tom cruise haircut eyes wide shut

13 Facts You May Not Know About Stanley Kubrick's 'Eyes Wide Shut'

Senior Entertainment Reporter, HuffPost

Fifteen years ago, on July 16, 1999, Stanley Kubrick's final film, "Eyes Wide Shut," opened nationwide. 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. Throughout the process, cryptic reports implied that Kubrick's obsessive perfectionism had reached peak levels, which was especially eyebrow-raising given the film's sexual explicitness. The director, who won an Oscar for Best Visual Effects for "2001: A Space Odyssey," died of a heart attack in March 1999, days after screening the final cut. Had he lived, perhaps we'd have more perspective on the movie's production -- or perhaps not, as Kubrick was notoriously reclusive.

An excerpt from Amy Nicholson's book, "Tom Cruise: Anatomy of an Actor," printed in Vanity Fair , offers details about the project's goings-on. Coupled with a 1999 Entertainment Weekly article pegged to the film's release and a Los Angeles Times report about its box-office expectations, the passage reveals some things you may not know about "Eyes Wide Shut."

1. Kubrick always intended to cast an actual married couple as the movie's leads, but Cruise and Kidman weren't who he had in mind . The initial pair he thought of was Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger.

2. Sidney Pollack's role first went to Harvey Keitel , who dropped out due to scheduling conflicts.

3. Jennifer Jason Leigh was originally tapped to play Marion Nathanson but left mid-production due to scheduling conflicts. Marie Richardson wound up playing that part.

4. When Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise arrived in London in the fall of 1996 to shoot the movie, they expected to be wrapped and back in Los Angeles by the following spring. Instead, the production didn't conclude until January 1998, making it the Guinness World Record's longest-running film shoot in history . (Kidman and Cruise reportedly signed open-ended contracts that stated they'd stick with the project no matter how long it took to complete.)

5. To say Kubrick is a perfectionist is an understatement: His intent was to film scenes so many times that it would wear down his actors and they'd forget the cameras existed. During the course of shooting "Eyes Wide Shut," the director filmed 95 takes of Cruise walking through a door.

6. Cruise was so anxious about giving the legendary director what he wanted that he developed an ulcer . He never told Kubrick.

7. Frenzied tabloids ran reports that Cruise and Kidman's marriage was crumbling in late '90s. If anything, that notion was only enhanced by their "Eyes Wide Shut" dynamic. Kubrick coaxed the couple into sharing their personal reservations about the marriage with him, in turn transferring those troubles onto their characters, Bill and Alice. Kidman called it a kind of "brutally honest" anti-therapy , as no one asked how they felt about each other's criticisms.

8. Director Todd Field ("Little Children," "In the Bedroom"), who starred in the movie as piano player Nick Nightingale, said of Kidman and Cruise : “You’ve never seen two actors more completely subservient and prostrate themselves at the feet of a director.”

9. Kubrick was terrified of flying, so instead of traveling to New York City to shoot in Greenwich Village, he built a top-secret replica of the neighborhood at England's Pinewood Studios. A set designer was sent to measure the exact width of the streets and distance between newspaper stands.

10. Kubrick allowed only a skeleton crew to remain on the set throughout filming. One rare outsider permitted to watch the action unfold was "Boogie Nights" director Paul Thomas Anderson. Cruise was in talks for the lead role in Anderson's "Magnolia" and had to sneak him past security. ''I asked [Kubrick], 'Do you always work with so few people?' Anderson recalled . "He gave me this look and said, 'Why? How many people do you need?' I felt like such a Hollywood asshole.''

11. Cruise isn't the only actor who filmed dozens of takes. Vinessa Shaw, who played the prostitute Domino, recalled having shot about 90 takes for a single scene.

12. Had Kubrick not died before the movie opened, he may still be making adjustments to it today, like he did with "The Shining" after its release. "I think Stanley would have been tinkering with it for the next 20 years," Kidman said . "He was still tinkering with movies he made decades ago. He was never finished. It was never perfect enough."

13. Warner Bros. wanted a $20 million opening weekend to consider the movie a success. It surpassed that, grossing $21.7 million across 2,400 screens. Marketing tracking studies for the film showed it had an awareness level of 78 but lacked the first-choice status among moviegoers that other summer fare like "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me" and "Big Daddy" saw.

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The New York of “ Eyes Wide Shut ” is a dream of New York—a sex dream about an emotionally and carnally wound-up young man who denies his animal essence, his wife’s, and almost everyone’s. It’s a comedy. Stanley Kubrick ’s movies are comedies more often than not—coal-black; a tad goofy even when bloody and cruel; the kind where you aren’t sure if it’s appropriate to laugh, because the situations depicted are horrible and sad, the characters deluded. 

To make a film like this work, you need one of two types of lead actors: the kind that is plausible as a brilliant and insightful person who trips on his own arrogance (like Malcolm McDowell ’s Alex in “ A Clockwork Orange ,” Matthew Modine ’s Pvt. Joker in “ Full Metal Jacket ,” and Humbert Humbert in “Lolita”); or the kind that reads as a bit of a dope to start with, and never stops being one. The latter category encompasses most of the human characters in “ 2001: A Space Odyssey ”—first cavemen, then cavemen in spaceships, that legendary bone-to-orbit cut preparing us for the end sequence in which astronaut Dave Bowman evolves while gazing up in awe at the re-appeared monolith—and Ryan O’Neal as the title character of “ Barry Lyndon ,” a tragedy about a ridiculous and limited man who bleeds and suffers just like everyone, and is moving despite it all. 

Tom Cruise ’s Dr. Bill Harford in “Eyes Wide Shut” is the second kind of Kubrick hero. He’s is a bit of a dope but takes himself absolutely seriously, never looking inward, at least not as deeply as he should. An undercurrent of film noir runs through most if not all of Kubrick’s films. His first two features, the war fable “Fear and Desire” and the boxing potboiler “Killer’s Kiss,” were stylistically rooted in noir—“Fear and Desire,” like “ Paths of Glory ” and “Full Metal Jacket,” has terse, hardboiled narration, linking it to the most overtly noir-ish Kubrick film, his breakthrough “ The Killing .” The film noir hero tends to be a smart, ambitious, horny guy who lets his horniness overwhelm his judgement. Dr. Bill is a cuckolded film noir patsy turned film noir hero, cheated upon not in fact, but in his own imagination. And, in noir hero fashion, he gets drawn into a sexual/criminal conspiracy, this one involving the procurement of young women for anonymous orgies with rich older men. He’s always one step behind the architects of the plan, whatever it is, and he's never quite smart enough or observant enough to prove he saw what he saw. 

That’s Bill, a cinematic cousin of somebody like Fred MacMurray in “ Double Indemnity ” or William Hurt in “ Body Heat ,” but diminished and driving himself mad, a eunuch with blueballs, prowling city streets on on the knife-edge of Christmas, constantly taunted and humiliated, his heterosexuality and masculinity, indeed his essential carnality, questioned at every turn.

The doctor’s nighttime odyssey (like “2001,” this film is indebted to Homer) kicks off after he smokes pot with his gorgeous young wife Alice ( Nicole Kidman ) and she confesses a momentary craving for a sailor so powerful that she briefly considered throwing away her stable life just to have him. The revelation of the intensity of his wife’s sexual craving for someone other than him (fear and desire indeed) unmoors him from his comfortable existence and sends him careening around the city, where he encounters women who all seem to represent aspects of his wife, or his reductive view of her. They even have similar hair color. And if there are men in their lives—like Sidney Pollack’s Victor Ziegler, who calls Bill to deal with a young woman who overdosed on a speedball while in his company; or Rade Serbedjia’s  Millich, the pathologically controlling and jealous costume shop proprietor who accuses Bill of wanting to have sex with his teenage daughter ( Leelee Sobieski )— They mirror aspects of Bill. It’s surely no coincidence that the masks worn by the orgy participants are distinguished by their prominent (erect) Bills. Bill never actually strays, though. He keeps blundering into situations where sex seems imminent, and yet he couldn’t cheat on Alice even if he wanted to. He’s too bad to be good and too good to be bad. 

