On March 7, 1999, Stanley Kubrick died at his home in Childwickbury.
The filmmaker has just finalized the editing of his thirteenth feature film,
Eyes Wide Shut
.
He managed to maintain total secrecy around the film carried by the star couple Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman.
His work, which explores desire and adultery, arouses many fantasies and gives rise to the wildest rumors.
In the fascinating investigation
Stanley Kubrick's Last Dream
published by Capricci, Axel Cadieux attempts to unravel the mystery of this testament film.
Also read: Leon Vitali: “Kubrick knew he would never achieve perfection.
But he was trying to get closer."
LE FIGARO.- Why were you interested in
Eyes Wide Shut
?
Axel CADIEUX.-
This is a film steeped in mystery that I discovered quite young and which played a very important role in building my cinephile.
Last year, when I realized that we were approaching the 20th anniversary of
Eyes Wide Shut
, I told myself that this was the opportunity to dig into this film that has always intrigued me.
I did not want to do a theoretical work, others have already done that.
Following a journalistic approach, with lots of interviews, made it possible to understand how the film was made and to unravel its mysteries.
Furthermore, it was also a way of modestly understanding how Kubrick worked.
You say that
Eyes Wide Shut
is a deeply destabilizing film.
For what?
As a spectator, we identify with the initiatory quest of Bill Harford, the character played by Tom Cruise, knowing that he is in almost every shot for 2 hours 36 minutes. We experience at the same time as him the stages through which it passes - moral conflicts, dilemmas, temptations and perversions.
The film is also destabilizing because everything is just make-believe.
We are halfway between dream and reality.
Everything is moving, like in
Alice in Wonderland
.
The reality Kubrick created doesn't really exist.
This seems very theoretical, but involves something very concrete.
The decorations, for example.
Bill Harford goes to the costume rental house twice.
On his second visit, the scenery changed.
You don't realize it, but at one point the counter is at the back, and later it's on the left.
Unconsciously, it's very destabilizing.
Just like the fact that the film takes place in New York while the scenes were shot in London...
Eyes Wide Shut
is also a film about voyeurism...
Absolutely.
This is what I tried to develop in the book by talking about some plans that may not seem important, but which still say a lot.
At one point, Bill Harford, a doctor by profession, is in his office and lifts a patient's leg before asking,
“Is it okay now?
Is that okay for you?”
.
This comes right after a totally gratuitous shot of Nicole Kidman where she strips naked and arches her ass in front of the camera.
For me, he speaks to the spectators by saying
“Are you okay?
Did you get what you wanted?”
The raised leg is a metaphorical form of erection.
Kubrick plays as much with the viewer's expectations and desire as his own.
He put a lot of his never-fulfilled fantasies into this.
Isn't this also his most personal film?
There are lots of minute details in the sets, a reproduction of Greenwich Village in 1996, which take us back to the filmmaker's past in the 1950s. It was a fundamental period for him, because he discovered cinema and literature.
But also because he experienced a painful romantic relationship which marked him.
The clothes worn by the waitresses, the telephone booths, the fronts of buildings… These anachronistic details are nods to his past films and to some of his unknown technicians.
Through
Eyes Wide Shut
, Kubrick essentially talks about himself.
The film is a kind of journey into the past and into space.
“On a Kubrick set, there is no question of unions forcing you to work between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.
We can work until midnight and shoot the same scene a hundred times."
Axel Cadieux
Why were Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman the perfect couple in Kubrick's eyes?
For several reasons, in my opinion.
To begin with, they were a couple in life.
I think Kubrick had a very strong desire to play with them during the two years of filming.
He worked with their fear, their jealousy.
I'm thinking in particular of the scene in which Nicole Kidman's character fantasizes with a Navy officer.
The second thing is that both actors were at the height of their fame.
With them, he could create a sulphurous climate.
The public and journalists did not know what was happening in Pinewood (
studio where Eyes Wide Shut was filmed, Editor's note
), nor what the film was about.
This gave rise to a lot of rumors.
Third reason: the sectarian dimension of Tom Cruise, who was already a prominent member of Scientology at the time.
This is one of the themes of the film.
It is obvious that Kubrick also played with this porosity.
He had a strange, ambivalent relationship with Tom Cruise, who brought his team of Scientologists with him to London, which Kubrick looked at with a dim eye.
“Eyes Wide Shut”, a film about the voyeurism of the spectator and Kubrick.
Warner Bros.
France
You paint the portrait of Kubrick imposing total control over his work.
But also a director who listens to his actors, far from the tyrant often described by his collaborators...
According to the thirty testimonies from actors collected, he showed kindness towards everyone.
He was interested in everyone.
Was it gratuitous kindness or did it hide a logic of taking power over people in order to get the most out of them?
For me, it's not Machiavellian, because there is a form of sincerity deep down.
He is interested in people, he likes to talk with them.
He is solitary, but constantly in communication.
At the same time, his charisma allows him to ask a lot.
On a Kubrick set, there is no question of unions forcing you to work between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.
We can work until midnight and shoot the same scene a hundred times...
“During the two years of filming and the year of editing, Kubrick slept two to three hours a night”
Axel Cadieux
Kubrick's perfectionism also tested the limits of Harvey Keitel, cast to play Victor Ziegler, a character ultimately played by Sydney Pollack...
This is an anecdote told to me by Ante Novakovic, Harvey Keitel's assistant at the time.
When the actor meets Kubrick, two enormous egos clash.
Keitel hates not having his script.
He wants to be able to absorb it to develop his character.
However, Kubrick does not show the script and gives vague instructions to these actors.
When preparing a scene, the director asks Keitel to place his glass of whiskey in a certain place, further to the right, then further to the left.
At one point, Harvey Keitel goes into a tailspin and smashes the glass against the door saying
“how is the glass now?”
He leaves in a fury in his caravan, followed by Tom Cruise, Kubrick and Keitel.
At this point, Keitel looks at Kubrick and says:
“Dude, you're a guy from the Bronx, I'm a fucking Marine from Brooklyn, this isn't going to work between us.”
The film is said to have killed Kubrick, who died a few days after finalizing the edit.
How true does this seem to you?
I would rather say that it was the fatigue linked to the film than the film itself that killed it.
He died of exhaustion, his heart really gave out.
A few hours before his death, his driver found him on a chair, exhausted.
He couldn't move anymore.
During the two years of filming and the year of editing, he slept two to three hours a night.
He has always had a poor lifestyle.
He ate poorly, he smoked a lot for a long time, he didn't exercise.
He didn't take care of himself.
He was immersed body and soul in his films.
The debauchery of intense energy, both intellectual and physical, during those three years ended up exhausting him.