Kubrick’s Christmas story is a droll, furtive dream of sex and infidelity, probably the weirdest film in Tom Cruise’s filmography. Loosely based on Arthur Schnitzler’s Traumnovelle, it’s a film about a Manhattan doctor whose complacent beliefs about his marriage to Alice (Nicole Kidman) are shaken when she admits to having fantasized about another man.
Eyes Wide Shut and Die Fledermaus are linked through their shared themes of masquerade, hidden desires, and the exploration of dual identities within high society settings. Both works utilize masks and waltz music to symbolize the contrast between public personas and private inclinations, delving into the complexities of human relationships and societal facades.
Ashley Daniel Foot, Director of Engagement, Vancouver Opera
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Opera, whose production of Die Fledermaus begins October 26.
Kubrick’s great achievement in the film is to find and hold an odd, unsettling, sometimes erotic tone for the doctor’s strange encounters. Shooting in a grainy high-contrast style, using lots of back-lighting, underlighting and strong primary colors, setting the film at Christmas to take advantage of the holiday lights, he makes it all a little garish, like an urban sideshow. Dr. Bill is not really the protagonist but the acted-upon, careening from one situation to another, out of his depth. Kubrick pays special attention to each individual scene. He makes a deliberate choice, I think, not to roll them together into an ongoing story, but to make each one a destination—to give each encounter the intensity of a dream in which this moment is clear but it’s hard to remember where we’ve come from or guess what comes next.
Roger Ebert
Co-Presented with
Media Partner
Stanley Kubrick
Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Sydney Pollack, Todd Field, Leelee Sobieski, Marie Richardson
USA/UK
1999
English
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Credits
Screenwriter
Stanley Kubrick, Frederic Raphael
Cinematography
Larry Smith
Editor
Nigel Galt
Original Music
Jocelyn Pook
Production Design
Les Tomkins, Roy Walker
Also in This Series
The Conversation
Gene Hackman is Harry Caul, 'the best bugger on the West Coast', a surveillance expert whose jealously guarded anonymity is threatened when he happens across what seems to be a murder plot.
The Fall (4K Restoration)
Shot over four years across 24 countries, cowritten by a six year old girl, and entirely self-financed by commercials director Tarsem, The Fall is such a mind- (and eye) boggling movie it's hard to believe it actually exists. Yet here it is!
Winter Kills
An inspired black comic adaptation of the ultimate conspiracy theory, based on a novel by Richard (Manchurian Candidate) Condon. It's a lunatic riff on the Kennedy assassination(s), with Jeff Bridges finding who really killed his brother, the President. Screening in 35mm print.