It still seems amazing that Cruise, among the most controlling of modern stars, gave himself to Kubrick so completely, letting himself be cast in such a sexually fumbling, baseline-schmucky part, the sort Matthew Broderick might've played for more obvious laughs (Kubrick originally wanted Steve Martin as Bill). Cruise built his star image playing handsome, fearless, cocky, ultra-heterosexual young men who mastered whatever skill or job they'd decided to practice, be it piloting fighter jets, driving race cars, playing pool, bartending, practicing law, representing pro athletes, or being a secret agent. Offscreen, the actor was long suspected of being closeted—a rumor amplified by his hyper-controlling relationships with a succession of public-facing spouses who read, from afar, less as wives than wife-symbols—and he sued media outlets that implied he was anything other than a 100% USDA-inspected slab of lady-loving, corn-fed American beefcake (thus the infamous 2006 “South Park” “ Tom won’t come out of the closet ” scene). 

So it was doubly startling for 1999 audiences to watch Cruise being swatted across the screen from one cringe-inducing psychosexual horror setpiece to the next, each enjoying its own version of a hearty pirate’s laugh at the idea of Cruise playing a butch straight man who dominates every room he’s in; and to witness his onscreen humiliation by homophobic frat boys. That same year, Cruise got an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actor in “ Magnolia ,” playing a motivational speaker who admonishes his audience of baying young men to “respect the cock, tame the cunt.”

Cruise is a smart actor with often-excellent taste in material and collaborators; it’s inconcievable that he and his then-wife Kidman would submit themselves to over a year’s worth of grueling, repetitive shoots on Kubrick’s meticulously recreated New York sets in London without understanding what they were in for, at least partially. But what’s really important, from the standpoint of Cruise’s performance, is that he never seems as if he knows that the joke is on Bill. This doesn’t seem like the performance of an actor who has decided not to play his character as self-aware (like, say, Daniel Day-Lewis in “ The Last of the Mohicans ,” playing a character that  Entertainment Weekly ’s Owen Gleiberman described as seeming completely free of 20th century neuroses) but rather a not-too-self-aware actor throwing himself into every scene as if bound and determined to somehow “win” them. This is surely a vestigial leftover of the way Cruise acts in most Tom Cruise films, strutting and bobbing through scenes, getting into trouble, then smiling or talking or flying or running or acrobatting his way out. It’s a mode he can’t entirely turn off, but can only tamp down or allow to be subverted (which is what I think is happening in this movie, and in a few other against-the-grain Cruise performances). It’s as if Cruise travels the full narrative length of Kubrick’s dream trail encrusted by scholarly and journalistic and critical footnotes that have accumulated on his filmography since " Risky Business ." He’s the leading man as Christmas tree, festooned with lights and baubles. 

What perfect casting/what a great performance/what’s the difference? Is there any? Maybe not. Sometimes great casting is what allows for a great performance. John Frankenheimer cast Laurence Harvey , a handsome hunk of wood, as the brainwashed assassin in the 1962 version of “The Manchurian Candidate,” and his inability to tune in to his costars’ emotional wavelength works for the part; it translates as “repressed, tortured, closed off individual,” the type of guy who would be gobsmacked by an ordinary summer romance, to the point where it would constitute the core of a tragic backstory . Harvey’s inexpressiveness becomes a source of mirth when he’s put in the same frame with actors like Frank Sinatra , Angela Lansbury , or Akim Tamiroff, who get a predatory glint in their eye  when they sense the possibility of stealing a scene. They  know how to mess with people and have fun doing it, and poor, friendless Harvey is an irresistible target. and when Raymond expresses delight  that he was, however momentarily, “lovable,“ you can practically see the quote marks  around the word, and it’s as sad as it is hilarious.

Oliver Stone pulled off something similar when he cast Cruise as Ron Kovic in “ Born on the Fourth of July ,” a choice that Stone later said might’ve hurt the film at the American box office because nobody wanted to see the smirking flyboy from “ Top Gun ” castrated by a bullet, wheeling around with a catheter in his hand, cursing his mom and Richard Nixon . The star seeming not-entirely-in on—not the “joke,” exactly, but the  vision  of the movie—made Kovic’s dawning self-awareness of his participation in macho right-wing propaganda all the more effective. Kovic wanted to be like the guys on the recruiting poster, and now he couldn’t stand up and salute the lies anymore, and a lot of his friends were dead, along with untold numbers of Vietnamese. Al Pacino , who was cast in an aborted version “Born” a decade earlier, might not have been as effective as Cruise overall, because while Pacino is an altogether deeper actor, he’s so closely associated with men who have no illusions about how brutal and soul-draining American life and institutions can be. (Marvelous as his performance in “Serpico” is, it doesn’t start to take off until he’s in undercover cop mode, with that beard and long hair and beatnik/hippie energy. In the early scenes where he’s clean-shaven and idealistic, you just have to take Serpico's innocence on faith, because Al Pacino would never be that naive.)

Kubrick, no slouch at casting for affect, was especially good at filling lead male roles with actors who seemed to grasp the general outline of what the director was up to without radiating profound appreciation of the philosophical and cultural nuances. Ryan O’Neal in “ Barry Lyndon ” somehow works despite, or because of, seeming a bit stiff and anachronistic—out of his element in a lot of ways. His anxiety-verging-on-panic at not knowing whether he’s doing a good enough job for Kubrick fits perfectly with the character’s persistent insecurity and imposter syndrome. So does the shoddy Irish accent. 

Decades later, Ben Affleck in “ Gone Girl ” pulled an “Eyes Wide Shut”—or maybe it’s more accurate to say that director David Fincher pulled it by casting him. “The baggage he comes with is most useful to this movie,” Fincher told  Film Comment . “I was interested in him primarily because I needed someone who understood the stakes of the kind of public scrutiny that Nick is subjected to and the absurdity of trying to resist public opinion. Ben knows that, not conceptually, but by experience. When I first met with him, I said this is about a guy who gets his nuts in a vise in reel one and then the movie continues to tighten that vise for the next eight reels. And he was ready to play. It’s an easy thing for someone to say, 'Yeah, yeah, I’d love to be a part of that,' and then, on a daily basis, to ask: 'Really? Do I have to be that foolish? Do I have to step in it up to my knees?' Actors don’t like to be made the brunt of the joke. They go into acting to avoid that. Unlike comics, who are used to going face first into the ground.” 

Fincher subsequently poked fun at Affleck, in DVD narration and interview comments delivered in such a deadpan-vicious way that you couldn't tell if Fincher was venting in the guise of a put-on or doing an elaborate comedic bit. Either way, the gist was that Affleck was convincing as an untrustworthy person because he was himself untrustworthy. "He has to do these things in the foreground where he takes out his phone and looks at it and he puts it away so his sister doesn’t see it," Fincher said. "There are people who do that and it’s too pointed. But Ben is very very subtle, and there’s a kind of indirectness to the way he can do those things. Probably because he’s so duplicitous." Thus does the inherent untrustworthiness of Ben Affleck as both actor and person (according to Fincher, whether he's kidding or serious) become the framework for the entire performance's believability. This is a guy whose performance as an innocent man is judged by the media and public and immediately found lacking, and the character proves to be so much dumber than his conniving, vengeful wife that when the final scene arrives, we laugh at how inevitable it was. A more subtle, likable, deep leading man might've have ruined everything. Fincher needed a meathead who was funny and had read a few books, and who seemed to have a sixth sense for how to hide a cell phone from his sister.

