden Globes To A Stanley Kubrick Movie. Even though it had Tom Cruise as its star, it was not a successful movie and therefore not seen as one of Tom's most profitable movies. Stanley had talked about finding this voice and this quality that we needed. When he bashed it on the ground, that would indicate when [the girls] had to begin to come up from the floor. Currently, he is both a writer and an editor at TheThings where he specializes in entertainment, film, and celebrity news. Jocelyn Pook (composer): Stanley said, Ive heard this piece from your album. The blunt delivery is a bit comical, but it comes from an honest place. With a somewhat surprising open mind, Stanley let Yoldane and others help him form what has gone down as his most controversial scene. According to a 1999 New York Times article, "65 seconds of the movie were digitally altered. The couple decides to go through life with their glasses blurred, as knowledge only brings despair. I think the two interpretations are related. So physically and intellectually, it was demanding. 2023 Vox Media, LLC. Plus, sex/money is a thematically important dichotomy in the film, so it makes sense that they would each be assigned a color. Cruises Bill Harford wanders a nocturnal landscape of potential transgressions, all of which remind him of the warmth of domestic life. Shelley Duvall on the set of "The Shining,". Id love to hear more stuff. I remember a car came within a few hours to collect the little cassette I made. Russell Trigg (dancer): Yolandes practice involves lots of contact work and improvisation, so that guided the rehearsal. Loosely based on Arthur Schnitzler's novella Traumnovelle ( Dream Story ), Eyes Wide Shut is about an upper-middle class doctor (Cruise) who finds out his wife (Kidman) once fantasied about cheating on her husband. Eyes Wide Shut Ending Explained: No Dream Is Ever Just A Dream, 20th anniversary retrospective on the film. Bill is sent for by Ziegler to attend to a prostitute named Mandy who has overdosed and needs medical attention, which Bill provides. But all the [CGI] figures are moving slightly. Bill wears a mask in order to infiltrate the private ritual, but he also wears a figurative mask in real life to be an ideal husband and conceal his own sexual curiosity outside of his relationship with Alice. The actress was coming off a breakout performance in 1997's "Oscar and Lucinda" and then a star-making . A sub for fans to discuss the work of Stanley Kubrick, Press J to jump to the feed. I dont know if Martin Scorsese knows it was originally written for Eyes Wide Shut. We had a man on his hands and knees with a woman on his back being fucked by another man. He was really excited about some music he was listening to, and he talked me through the section he wanted me to work on. LV: It was Cate Blanchett! I would ask for more money if I were you.. Theres not, Stanley. Its full of obscenities, full of implied or actual sexual entendres. Child sex slavery, rape, drug overdoses, money can be used to buy everything. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts, https://www.reddit.com/r/StanleyKubrick/comments/994q4h/what_eyes_wide_shut_is_really_about/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf. Also rainbows are mentioned more than once! They know how to do this, Stanley. This was totally abnormal as the director was notoriously (and agonizingly) precise about his decision. God, I sound like a bit of a bimbo! Bill is in a state of denial about both his wife's sexual autonomy and his own temptations. The movie began filming in November 1996 and ended in June 1998, holding the Guinness World Records for longest constant movie shoot at over 15 months, with 46 weeks of unbroken shooting. I was on the set with Tom and Stanley, finding things on our own. We did that shot so many times. In this movie, the world of wealth and privilege is a world of illusion and facade. And then we had to find some more because we realized we didnt have enough. But who left it there? But when Eyes Wide Shut (his final film) was released, it tanked. Written by Timothy Sexton The Star of Ishtar And every day, Leon would record it and come back with feedback from Stanley. Blanchett was a rising star during the "Eyes Wide Shut" post-production phase. "Masked Ball" plays during the black mass/lesbian homoeroticism part and "Migrations" during Dr. Hartford's wandering through the mansion afterwords. Its somewhere up in the Hollywood Hills, or around that area. When Kubrick died, the cut was known to be locked. But not explicit. very persuasive. eyes wide shut daughter kidnapped I did watch some soft-core porn and Red Shoe Diaries, just to see really what the general idea of the limits was. He also sent over a lot of illustrations of secret-society rituals and the Black Mass, mainly from the 19th century. She was trying to get a more kind of sensual approach to it. Eyes Wide Shut is not Stanley Kubrick's best film. This essay will not engage in that kind of analysis.]