| Product: |
Eyes Wide Shut (DVD) |
| Date: |
07/04/01 (80 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: good interviews
Disadvantages: not widescreen
Eyes Wide Shut was the last film from Stanley Kubrick. It was a long time in production and saw some wild rumours emerge involving cast dismissals for bodily fluid misdemeanours.
All this ended up to be false and upon release the film received mixed reviews. Kubrick films are something like art, they are wonderful to look at but are slow burning and won't appeal to the masses but find the own niche.
Eyes Wide Shut is a decent film that is incredibly stylish and artistic but also very cold. Cruise and Kidman play a couple who are becoming distanced from each other and after a revelation from Kidman, Cruise embarks on a journey of sexual darkness in New York. (This is more intriguing in light of the recetn Kidman/Cruise events. All this culminates when Cruise finds himelf at a country manor where everyone wears masks and there are sex orgys in every room. It really is something else. you'll either like it or think it's a horrible film.
The dvd is presented in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio which can also be known as 4:3 (pan and scan). For some reason Kubrick didn't like his film to be in widescreen on a home video market so he butchers his own vision as a result. But then again he was a strange man. The picture quality is great with the very rich colurs looking clean and glowing.
Soundwise it is in Dolby Digital 5.1, most of the sound is in the front speakers but when Cruise is in the country manor at the ritual the rears come to life to give the scenes ambience.
Extras wise as you can imagine there wouldn't be a great deal as Kubrick died before this was released but even so he wouldn't have been a fan of dvd extras. So what we get is a couple of TV spots that are just 30 second trailer but play up to the names involved in the film.
The only other extra is 30 minutes of interviews with Cruise, Kidman and Steven Spielberg. These are from a programme that aired on Channel 4 around the theatrical rel
ease. They are quite good as Kidman is visably upset at Kubricks death as is Cruise yet they discuss the film and the events behind it well. Spielberg also tells stories of his experiences with Kubrick and how he saw him as a film-maker.
One other thing to note is that in the cinema many would notice that despite Kubricks attention to detail even he couldn't see the reflection of a crew member in a mirror in one scene. On this 4:3 version this doesn't seem to appear. Either it's lost in the cropping but I think it may have been digitally removed.
Finally the R2 version is better than the R1 as for once the USA censored the orgy scenes with some digital cover-ups. On the R2 you get the scenes in full uncut glory (although there isn't much to see apart from some T&A !)
Summary:
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