This is similar to the idea of Kubrick cuckolding Cruise with an anecdote and sending him all over New York in search of satisfaction and insight that never quite, er, comes (although there’s a hint of hope in that final scene). On top of that, Affleck is an actor who is effective within a narrow range but will never be thought of as a chameleonic or particularly delicate performer—somebody who can play the subtext without overwhelming the text, or who can seamlessly integrate the two so that you can’t tell where one ends and the other begins. 

That might be why Affleck disliked working with Terrence Malick , a highly improvisational filmmaker who deals in archetypes and symbols, and expects actors to devise a character while he’s devising the film that they’re in. Ryan Gosling and Brad Pitt can do that; Affleck really can’t. The difference between Affleck and somebody like Pitt (or DiCaprio) is the difference between an old-fashioned square-jawed leading man-type, like Rock Hudson or Gary Cooper or Alan Ladd, who tried to stick to the words and hit the marks and color within the lines, and somebody like James Dean or Marlon Brando or Dennis Hopper , who treated every page as potential raw material for a collage they hadn’t thought up yet. That’s why Dean and Hudson played off each other so beautifully in “Giant”—Dean with his tormented Method affectations and odd expressions and voices, and Hudson playing the guy he’d been told to play, while often seeming puzzled or horrified by whatever Dean was doing opposite him, as if he’d been placed in the same room with a badger or wild boar and told “Now the two of you sit down and have a nice lunch while we film it.” 

I like to think of Cruise in “Eyes Wide Shut” as Rock Hudson turned loose in a Stanley Kubrick neo-noir dream, and not just for the obvious reasons. He’s in there angrily and desperately trying to win something that cannot be won, explain things that can’t be explained, and regain dignity that was lost a long time ago and will never come back. He keeps flashing his doctor’s ID as if he’s a detective (another film noir staple) working a case, and people indulge him not because they truly regard the ID as authority but because Bill’s intensity is just so damned odd that they aren’t sure how else to react. It’s hilarious because Bill doesn’t know how ridiculous it all is, and how ridiculous he is. He’s a movie star who lacks the movie star’s prerogative. Only by surrendering to the flow and accepting defeat can he survive. Only his wife, an awesome force unlocked in one moment, can save him. 

Matt Zoller Seitz

Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor at Large of RogerEbert.com, TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism.

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Tom Cruise Questions Everything in Stanley Kubrick's Final Film

Stanley Kubrick's final film puts Tom Cruise's movie star persona against the ropes in surreal and disarming ways throughout a dreamlike NYC setting.

The Big Picture

• Cruise's role in Eyes Wide Shut challenges his action-hero image, portraying vulnerability and insecurity in a surreal and thought-provoking manner.
• The film delves into male ego, desire, and insecurity, emphasizing the struggle to reconcile reality with unattainable fantasies.
• Cruise's character faces a dark night of the soul, grapples with emotions of shame and guilt, ultimately seeking reconciliation and a quiet domestic life.

On July 16, 1999, Stanley Kubrick 's greatly anticipated final film, Eyes Wide Shut , was released. Kubrick passed away a few months before the movie came out, and it remains one of the auteur's most provocative, controversial, and astonishing contributions to the cinematic art form. The film stars Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman , at the time married in real life and playing a couple on-screen, as a doctor and his wife who admits she has considered having an affair. The revelation sends Cruise's Dr. Bill Harford into a tailspin through the dead of night in New York City as he wanders around looking for sexual gratification, and seeking a greater sense of control over his own life.

Eyes Wide Shut

A Manhattan doctor embarks on a bizarre, night-long odyssey after his wife's admission of unfulfilled longing.

'Eyes Wide Shut' Was an Interesting Departure From Tom Cruise's Usual Roles

Cruise's 1999 was an interesting point in his career, as he also starred in Paul Thomas Anderson 's Magnolia , which released a few months later. In the years since, he has not appeared in many strictly dramatic roles , opting instead for primarily action oriented films. Two auteurist directors were able to center these challenging, three-hour long, adult dramas around his acting talent, and there are not many other examples of actors who have managed to pull that off in such a short span of time. Although the release year is admittedly somewhat arbitrary, since Eyes Wide Shut was in development for nearly six years and filmed for 400 days –– breaking the record for longest film shoot in history. It is eerie that Kubrick passed away so soon after completing the final edits on the film, considering how lengthy the production was.

Kubrick plays with Cruise's movie star persona in an interesting way, as the Cruise we know as the cocky hotshot in Top Gun or The Color of Money is nowhere to be found, neither is the heroic posture he delivered a few years earlier in Brian De Palma's Mission: Impossible , a role which has gone on to define his career as he returned to the franchise for the seventh installment in 2023 . Instead, Cruise is up against the ropes. He is lost, vulnerable, and desperate to heal his broken ego. Kubrick puts Cruise in a world where he is vastly in over his head . Even when Cruise is in over his head, he is typically able to craftily maneuver a fighter jet or a motorcycle to speed his way past any conflict, but in Eyes Wide Shut , there are no easy solutions to the problems he is facing.

Tom Cruise Must Face the Fragility of His Ego in 'Eyes Wide Shut'

Dr. Bill Harford seemingly has it all at the start of Eyes Wide Shut , but if you look closer it is not the case. Yes, he is attending an incredibly lavish Christmas party, he seems to have a happy family unit, and he is a successful doctor. However, he feels out of touch at this party, he is disconnected from his wife, and while he is rich, he is realizing there is a more elite class from which he is entirely shut out. Tragic events involving a young woman overdosing while with the party's host, portrayed by Sydney Pollack who previously directed Tom Cruise in The Firm, and the revelatory post-party conversation with his wife lead Cruise on a dark journey through the streets of New York. Each city block or ornate room is given an otherworldly glow thanks to the over-saturation of Christmas lights filling the frame.

The visual choices combined with the ambiguous and surreal tone place Cruise in very unfamiliar settings where he walks a liminal tightrope between dreaming and reality . The discoveries he makes are challenging, as events unfold in such a way that he ends up at a secretive party where a sexual ritual is performed, after an invitation from his friend played by Todd Field , actor-director who would go on to collaborate with Cate Blanchett in TÁR (Blanchett also happens to have a voice cameo appearance in Eyes Wide Shut). This ritual gone awry leads Cruise to some dangerous situations as the individuals involved go to great lengths to stop him from speaking about or acknowledging what had taken place in any shape or form, especially after he seems to uncover that a woman may have been murdered as a part of the ritual.

Whether the disturbing events that play out in the film are meant to be taken at face value, they prove two things to Cruise's character. Either he must accept that his fantasies are so outlandish and embrace his reality where life is a lot more... normal, or these things he aspires to be a part of are far outside what he is capable of handling . This is not only with regard to the sexual encounters he approaches, but also his idyllic perspective on what his marriage should be, or his desire to attain vast wealth and enter into an even higher status than that of a successful doctor. His ego was bruised by his wife's revelation early in the film, but the experiences he seeks out to repair it end up mangling it even further.

'Eyes Wide Shut' Subverts Expectations of a Leading Man

Considering his breakdown toward the end of the film when he realizes his wife knows about the events of the previous days, it is clear Cruise understands he is out of his depth and feels a wide range of emotions including shame, guilt, inadequacy, and fear regarding his future. Cruise's role grapples with one of the greatest fears the male ego can confront, the notion that not even his masculine bravado can control or uncover the thoughts the women in his life choose to keep from him. The insecurity seeps through his performance as it becomes clear how even in marriage there are still things people will keep from each other, and he has no power to challenge that. This is a rare form to see Cruise in , and he handles these outbursts just as well as he handles traversing rooftops at impossible speeds or clinging to the side of airplanes.

Ultimately, Cruise is put through this dark night of the soul and comes out of it in a place where he and his wife can maybe set aside the collision of ego, desire, and insecurity, and enjoy a quiet domestic life together. It is kind of a happy ending... but it's a distorted one , but Cruise allows the opportunity to relinquish all of his troubled experiences over the last few days by accepting the life he has and attempting to reconcile with Kidman in the final moments of the film.

