Kubrick

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if youre gonna check out ews make it a double feature

Postby yablonsky » Sat Dec 03, 2005 11:04 pm

great discussion everyone; i just wanted to echo saintsimon that polanski's "the ninth gate" is highly underrated/recognized. <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Un-cut

Postby Sweejak » Sat Dec 03, 2005 11:07 pm

This from an Italian site, translated back into English.<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr> American Hindus Against Defamation<br>Web: <!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.hindunet.org/ahad/">www.hindunet.org/ahad/</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br>Email: ajay@hindunet.org, chetanp@pacbell.net<br>-----------------------------------------<br>Warner Brothers 4000 Warner Blvd Burbank, CA 91522<br>Email: wbol-admin@WARNERBROS.COM<br>Phone: (81<!--EZCODE EMOTICON START 8) --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/glasses.gif ALT="8)"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> 977-7900 Fax: (81<!--EZCODE EMOTICON START 8) --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/glasses.gif ALT="8)"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> 977-3135<br><br>3 August, 1999<br><br>To the kind attention of the Warner<br><br>In name of the American Hindus Against Defamation (AHAD), we wish to express serious worry care the insertion of one of the most sacred Hindu citations [ sic ] to the inside of the film Eyes Wide Shut .<br><br>To half of this film, the personage interpreted from Tom Cruise arrives in a villa where that one has place that can better be described like one orgiastica festivity. When it enters in a great room where sexual actions have place various, music in foundation is attenuated and come recited shloka (the reading of the writing) from the Bhagwad Gita, one of the most sacred Hindu witnesses.<br><br>The shloka it says: "Parithranaya Saadhunam Vinashaya cha dushkrithaam Dharmasamsthabanarthaya Sambhavami yuge yuge..." that he means "For the protection of the vituous one, for the destruction of malvagio and the firm constitution of the Dharma (justice), I come to the light and I incarnate myself on the Earth, of was in was."<br><br>Hundreds of Hindu have contacted to us in order to express their abashment because of I use it of the sacred Hindu writing like foundation for this scene of the film. It seems it are not to us some logon, or appearing justification, for the use of this shloka. It completely seems to be outside context!<br><br>We, the American Hindus Against Defamation, are perplexed, he displeases to you and he irritates to you from the use of the shloka, and we do not succeed to understand your attempt and the reason of this choice. Also we have been contacts from many organs of information, comprised the London BBC to you, the New York Post etc, for having one our comment.<br><br>Before rilasciare our comments to they, we have decided to contact you for first, so as to having a ready and honest explanation of because it has been decided to use the sacred writing during that scene of the film. We do not want launch a protest now, however we demand one firmly your explanation, the first possible one.<br><br>American Hindus Against Defamation (AHAD) is the greater organ for the defense of the rights of the Hindu and is formed from various Hindu associations. AHAD already has been responsible in passed of actions that they have had happened, like as an example the renunciation from part of the Aerosmith to publish one offensive cover for their album Nine Lives , and recently the withdrawal of the episode "The Way" of the television series Xena produced from the Universal.<br><br>For ulterior information, it is prayed to contact Ajay Shah (ajay@hindunet.org) or Chetan Tanna (chetanp@pacbell.net).<br><br>Sincerely, Ajay Shah Convenor,<br>AHAD Chetan Tanna General Counsel, AHAD<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> <p></p><i></i>
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Another Review

Postby Sweejak » Sun Dec 04, 2005 2:38 am

This review is pretty exhaustive, obviously from a expert observer of film. It sticks mainly, but not always, to technique use of color and detail, etc.<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.movienavigator.org/eyeswideshut.htm">www.movienavigator.org/eyeswideshut.htm</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>Snips:<br><br>... I believe the title is suggesting people have an inherent inability to actually observe and comprehend what is before them. That people create dream worlds for themselves, and all too often accept surface presentations instead of searching the depths which create such illusions -- a paradox. It was also a dry commentary on the audience’s inability to comprehend what they were viewing.<br><br>... People seeing Eyes Wide Shut in the theater for the first time had been promised a fair degree of titillation.... they received a meditation on lies, marital infidelity, class, procreation and death.<br><br>... Kubrick begins filling our minds with strange inconsistencies, of which the AC is only one. An obviously missing statue in one scene is an example; a chair that comes and goes near Bill’s front door... He’s begging us to wonder whether these things are intentional or not?<br><br>... Bill is so out of the loop during the day of his odyssey that the unfamiliar events which he stumbles through appear to function with a dream logic. The events are too irregular, and his lack of experience leads him to paranoia, linking incidents together without any foundation ... And like life, nothing ever seems to fit together perfectly. No disguise is absolute, hence the disguise.<br><br>... Two books can be seen on the shelf, one more obvious than the other. The book in plain view is humorously titled Introducing Sociology. Is Domino a student? The second book, lying down and difficult to make out is Shadows on the Mirror, a novel about a successful woman attorney at a prestigious firm who keeps lonely men company at night...until she’s implicated in the discovery of a corpse -- a perfect parallel to the film’s plot, both thematically and narratively. This is what I’m talking about with regard to Kubrick’s use of detail. You’d better believe that book is intentional.<br> <p></p><i></i>
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EWS is good shit