. The scene known as Masked Ball, depicting an occult satanic ritual orgy, from Stanley Kubrick's final masterpiece Eyes Wide Shut - when played in reverse, it is actually a Romanian Orthodox chant.The lyrics of the chant are as follows: nc ne rugm pentru mila, viaa, pacea, sntatea, mntuirea, cercetarea, lsarea i iertarea pcatelor robilor lui Dumnezeu, nchintori, miluitori i binefctori ai sfntului lcaului acestuia. That same MPAA approved the South Park movie! Kubrick also never let his actors see any daily footage, and this inability to track his own performance across the film gave Cruise an ulcer, which he hid from Kubrick. Ive never been. By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy and to receive email correspondence from us. The film's dreamy nature may be confusing, but what is important to remember is that ultimately "Eyes Wide Shut"is about the reconciliation of a couple who intentionally blinded themselves from the hard truths of their insecure relationship. We would meet and rehearse and come up with ideas. It could be he's just curious based on Nick's description and didn't realize that he would be spotted. The film is full of puzzles, riddles, and games, symbols helping to reveal the truths of the unconscious mind, this large symbolic dimension helping foster emotional involvement. Lines, roads, walking, processions towards a threshold or towards an altar. But when I look at the scene, I think what we did in the studio [during rehearsal] definitely influenced the whole feel of that scene. For Bill and Alice, sex and temptation is all around them, but they only have eyes for each other. Youd very rarely do less than 20 takes. The analysis tries very hard to cram square pegs into round holes. The latest movie news, trailers, reviews, and more. Things you buy through our links may earnVox Mediaa commission. Tom Cruise in the Masked Ball ritual scene from Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece Eyes Wide Shut with Jocelyn Pook's haunting score filling the temple. It's just that the storytelling of the second night resembles that of a dream. "I had a friend who lived in the south of France, G. Legman," Stanley Kubrick's assistant, Anthony Frewin, told Vulture. It doesnt make it genius.. Lines, roads, walking, processions towards a threshold or towards an altar. There were two parties. I and another girl, we opted out. Of course, in recent years weve discovered that the indulgences of the mega-wealthy have little of the mysterious, cloaked menace of what happens in Eyes Wide Shut. Well, maybe socks and a shirt, but certainly no pants. Very often, Stanley would say to me that I wasnt on my mark. My perspective is that the ritual is not its own independent event, but rather a reflection of the earlier party at Ziegler's house. Some in the Hindu community happened to notice those few words, and it became a bit of a media frenzy. Yes, 100 times. Of it, Kubrick told Playboy: Its not a message that I ever intend to convey in words. All about Eyes Wide Shut Ritual Scene. Although many people are familiar with his abuse of Shelley Duvall on the set of "The Shining," some might not know just how crazy it was to make "Eyes Wide Shut," the director's last film. My man. For months, wed call them in once or twice a week and I would take a video camera and wed improvise a lot of stuff. And then I had to find, of course, the people who were willing to be a part of that. Photo: Warner Bros. this was some brilliant stuff. But yes, I wasnt directed to walk like that really. Stanley wasnt keen on doing it in many ways. The vocalist had been improvising and had used some words from the Bhagavad Gita. Not only did he ask the pair to pose in over 50 sex positions, he banned Cruise from the set and forbade Kidman to assuage her husbands tension by telling him what happened during the shoot.). Home; Videos; Categories; Webcams; Eyes Wide Shut Ritual Scene. All rights reserved. I injured a fascia on my leg. Im especially mad because I just watched Barry Lyndon also, another lazy movie. Just then, a mysterious woman intercedes and sacrifices herself in order to save him. "I did watch some soft-core porn and Red Shoe Diaries, just to see really what the general idea of the limits was. He also sent over a lot of illustrations of secret-society rituals and the Black Mass [a satanic ceremony], mainly from the 19th century. When Stanley was looking at the tapes of rehearsal, he asked, What is that music?. Scene HD Remember, absolutely nothing in this film will have been left to chance everything is painstakingly nuanced to paint the precise picture Kubrick was getting at. He wanted them to start on the ground. Its true meaning is tied in with the genocide of Native Americans, because of the imagery throughout associated with the American West for instance, cans of Calumet Baking Powder noticeable in the background of two central scenes because a calumet is a ceremonial pipe, and the cans featured the image of a Native American, therefore American imperialism is the subtext of the film, duh. After Bill and Alice return home from a Christmas party (where they both flirted with strangers), they have sex and smoke weed; in their late-night haze, Alice reveals that she once daydreamed about leaving her family to run off with a handsome Naval Officer she spied on their Cape Cod vacation.

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