Tom Cruise Inspired Christian Bale's Performance in 'American Psycho'

Kubrick disarms our understanding of what a typical leading man should be through his treatment of Bill Harford's character. Cruise is uncomfortable , weird, and stripped down –– both literally and metaphorically –– in Eyes Wide Shut . This type of role is a challenging one for any actor to play, but especially difficult in the hands of someone with such massive celebrity status that audiences have certain expectations attached to his involvement in a film. Maybe in 1999, it did not seem quite as bizarre (although most definitely still bizarre considering the subject matter dealt with), but in retrospect Eyes Wide Shut is something quite rare for such a towering movie star to tackle with the confidence and image-conscious attitude Cruise brings to the part.

Although the film remains one of his most challenging and controversial, it is also one of the best outings Cruise has given as an on-screen performer. Some actors may have an easier time riding a motorcycle off a cliff for a film than getting into the right head space to portray such a vulnerable person. As the Mission: Impossible series continues, and Cruise shows no signs of slowing down his life as an action-junkie, we can hope he might return one day to a film as surreal, complicated, and thoughtful as Eyes Wide Shut.

Eyes Wide Shut is available to rent or buy on Apple TV+

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20 Eye-Opening Facts About Eyes Wide Shut

By meredith danko | jul 15, 2020, 4:00 pm edt.

In the late 1990s, stories about what was happening on the set of Stanley Kubrick’s already-secretive film Eyes Wide Shut constantly made headlines. Everyone wanted to know what was going on behind the scenes with real-life celebrity couple Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, and the 15-month shoot only intrigued people more. Finally, the film was released on July 16, 1999—more than four months after Kubrick had passed away. While there is still a lot we don’t know about the movie, here are 20 things we do.

1. Eyes Wide Shut is based on a 1926 novella.

Eyes Wide Shut is loosely is based on Arthur Schnitzler’s novella Traumnovelle ( Dream Story ) , which was published in 1926. Considering that the movie takes place in 1990s New York, it is obviously not a direct adaptation, but it overlaps in its plot and themes. “[The book] explores the sexual ambivalence of a happy marriage and tries to equate the importance of sexual dreams and might-have-beens with reality,” Kubrick said . “The book opposes the real adventures of a husband and the fantasy adventures of his wife, and asks the question: is there a serious difference between dreaming a sexual adventure, and actually having one?”

2. Production on Eyes Wide Shut began in 1996.

By then, Kubrick had been holding onto the rights to Traumnovelle —which screenwriter Jay Cocks purchased on his behalf, in order to keep the project under wraps—for nearly 30 years. Kubrick had planned to begin working on the film after making 2001 : A Space Odyssey , but then got the opportunity to adapt A Clockwork Orange .

3. The studio pushed Stanley Kubrick to cast A-list names.

Terry Semel, then-head of Warner Bros., told Kubrick , “What I would really love you to consider is a movie star in the lead role; you haven't done that since Jack Nicholson [in The Shining ].”

4. Stanley Kubrick wanted to cast Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger.

Kubrick liked the idea of casting a real-life married couple in the film, and originally considered Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger. (He also liked the idea of Steve Martin .) Eventually, he went with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, who were married from 1990 to 2001.

5. London stood in for New York City.

Though the film is set in New York, it was filmed in London. In order to construct the most accurate sets possible, Vanity Fair reported that Kubrick “sent a designer to New York to measure the exact width of the streets and the distance between newspaper vending machines.”

6. Some of the shots in Eyes Wide Shut required no set at all.

In order to give the movie a dream-like quality, the filmmakers used an old-school method of shooting—and a treadmill. “In some of the scenes, the backgrounds were rear-projection plates,” cinematographer Larry Smith explained . “Generally, when Tom’s facing the camera, the backgrounds are rear-projected; anything that shows him from a side view was done on the streets of London. We had the plates shot in New York by a second unit [that included cinematographers Patrick Turley, Malik Sayeed and Arthur Jafa]. Once the plates were sent to us, we had them force-developed and balanced to the necessary levels. We’d then go onto our street sets and shoot Tom walking on a treadmill. After setting the treadmill to a certain speed, we’d put some lighting effects on him to simulate the glow from the various storefronts that were passing by in the plates. We spent a few weeks on those shots.”

7. Eyes Wide Shut holds a Guinness World Record.

The film has a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest constant movie shoot, with a total of 400 days , which was a surprise to the cast and crew. Cruise and Kidman had only committed to six months of filming. The extended shoot was a lot to ask of Cruise in particular, who was at the height of his career. He even had to delay work on Mission: Impossible II to finish Eyes Wide Shut . He didn’t seem to mind though. “We knew from the beginning the level of commitment needed,” Cruise told TIME . “We were going to do what it took to do this picture.”

8. The script for Eyes Wide Shut kept changing.

According to Todd Field , who portrayed piano player Nick Nightingale (and is an Oscar-nominated filmmaker in his own right), “We’d rehearse and rehearse a scene, and it would change from hour to hour. We’d keep giving the script supervisor notes all the time, so by the end of the day the scene might be completely different. It wasn’t really improvisation, it was more like writing.”

9. Tom Cruise developed ulcers while shooting Eyes Wide Shut .

“I didn't want to tell Stanley," Cruise told TIME . “He panicked. I wanted this to work, but you're playing with dynamite when you act. Emotions kick up. You try not to kick things up, but you go through things you can't help.”

10. Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman slept in their characters' bedroom.

In order to reflect their real-life relationship, Cruise and Kidman were asked to choose the color for the curtains in their on-screen bedroom, where they also slept .

11. The apartment featured in the movie was a re-creation of Stanley Kubrick's.

According to Cruise , “The apartment in the movie was the New York apartment [Stanley] and his wife Christianne lived in. He recreated it. The furniture in the house was furniture from their own home. Of course the paintings were Christianne's paintings. It was as personal a story as he's ever done.”

12. Stanley Kubrick temporarily banned Tom Cruise from the set.

Given his penchant for accuracy, it’s quite possible that Kubrick wanted to stir up some real-life jealousy between his stars in order to help them embody their characters. In a fantasy sequence, Kidman’s character has sex with another man, which motivates the rest of the film’s plot. Kubrick banned Cruise from the set on the days that Kidman shot the scene with a male model. They spent six days filming the one-minute scene. Kubrick also forbid Kidman from telling Cruise any details about it.

13. It took 95 takes for Tom Cruise to walk through a doorway.

Six days for a one-minute scene is nothing compared to the time Kubrick had Cruise do 95 takes of one simple action: walking through a doorway. After watching the playback, he apparently told Cruise, “Hey, Tom, stick with me, I’ll make you a star.”

14. Security on the set was tight.

Aside from Kubrick, Kidman, Cruise, and their tiny crew, no one was allowed on the set, which was heavily guarded. In May 1997, one photographer managed to capture a picture of Cruise standing next to a man that the photographer thought was just an “old guy, scruffy with an anorak and a beard.” That man was Kubrick, who hadn’t been photographed in 17 years. After the incident, security on the set was tripled.

15. Paul Thomas Anderson spent some time on the set.

One person Cruise did manage to sneak onto the set was his future Magnolia director, Paul Thomas Anderson. While there, Anderson asked Kubrick, “Do you always work with so few people?” Kubrick responded, “Why? How many people do you need?” Anderson then recalled feeling “like such a Hollywood a**hole.”

16. Stanley Kubrick makes a cameo in the movie.

He’s not credited, but the film’s director can be seen sitting in a booth at the Sonata Café.