Postby yablonsky » Sun Dec 04, 2005 2:39 am

just watching EWS (no no not the first time<!--EZCODE EMOTICON START :rollin --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/roll.gif ALT=":rollin"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> )<br>good line: "a cape with a hood and a mask? you sure the good doctor wouldn't like something more colorful?: clowns, officers, pilots.." <p></p><i></i>
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Kubrick: EWS

Postby morganwolf » Sun Dec 04, 2005 3:16 pm

Superb thread. Thank you, Sweejak, and others, for so posting so many interesting tidbits. NICE WORK!<br><br>I'm a passionate Kubrick fan. As soon as EWS was released, I grabbed a friend and went to the movies. I was not disappointed - it has since become a personal favorite, so I bought the DVD. There are some special features worth watching. Notably, an interview with Nicole Kidman where she talks about her feelings for Stanley, her responses to his direction, and what it was like to do a film with her own husband. Kidman refused to talk about Kubrick's death and wept openly when pressed about the details. I 'sensed' that she had been very close to Stanley, and maybe knew more about his demise than did the public, but could not speak about it.<br><br>Interestingly, in the post EWS context, the whole Cruise/Kidman breakup was rumored to be about infidelity. Supposedly, Kidman became pregnant but it was not Cruise's baby -- she had an abortion to save his reputation (she was likely threatened into it by the Scientology goon squad), and he filed for divorce, which she did not contest. In the realm of Hollywood divorce and breakups, theirs was bizarre for her lack of defense.<br><br>I have no doubt that she was afraid for her life in those months after her breakup with Cruise. She retreated to home ground, Australia, and lived with family for a long time. On a subsequent appearance on Jay Leno, Kidman said she was feeling her old self again after spending Christmas in Australia, far away from the LA scene. She mentioned wanting to get out of the movie business eventually, to take an academic degree in philosophy, claiming that each role "takes something out of you" and that she could not imagine being an actress forever. (I'm glad to see her happy, finally. Is she still practicing Scientology? I doubt it. I am pretty sure she was running on Cruise control during their marriage.)<br><br>The most remarkable thing about EWS, for me, is the lighting, which is only possible to achieve by 'pushing' the film speed. The result is intense color saturation and capability of filming in low, available light. Gorgeous.<br><br>The Christmas tree motif was one stylistic choice that made me crazy for months - I kept trying to see which scenes, if any, omitted the tree. The ritual scene, obviously, and the Fautian scene in Ziegler's billiard room.<br><br>I also loved the little jokes - the list was wonderful to read - and I caught most of them. Missed the Full Metal Jacket video in the Harford's bedroom. That's the best part about Kubrick. You can watch his work over and over and still find new things.<br><br>In fact, Steven Spielberg, in the special section of the EWS DVD, challenges anyone to put a Stanley Kubrick film on and then walk away from it. It cannot be done. You get sucked in - the visual coding is that strong - even professionals admit it.<br><br>On for "guilt by association" issue, I'm with Prof. Pan and Arcadia. The rich, famous, and powerful travel in the same circles, but not all of them participate on the same level. A visual analogy would be a Venn diagram, wherein the center is the darkest segment, the place where all three areas combine. Was Stanley in the "heart of darkness"? Dunno.<br><br>FWIW: I don't like Tom Cruise, either, but this isn't the Tom Cruise the public has come to love/loathe. See the film, if you haven't already. It is an extraordinarily relevant social commentary on the level of corruption among the rich and powerful, and yes, about what happens to those who get too close to the truth.<br><br>To Stanley Kubrick, who was, perhaps, the last of the master filmmakers: RIP.<br><br>Morgan <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Kubrick: EWS

Postby Sweejak » Sun Dec 04, 2005 4:16 pm

Well now I have to rent it again or maybe just buy it, I guess I should find an uncensored copy overseas. <br>It would be easy to say that this is being over analysed if it weren't for Kubrick's attention to detail. On the DVD that I watched the interview with Cruise, he choked up when talking about Kubrick's death.<br>Do you think all the hype that preceeded the film, the promise of a titillation was part of Kubrick's design?<br><br>The ending still bugs me though, they seem to say, in effect, "well, fuck it" <br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>The "happy" ending of Traumnovelle, however, is problematized by the sentiments expressed in Fridolin's and Albertine's final lines. "Neither the reality of a single night, nor even of a person's entire life can be equated with the full truth about his innermost being," she says. To which, he replies, "And no dream is altogether a dream."<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.longpauses.com/blog/2000/04/eyes-wide-shut-1999.html">www.longpauses.com/blog/2...-1999.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Kubrick: EWS