17. Stanley Kubrick died less than a week after showing the studio his final cut of Eyes Wide Shut .

Kubrick died less than a week after showing what would be his final cut of the film to Warner Bros. No one can say how much he would have kept editing the film. One thing that was changed after his death: bodies in the orgy scene were digitally altered so that the movie could be released with an R (rather than an NC-17) rating. Although many claim that Kubrick intended to do this, too. "I think Stanley would have been tinkering with it for the next 20 years," Kidman said . "He was still tinkering with movies he made decades ago. He was never finished. It was never perfect enough.”

18. By the time Eyes Wide Shut was released, a dozen years had passed since Stanley Kubrick's last directorial effort.

Eyes Wide Shut came out a full 12 years after Kubrick’s previous film, 1987's Full Metal Jacket .

19. Eyes Wide Shut topped the box office during its opening week.

The film earned $30,196,742 during its first week in release, which was enough to take the box office’s number one spot—making it Kubrick’s only film to do so.

20. Tom Cruise didn't like Dr. Harford.

One year after the film’s release, Cruise admitted that he “didn’t like playing Dr. Bill. I didn’t like him. It was unpleasant. But I would have absolutely kicked myself if I hadn’t done this.”

An earlier version of this article ran in 2015.

Eyes Wide Shut, 20 years on: how does Stanley Kubrick’s last testament stand up?

Of all Stanley Kubrick’s films, his swansong remains the most divisive. After a production shrouded in secrecy, the Tom Cruise-Nicole Kidman erotic drama Eyes Wide Shut opened to mixed reviews. Was Kubrick ahead of the times, or behind them?

10 April 2019

By  Paul O’Callaghan

As 1999 approached, what little was known about Eyes Wide Shut was almost indecently tantalising. Here was Stanley Kubrick, for many the world’s greatest living filmmaker, returning with his first finished project in 12 years – a sexually provocative adult drama, utterly shrouded in secrecy, starring pre-eminent Hollywood power couple Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Kubrick’s sudden death in March 1999, six days after delivering his final cut to Warner Bros, only served to intensify anticipation for what would now, alas, be the master’s final gift to cinema.

But while the pre-release marketing campaign, which Warner Bros claimed was executed in accordance with Kubrick’s wishes, teased a steamy, erotic thriller, the final film was a complex, confounding, intimate epic. Relocating the events of Arthur Schnitzler’s 1926 psychosexual novella, Dream Story, from early 20th-century Vienna to eve-of-the-millennium Manhattan, it depicts an extraordinary chapter in the life of Dr Bill Harford (Cruise), who embarks on a dreamlike nocturnal odyssey after his wife, Alice (Kidman), confesses, while intoxicated, to having had intense fantasies about another man. Bill’s wanderings offer him an enticing glimpse of a murky, sexual underworld, and ultimately lead him to a ritualistic masked orgy in an opulent mansion. But despite encountering a wealth of potential partners, Bill finds his opportunities to taste forbidden fruit thwarted at every turn.

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Come to the film expecting a salacious romp, then, and you may find it to be a profoundly frustrating viewing experience, all foreplay and no penetration. Indeed, some early detractors were annoyed to have been so flagrantly misled by the titillating trailer. “Eyes Wide Shut turns out to be the dirtiest movie of 1958,” quipped the Washington Post’s Stephen Hunter.

But while it’s often talked of as a critical flop, the film had its fair share of early champions. Roger Ebert called it a “mesmerizing daydream of sexual fantasy”, Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune proclaimed it a “masterpiece”, and, perhaps predictably, it was widely praised by French cinephile journalists. It was also far from a commercial disaster, ultimately grossing over $162m worldwide: underwhelming for a Tom Cruise star vehicle, but really rather respectable for a near-three-hour existential art film about sexual dysfunction.

Come to terms with the lack of thrusting and you’ll discover a film of myriad other perverse pleasures. It’s more wryly amusing than many of its detractors would have you believe – though your mileage may vary depending on how tickled you are by the notion of one of Hollywood’s most handsome movie stars roaming the streets of America’s most densely populated city with the express purpose of cheating on his wife, and still somehow failing to get laid.

Kubrick seems to take immense delight in subverting Cruise’s virile man-of-action image – Bill is almost pathologically passive, unable to acknowledge, let alone explore, his sexuality. He’s also cringe-inducingly bourgeois, introducing himself as a doctor to everyone he meets, as if this automatically grants him moral authority in any situation. And the film is punctuated by moments of unexpected absurdity: a grieving daughter confesses her undying love for Bill, despite barely knowing him; the orgy sequence, entrancingly sinister at first, collapses into florid melodrama as soon as the menacing masked figures begin to speak. Appearing on the Charlie Rose show in 2000, Steve Martin revealed that Kubrick approached him for the lead role in a Dream Story adaptation back in 1980, and it’s not too much of a stretch to imagine Eyes Wide Shut as a full-blown sex farce.

But that’s not to suggest a lack of serious intent on Kubrick’s part. The film excels as an unflinching examination of a long-term relationship unravelling at the seams as a result of mutual suppressed desire and emotional dishonesty. Pivotal scenes in which Alice confesses her contempt for Bill and her interest in other men are given an extra jolt of authenticity by the fact that the actors were a married couple. These sequences are even more compellingly uncomfortable today, now that we know that Cruise abruptly filed for divorce from Kidman in 2001. In a 2014 Vanity Fair article, Amy Nicholson explains: “Kubrick decided to find his story through psychoanalyzing his stars, prodding Cruise and Kidman to confess their fears about marriage and commitment to their director in conversations that the three vowed to keep secret.”

There’s also a sense of art mirroring reality in the way that Bill’s sexuality is repeatedly called into question – explicitly in one scene by a group of homophobic frat boys, implicitly by the character’s general reticence around women. Persistent rumours about Cruise’s orientation are an integral part of the star’s biography, and Kubrick seems keen for viewers to keep these in mind throughout Eyes Wide Shut.

But while this blurring of fiction and reality is enthralling to behold in the finished film, it would seem that the production process, and the media circus surrounding it, was personally damaging to Cruise in particular. Ahead of the film’s release, US magazine Star alleged that Kubrick hired sex therapists for the couple after they proved unable to act amorously with one another. This came hot on the heels of an Express article suggesting that their marriage was a business arrangement, perhaps conceived to cover up their homosexuality. In both cases, the pair successfully sued, but Cruise has never since managed to quash intense speculation about his private life.

Eyes Wide Shut ultimately broke the star’s uninterrupted run of major box office hits since 1992’s A Few Good Men. To add insult to injury, Cruise was singled out by some early critics as the film’s weak link, his all-too-convincing performance as a haunted, repressed individual written off as merely wooden. It’s surely no coincidence that after the controversies and perceived failure of the film, the star became considerably more risk-averse in his choice of roles. Despite the widespread acclaim that he received later, in 1999, for his explosive turn as a monstrous sex guru in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia, he swiftly retreated back into his comfort zone as an actor and continues to this day to mostly play wholesome, unwaveringly heterosexual heroes in bombastic action blockbusters. This might ultimately be the most lamentable aspect of Eyes Wide Shut’s legacy, as the vulnerability he displays under Kubrick’s tutelage is often thrilling to behold.

While the initial critical response was mixed rather than hostile, the tide has continued to turn in the film’s favour, with a steady stream of reappraisals positioning it as a misunderstood masterpiece. But it remains perhaps Kubrick’s most divisive major work. For me, it’s great but with a few significant shortcomings. The strange middle ground it occupies between reality and dreamscape is unquestionably a high barrier to entry. As a psychologically probing relationship drama, it often comes across as illogical and overwrought; as a surreal psychosexual thriller, it’s less transportive and transgressive than David Lynch’s Lost Highway (1997) or Mulholland Dr. (2001). Where the film really soars is in its assured handling of dramatic tonal shifts, but that’s far more of a niche proposition than the high-minded visceral horror of The Shining (1980) or the trippy sci-fi spectacle of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).

The film suffers a little by sticking so closely to the narrative of Schnitzler’s Dream Story. The central notion of a man being shaken to his core by the revelation of his wife’s inner sexual life makes perfect sense in a story written when psychoanalysis was a nascent practice. But it’s much harder to buy into the idea that a modern urban sophisticate like Bill would be so taken aback by Alice’s confessions. Kubrick’s decision to lift dialogue straight from the book also backfires; the final scene sees the protagonists ruminate on the film’s themes in a disappointingly heavy-handed manner, with Alice questioning whether “the reality of one night… can ever be the whole truth”, and Bill postulating that “no dream is ever just a dream”.

It’s perhaps inevitable that some of the film’s musings on sex and sexuality would have aged poorly, but the way in which a prostitute’s HIV diagnosis is used as a cheap plot twist is inexcusably crass. The inference here seems to be that Bill has dodged a metaphorical bullet by not sleeping with the girl in question. As such, the film ends up propagating the harmful and offensive notion of HIV as a grave punishment for aberrant or immoral behaviour.

And there are occasional moments that seem uncharacteristically clumsy for a perfectionist of Kubrick’s calibre. The use of voiceover to draw an explicit connection between an orgy attendee and a girl lying dead in a morgue feels particularly hokey. It’s tempting to imagine that, had the director lived longer, he would have continued to tinker with the film after delivering his final cut, as was his habit, and that such rough edges would have been smoothed out. But this question of authorship holds some admirers back from fully embracing the film as it stands. In an MSN chat with fans in 2001, David Lynch declared: “I really love Eyes Wide Shut. I just wonder if Stanley Kubrick really did finish it the way he wanted to before he died.” And in a 2017 interview on MTV ’s Happy Sad Confused podcast, Christopher Nolan explained: “I started looking at the reality of how the film was finished – he died before the scoring sessions were complete. So, even though I think the studio appropriately put out the film as his version, knowing where that happens in my own process… it’s a little bit early… (the film) is an extraordinary achievement, but it is a little bit hampered by very, very small and superficial, almost technical flaws that I’m pretty sure he would have ironed out.”

And yet, as with Kubrick’s more widely adored films, Eyes Wide Shut has proven powerfully prescient, often in enjoyably unexpected ways. In its depiction of sex as a ritualistic power game presided over by the ultra wealthy, the film foreshadowed the most unlikely literary phenomenon of recent years,  E.L. James’s Fifty Shades trilogy. Though the softcore screen adaptations, which chart the romantic adventures of Jamie Dornan’s BDSM -fixated billionaire and Dakota Johnson’s demure girl next door, are about as far from Kubrickian as you can imagine, director James Foley tips his hat to Eyes Wide Shut in Fifty Shades Darker’s most memorable set piece, a masked ball in a sprawling mansion that treads a fine line between sexy and sinister.

The film has also exerted an influence on high-society hedonism beyond the realm of fiction. In 2010, Vogue celebrated its 90th anniversary with an Eyes Wide Shut-inspired party, while, thanks to sex-positive enterprises like Killing Kittens, upscale orgies are today a relatively mainstream nightlife option in cities like London and New York.

In its ominous references to decadent elites pulling society’s strings, the film also anticipates an obsession with secret societies and conspiracy theories that has become a defining trait of 21st-century popular culture – from the shadowy religious sects at the centre of Dan Brown’s unfathomably popular Robert Langdon novels, to the grotesque farce of the Pizzagate scandal in the run-up to the 2016 US presidential election. Indeed, the internet is today rife with outlandish tales asserting that Eyes Wide Shut was inspired by the clandestine activity of a real-world Illuminati, and that Kubrick was murdered for attempting to expose their scandalous practices. This may not quite be how Kubrick aficionados would ideally want their idol to be remembered, but it’s testament to Eyes Wide Shut’s idiosyncratic, enigmatic brilliance that the film continues to inspire such unpredictable responses.

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20 Years Ago, Tom Cruise Reinvented Himself As An Actor With 'Eyes Wide Shut' And 'Magnolia'

Tom Cruise has always been a risk-taker on the big screen, for good and ill. Lately, the risks he takes center around the physical — the ever-expanding Mission: Impossible franchise is now focused on the question of how far Cruise can push his body for the sake of entertaining the masses. Those risks feel all the more remarkable as Cruise approaches his 60th birthday. (He just turned 57 two weeks ago, a fact that seems...well, impossible.)  But the more Tom Cruise pushes his body, the further he moves away from the time when his risks were ballsier in spite of not being remotely physical. Just as it's hard to imagine that Tom Cruise is pushing 60, it's hard to believe that we're now 20 years removed from a time when he worked on two massively risky projects that required his mental and emotional chops more than the physical: Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut and Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia .

If Warner Bros. Pictures' executives had their druthers, of course, Eyes Wide Shut might not be celebrating its 20th anniversary, because the film would have opened well before the summer of 1999. But Kubrick, the immensely brilliant perfectionist, was precise on every detail in what would be his final film, released posthumously. He died on March 7, 1999, just six days after showing a first full cut of the film to Cruise, his then-wife and co-star Nicole Kidman, and WB executive Terry Semel. The film would be released four months later. Eyes Wide Shut was a multi-year production, and the impact was clear. If you look at Cruise's body of work, you'll notice a 3-year gap between his work as the title character in Cameron Crowe's Jerry Maguire and playing the avatar in Kubrick's exploration of sexual mores in New York City. It's because Eyes Wide Shut started filming in November 1996 and didn't end until June of 1998. During that time, Cruise was visited on the set by a young Turk who would direct the movie star's next project. Cruise didn't need much convincing to work on Eyes Wide Shut , if only because Stanley Kubrick was Stanley Kubrick, and his space epic 2001: A Space Odyssey was the star's favorite film. Cruise needed a bit more cajoling with Paul Thomas Anderson, even though the A-Lister had greatly enjoyed the writer/director's previous effort. The sprawling 1997 film Boogie Nights had managed to both ring up a great debt to filmmakers like Martin Scorsese and Robert Altman while feeling distinctly fresh and original. 

The Past Ain’t Through With Us

That paean to the world of pornography was a blast of fresh air to many cinephiles, and did well enough that New Line Cinema gave the director a blank check, the likes of which Anderson knew he wouldn't get again. So he wrote an even longer film with even more characters, a three-hour-plus epic set in the San Fernando Valley, focusing on a group whose interconnections are revealed over time, before a literally biblical, inexplicable act unites them all on a dark night of the soul. One of the many characters, a misogynistic lothario who preached sexual self-help tips to faux-macho guys, was who Anderson wanted Cruise to play. The timing wound up being serendipitous, as a representation of the polar opposite of what Cruise was doing with Kubrick. It's not just that Eyes Wide Shut and Magnolia vastly different from each other — on the whole and within Cruise's performances — but they're radically different from the rest of Tom Cruise's filmography of the last 20 years. For Eyes Wide Shut , Cruise allowed himself to be at the mercy of one of the most famous perfectionists in the business. And unlike many of the A-lister's future roles, his lead character is the total inverse of the cocksure hero of films like Risky Business , Top Gun , and Jerry Maguire . Dr. Bill Harford looks as debonair as Cruise, but it's all on the surface of an otherwise helplessly neutered individual.  He's married to a gorgeous woman (Kidman, natch), but Harford drifts through his life in New York City with such naivete that his entire life feels upended when, early on in the story, his wife Alice reveals a sexual fantasy inspired by a passing encounter with a stranger, so intense that she imagined leaving her family behind. Harford's response is that of flight: he comes close to sleeping with a number of other women over a long emotional journey, without ever actually consummating any of the trysts. The culmination of his exploration of the seedier side of his swanky life is a baroque orgy that he crashes, before being humiliated in front of the invitees for having essentially broken in. Bill is a profoundly ineffectual character – he's warned by various characters, from an old friend (Todd Field) to an overly obsequious desk clerk (Alan Cumming), about the underbelly he's trying to investigate, but doesn't actually change much in his life. Both in the opening and closing of the film, Alice is a much more impactful part of their marriage, with a killer last line that cements who holds the power in their relationship. It's both ironic and weirdly appropriate that, for all the marketing about Eyes Wide Shut relating to its sexual content, its orgy sequence, and the Cruise/Kidman dynamic, that characters talk a lot about sex without ever having sex. It serves as a perfect way to neuter Cruise's inherent charisma.