Postby pfredricks » Sun Dec 04, 2005 4:58 pm

For any other Brits interested in Kubrick (or indeed, Americans who can play PAL, region 2 DVDs), Amazon have the "Stanley Kubrick Boxset" for just under £30:<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005MHNJ/">www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obi...00005MHNJ/</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>It contains:<br><br>Lolita<br>Dr Strangelove<br>2001<br>A Clockwork Orange<br>Barry Lyndon<br>The Shining (with documentary by his daughter Vivian)<br>Full Metal Jacket<br>Eyes Wide Shut (with Cruise, Kidman & Spielberg interviews)<br><br>plus the 2 1/2 hour (somewhat back-patting) documentary "Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures"<br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0278736/">www.imdb.com/title/tt0278736/</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>I have heard that the reason it is going cheap is that there are to be new 2-disc editions of his films coming out 2006/7. If so, you may want to hold on, but at that price I just couldn't resist!<br><br>edit - also - for the Americans - you may be interested in the above for Kubricks allegedly preferred print of "The Shining" which is approx. 30 minutes shorter than the US version. IMDB has a list of the changes:<br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081505/alternateversions">www.imdb.com/title/tt0081...teversions</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>There's an interesting little article online I read a while back claiming that "The Shining" is actually about the genocide of the Native Americans. Some tenuous points, but still an interesting take:<br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0052.html">www.visual-memory.co.uk/a.../0052.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>btw, the article in the first post of this thread is by Jon Ronson (of recent "Men Who Stare At Goats" fame). Apparently, he was also there filming for a documentary that got pulled and now has 8 hours of raw material sitting around unused. <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=pfredricks>pfredricks</A> at: 12/4/05 2:07 pm<br></i>
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Re: Kubrick: EWS

Postby morganwolf » Sun Dec 04, 2005 6:25 pm

I will be looking for an uncensored copy, as well. If you find a source, please post it? Thanks.<br><br>The ending bugs me, too. However, I don't they're saying "Fuck it." I think they're saying, whoa, we got a glimpse into the other side of life, as it were, the life that appeared so glittery and seductive at the Zeigler's party, and we don't want to go there ever again.<br><br>I love how Kubrick uses the party lights as a metaphor for power of evil's seduction - you cannot turn your eyes away. The party's set dressing is deliberately mesmerizing, enhancing the spinning dance sequence. There is always an aura of golden light behind and around the couples. That is the nature of the Beast -- it appears as a glittering prize. So beautiful. So easy.<br><br>Remember, Alice has rejected the depraved sexuality practiced by the Zeiglers and their super-rich friends. She has, however, learned the power of raw sexuality and its importance to her marriage. She realizes that she must make available to her husband the Domino persona she has kept hidden all these years, but within the socially accepted boundaries of the marriage bed.<br><br>Further, she must now control their sex life because her husband has proven his inability to do so. In the end, she takes charge by uttering the last lines: "There is one thing we have to do as soon as possible." Bill asks, "What's that?" She answers, simply, "Fuck."<br><br>Was the hype part of Kubrick's design? I don't think so. I think publicity machines do their thing independently of a director's wishes, even Stanley Kubrick. Besides, he was dead by the film's release, so what was he going to say about it? Considering the fickle nature of American moviegoers, the studio publicity machine would have been crazy if they didn't sell EWS as a voyeuristic fuck flick featuring two very big stars. That translates to $$.<br><br>btw --<br><br>I think someone in this thread mentioned their disappointment with the general public's inability to 'see' what this film was really about. I'd say most Kubrick fans got it, and cannot get enough of it. Perhaps many who saw it the first time around will come back to it when they ready. <br><br>Kudos to the person who drew the link between Blow Up and EWS. Damn, that impressed me! I originally went to see Blow Up because the Yardbirds were featured in a club scene (I was 15 and had to lie about my age to get in!). I ended up an obsessed Blow Up fan for 15 years.<br><br>Director Antonioni has done some very freaky work. See Zabriskie Point, for example. Disaster and high weirdness surrounded that entire shoot. See:<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.sci.fi/~phinnweb/links/cinema/directors/antonioni/zabriskie/">www.sci.fi/~phinnweb/link...zabriskie/</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Kubrick: EWS