I Will Not Apologize For What I Want

Similarly, in Magnolia , we never see Cruise's character, Frank T.J. Mackey, do the deed. With Frank, though, there's a lot of talk about sex, about the female mind, and about how any man can get into a women's undergarments simply by playing the right series of mind games. While Frank T.J. Mackey never is depicted having sex, there's never really any doubt that he's likely been with a few women in his time. (Or, if you like, he's a lot better at acting like it than Harford ever could be.)  By the end of the film, it's painfully clear that Mackey's intensely misogynistic view of men and women is a darkly cynical mindset instilled in him by his gruffly absentee father. That would be the now-dying TV producer Earl Partridge (Jason Robards), who left Frank's birth mother behind and is currently in the throes of incomprehensible regret at such actions. As gruff as Earl once was, his barely coherent wish to his nurse (a beatific Philip Seymour Hoffman) is to reconnect with his son, which leads to Frank, a motivational speaker of sorts. At the start of a very eventful day documented in Anderson's sprawling Southern California opus, Frank is introduced to a series of largely faceless, cheering dudes in a hotel conference room. (It's all too fitting that Frank is brought on stage with the pomp and circumstance that could only be provided by the bombastic Richard Strauss piece of classical music "Thus Sprach Zarathustra", famously associated with Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey .) His first words set the tone for Cruise's blustering, swaggering performance: "Respect the c**k...and tame the c**t!" It's an almost jarringly profane version of Tom Cruise, the pure-id version of his prior heroes, the same ones being almost laughably shunned in Eyes Wide Shut . But Frank is cut down to size over the course of the three-hour-plus running time – after we see his first presentation, a kind of version of the infamous The Game (not the David Fincher film), in which men act cruelly to women to get the fairer sex to give them their prurient desires, he's interviewed by a female journalist (April Grace). All seems well at first, until Frank realizes (and tries to hide this awareness) that she's uncovered his true history, the reality behind his bluster. Frank veers from his initial charm to grouchy pouting (as he icily states, "I'm quietly judging you" to one of her questions) to actively attempting to attack her. And then Frank learns that his father is on death's door.

These Strange Things

Cruise's performances in these films run the gamut, from the internal to the external. His work in Magnolia is more mature and adult than his action-movie fare, but more in line with starring roles in The Firm or A Few Good Men than his henpecked husband in Eyes Wide Shut . If you look at Cruise's filmography in the subsequent 20 years, you'll mostly just find a lot of genre fare. Notably, Cruise has doubled down on his action-hero status since these films opened – five of the six Mission: Impossible films have been released in that period, including the 2006 entry where Hoffman played a terrifying villain.  Cruise has also limited the directors with whom he works, relying on a few favorites such as Joseph Kosinski, Christopher McQuarrie, and Doug Liman. (Kosinski is behind the camera for Top Gun: Maverick , taking over for the late Tony Scott.) Though he's worked with more iconic, auteurist directors too, it's been in more straightforward, action-heavy titles like Minority Report and Collateral . It's not that these films are bad – those two specifically are excellent. But the challenges of movies like these or the Mission: Impossible series or Edge of Tomorrow is that Tom Cruise puts his body through the ringer.  It's exhilarating to watch Tom Cruise dangle off a building or a plane. But as he reaches his sixties, it's just as exhilarating to imagine what it might be like when he eases into an era during which his body just won't let him keep destroying itself. We're a long way removed from films like Eyes Wide Shut and Magnolia , but they both prove that there was once a time when Cruise was willing to push himself, both with established and up-and-coming directors, and to do so mentally as opposed to physically. We can only hope he returns to this mindset soon.

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Tom Cruise rewatch: Weird at the millennium with Eyes Wide Shut and Mission: Impossible 2

In his strangest and silliest roles, the star at his apex explored the outer limits of his image.

Celebrating today's release of Top Gun: Maverick , our writers return to their favorite Tom Cruise movies, in appreciation of an on-screen persona that's evolved over decades.

Something was seriously wrong with Tom Cruise's face. That's either the main plot or one key visual idea in so many Cruise movies from the middle of his career. Vanilla Sky and Valkyrie left him mutilated, minus one eye or plus a few scars. Minority Report body-morphed jowls onto his cheekbones, after an eye transplant. Tropic Thunder swamped him in prosthetic paunch. Did this very famous man want to hide in plain sight — or was he defacing himself as an act of self-reclamation? Would the world still love him if he wasn't beautiful anymore? Or would he wind up wandering, alone, the one guy at the orgy not getting any?

Eyes Wide Shut came out in July 1999. Mission: Impossible 2 landed one summer later. They are not similar movies in any obvious way. One is Stanley Kubrick 's last, least explicable movie, a dreamlike erotic thriller about marital maintenance. The other is Cruise's loopiest Mission , a longhair fantasia about why viruses are great for stock options. I love both movies, but neither was adored upon release. Cruise was at his pinnacle as an audience draw, so Eyes was Kubrick's highest grossing movie and M:I 2 topped the 2000 box office. Don't interpret those numbers as positive feedback, though. Casual moviegoers were still going to the theater on autopilot, seeing "the new Tom Cruise movie" without knowing what they were in for. I recall general bafflement at Eyes , and a slow-boil resentment at M:I 2 's rap-rock silliness.

Eyes Wide Shut 's reputation has improved considerably; M:I 2 is so generally loathed that its defenders (hello!) have gotten louder. And the two films rhyme. In Eyes , Cruise plays Bill Harford, a doctor living well in Manhattan. One night, a casual stoned chat with his awesome wife (Kidman) takes a strange turn. He tells her he never worries about her cheating; she tells him maybe he should. The mere possibility of infidelity sends him on a whole-movie spiral, mulling sexy temptation to get back at his wife for having any urges whatsoever. M:I 2 has its own zigzag-of-jealousy plot, imported directly from Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious with zero shame. When superspy Ethan Hunt meets superthief Nyah Nordhoff-Hall ( Thandiwe Newton ), they fall for each other mid-car chase. But Ethan's IMF superiors have a mission for Nyah. They need her to go undercover with a former boyfriend, Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott), a rogue agent with global-plague plans.

Bill and Ethan are both romantically tormented, cut off from their loves by physical distance and the possibility of another man. Credit this as a vague comparison — Bill does not rescue Alice from a murderous motorcycle ex, Ethan does not go undercover in any spite orgies — except for the fact that both films also have their own strange strategies for approaching Cruise's famous face.

Watching Eyes Wide Shut , it's clear that Kubrick was sparking more to Kidman as a pure performer, whose scenes combust with crackling undercurrents of domestic ennui, seductiveness, and genuine love. Cruise feels more stunt-cast, like Ryan O'Neal in Barry Lyndon : a famous handsome star who serves as the audience surrogate. He's the watcher, never the most interesting person in the room, variously fascinated and appalled by the strangeness of his odyssey. In the movie's most famous and misunderstood scene, he wanders the halls of an aristocratic sex party, full of occult gyrations and full-frontal decadence. Hidden behind a mask and a cowl, he could be just anyone. When costumed courtiers demand that he reveal himself and remove his clothes, it's an upside-down vision of celebrity: Bill didn't want to be the center of attention. Now everyone won't stop looking at him.