Postby Sweejak » Sun Dec 04, 2005 8:38 pm

About the ending... I guess what irks me is the smooth return to normalcy. How can you? Eyes Wide Shut. It's not that I don't like the ending, it's more that I haven't placed it. Maybe you have when you say that they have decided, Alice at least, to keep it at home. If Gorightly's MK take has any legs it's very unresolved. I need to think about it some more.<br><br>The Ziegler party scene is so bubbly that it made me feel like I just chugged a bottle of champagne.<br><br>Blow Up, The Yardbirds, Yow.<br><br>There is another film, strictly entertainment, that captures some of the milieu of that era, Roman Coppola's "CQ".<br><br>I found some EWS DVD's on Amazon UK that I assume are uncut but I don't know If I can play PAL format on my machine. The whole region thing obnoxious. Whose brilliant idea was that. I think I can watch it on my computer using VLC without using up my 5 region setting allotments. <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Kubrick: EWS

Postby edge of darkness » Sun Dec 04, 2005 9:09 pm

Slightly at a tangent to Kubrick - apologies - but Arthur Clarke is an equally interesting figure to the Rigourously Intuitive.<br><br>2001 can certainly be interpreted as an Illuminist / Luciferian manifesto . I first heard this articulated on some audio-tapes by dear old "Wild" Bill Cooper & later reiterated in Hoffman's Secret Societies & Psychologial Warfare<br>In the sequel "2010" Jupiter ignites into a second sun in the solar system - & is re-named Lucifer.<br><br>Looked at with Kubrick's other films this theme seems more than co-incidental. <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=edgeofdarkness>edge of darkness</A> at: 12/4/05 6:20 pm<br></i>
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Re: Shining

Postby Sweejak » Mon Dec 05, 2005 12:58 am

Just throwing this out re the Shining and Indians article which seems very well reasoned to me.<br><br>About another massacre.<br>"The atomic bomb brought an empty victory to the Allied armies. It has resulted for the time being in the soul of Japan being destroyed. What has happened to the soul of the destroying nation is yet too early to see." Mahatma Ghandi <p></p><i></i>
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thread

Postby smiths » Mon Dec 05, 2005 3:24 am

brilliant thread guys, this is the stuff i keep coming back for,<br><br>and for my two cents worth i think the choice of actors is very interesting, not only do i not like tom cruise but i think of him as an unsettling psycho, like the devil coming in a nice suit, a cheesy grin and college boys hair, naive girls sucked into his world and souls consumed,<br>honestly, what the fuck really happened to nicole kidman in that time, what did he to to her that he could hold over her to keep her silence about his activities <p></p><i></i>
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Xenu.net

Postby Jen » Mon Dec 05, 2005 5:05 am

The casting of Cruise/Kidman in those roles is fascinating to me, as well. It has been ever since I found RI (about the time I started learning about the evils of Scientology). I, too, would someday like to know what really happened between T.C. and N.C., or, more specifically, who the hell Nicole Kidman actually is, (something that is more difficult to get any info about than most topics discussed on this site) how she was routed into Tom's life and what really happened between them at the end. As for why she doesn't--and won't likely ever--talk about the break-up or what it really represents, that's the result of the frightening reach the Cult of Scientology has. If she's afraid, it's not so much of Tom, but of those crazy people. <p></p><i></i>
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review

Postby cortez » Mon Dec 05, 2005 7:44 am

Asked about Alex’s fondness for Ludwig Van in A Clockwork Orange, Kubrick answered, “I think this suggests the failure of culture to have any morally refining effect on society. Many top Nazis were cultured and sophisticated men, but it didn’t do them, or anyone else, much good.” This point is reprised overtly in Eyes Wide Shut when we hear the title of a Beethoven opera used as the password to an orgy…<br><br>..”The slice of that world he (Kubrick) tried to show us in his last-<>and, he believed, his best-work, the capital of the global American empire at the end of the American Century, is one in which the wealthy, powerful, and privileged use the rest of us like throwaway products, covering up their crimes with pretty pictures, shiny surfaces, and murder, ultimately dooming their own children to lives of servitude and whoredom.<br><br>more here<br><br>Introducing Sociology<br>A Review of Eyes Wide Shut<br><br>by Tim Kreider<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0096.html">www.visual-memory.co.uk/a.../0096.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br>a excellent review I have to say <p></p><i></i>
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Re: review

Postby orz » Mon Dec 05, 2005 11:06 am

rewatched eyes wide shut recently, amazing and very strange film. Lots of interesting stuff in this thread... thanks to whoever posted the link to Jon Ronson's article about the kubrick archives, i hadn;t read that. Ah, I wish I could go and have a look in those boxes! <!--EZCODE EMOTICON START :( --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/frown.gif ALT=":("><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> <p></p><i></i>
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