Masks are also a key part of M:I 2 . The franchise loves its surprise identities, a latex face torn off to reveal whoever was really someone else. But John Woo 's entry in the series has the least intricate plot, and seems vividly uninterested in the espionage part of Ethan Hunt's job. This film was the real invention of Daredevil Maniac Tom Cruise, the very famous actor who is actually dangling off a cliff in Utah in the pointless-for-any-obvious-plot-reason mountain-climbing prologue. The actor had just spent half a decade playing somewhat regular humans in Jerry Maguire , Eyes Wide Shut , and Magnolia . So I think this second Mission was meant as a soft comeback, or maybe just an expression of pent-up action-guy frustration: Damn it, I just wanna be freaking awesome . Now Ethan Hunt knows martial arts, and drives a mean motorcycle, and can bungee-jump off a helicopter through an entire skyscraper.

It's ridiculous, but there's an intriguing twist thrown in: M:I 2 is the one Mission that keeps turning the signature mask gag back on its hero. The first time we see Cruise, he's actually Ambrose pretending to be Ethan. "He doubled you, what — two or three times?" asks the IMF Commander (Anthony Hopkins). An interesting window into IMF procedure here: When their top guy is unavailable, they slap an Ethan face onto a lesser agent and hope for the best. This is a quietly mind-boggling revelation, the kind of thing that drives vast fan theories in other franchises. (Do different movies feature different Ethans? Is that why he seems so dour in Ghost Protocol ?) And M:I 2 honors Woo's fascination with parallel good-and-evil identities. Ambrose pretends to be Ethan again later, fooling Nyah away from her moonlight escape. Toward the end of the movie, Ambrose captures Ethan and fires nine or ten bullets into his enemy's body. Of course, it's not Ethan, but the upside-mood lingers.

Malicious Neck-Snapping Cruise, Bad Boyfriend Cruise, Simpering Tortured Dead Cruise: You feel the actor exploring the outer range of his comfort zone, doing all the stuff his characters never really can do. Call these very different movies a linked set of nightmares. M:I 2 turns Cruise into a face anyone can wear. Eyes Wide Shut takes that face away entirely, reducing him to impotence and terror. Was that dwindling too much for Cruise to bear? The future was full of Mission s, hyperbolizing Cruise into the stratospheric "living manifestation of destiny." Whereas who knows with the Harfords, but some marriages just don't last.

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The Ending Of Eyes Wide Shut Explained

1999 was a busy year for a lot of reasons. Facing the centennial, there was a lot to look forward to, and a lot to leave behind. For director Stanley Kubrick, there was one film idea that he just had to finish before the year was over, and that was "Eyes Wide Shut." The movie is based on a German novella from 1926 called "Traumnovelle," or "Dream Story," which focuses on a man in Vienna who finds out his wife has fantasies of other men, and goes on a two-day journey dealing with personal realizations about sex, individualism, and morality.

For Kubrick's film, he transferred the story from early 20th century Vienna to New York City, Greenwich Village specifically, in the 1990s. The director cast Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman , husband and wife at the time, as the main couple in the story named Bill and Alice. 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.

The film is a confounding story, and even two decades later, fans and critics alike continue to debate the meaning behind "Eyes Wide Shut" and whether the final cut was what Kubrick really wanted.

The themes and meaning of Eyes Wide Shut

While Kubrick's other films explore topics like free will, conformity, and class privilege, "Eyes Wide Shut" takes on society's dehumanization of sex. For Bill and Alice, sex and temptation is all around them, but they only have eyes for each other. But one night Alice admits that she considered having an affair with a handsome naval officer a year earlier, and Bill's whole world is turned upside down. 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 story is strange and winding, adding to the dreamlike quality of filmmaking that takes influence from the original "Dream Story." Throughout the night, Bill meets various strangers who attempt to engage him in sex. While he almost gives in a few times, he makes it through the encounters unscathed until he gets to the main event, the secret society's weird orgy. With this film, Kubrick is taking on "the causes and effects of depersonalized sex." One early review of the film describes the orgy scene as "the fulcrum" of "Eyes Wide Shut," saying, "sex is normally the most intimate means of human interaction, yet here it is reduced to a ritualistic, almost creepy form of gratification ... There is freedom in anonymity, but also isolation and a complete dearth of emotion" ( Reel Views ).

After this encounter, Bill finally realizes the dark side of this world of sex and anonymity, returning to his wife Alice's side. She is still open with him about her past sexual fantasies, but in the end they stay loyal to each other, happy that their marriage and mutual sexual attraction have survived this long.

The crazy process to make Kubrick's last movie

It's safe to say that Kubrick had a reputation for being quite the demanding and unusual filmmaker. 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.

Along with how long it took to film the movie, Kubrick put his main two actors through a lot of intense experiences. The director took take after take of the same scene, but not because he had a detailed vision in mind. According to a  Vanity Fair article detailing the film's production, his "theory was that once his actors bottomed-out in exhaustion and forgot about the cameras, they could rebuild and discover something that neither he nor they expected." 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.

The director also thoroughly blended fact and fiction, creating a feeling of distrust between Cruise and Kidman by choosing to "direct each actor separately and forbid them to share notes. In one painful example, for just one minute of final footage where Alice makes love to a handsome naval officer—an imaginary affair that haunts Bill over the course of the film—Kubrick demanded that Kidman shoot six days of naked sex scenes with a male model ... He banned Cruise from the set and forbade Kidman to assuage her husband's tension by telling him what happened during the shoot." The emotional abuse he put his actors through was apparently worth it for them, but it's up to debate whether or not it improved the final product.

Debate and censorship for Eyes Wide Shut

"Eyes Wide Shut" is Kubrick's final film before his death. According to the documentary "Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures," Kubrick was in the middle of post-production when he showed what Warner Bros. executives claim was a relatively final cut of the film on March 1, 1999. The director died six days later, on March 7, 1999, at the age of 70. "Eyes Wide Shut" opened on July 16, 1999, and did well at the box office and with critics. It currently holds a 75% on Rotten Tomatoes . But that doesn't mean that there isn't any controversy attached to the film's release. 

Firstly, the movie had to be censored to hit the R-rating, with the orgy scene taking a large hit. According to a 1999 New York Times article, "65 seconds of the movie were digitally altered. Essentially, shrouded digital figures were placed in front of couples engaged in sex, partly blocking the audience's view." At the same time, some people argued that "Eyes Wide Shut" was an unfinished film, and the final product was not the one Kubrick intended to release. A frequent collaborator of Kubrick, writer Michael Herr, revealed in a Vanity Fair piece that Kubrick called him shortly before he had to show the Warner Bros. executives a cut the film, saying that "there was looping to be done and the music wasn't finished, lots of small technical fixes on color and sound; would I show work that wasn't finished?" He was forced to show the executives due to contractual reasons but didn't want to, and this was likely the cut that later became the final product.

While there's a lot of interesting history and questions revolving around "Eyes Wide Shut," unfortunately Kubrick isn't around to clarify anything. Still, the director's final film impresses as an unforgettable story about morality and sexuality, no matter what way you look at it.

EricReports

“eyes wide shut” – original 3 hour director’s cut.

In the special features section, on the “Eyes Wide Shut” DVD, there are three interviews, labeled under “Cast & Crew”.  Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman and Steven Spielberg.  (Why is Spielberg listed as a crew member?  Because he helped cut the missing 29 minutes.)

Contrary to what Warner Bros. execs said at the time, they were not “delighted” with the original version of “Eyes Wide Shut”.  They didn’t like it, didn’t understand it and wanted cuts.  Director Stanley Kubrick said “no,” (he had final authority), until he was found dead four days later from a heart attack.

Edited scene:  Originally, Alice does have a brief sexual encounter with Sander Szavost at the Christmas party.  (Song follows, titled “Baby did a Bad Thing”.)

Sky du Mont as Sander Szavost with Nicole Kidman as Alice.

Edited:  Victor Ziegler (Sydney Pollack) is betraying Bill Harford (Tom Cruise.)  Alice (Nicole Kidman) is being used as a sex slave by the Illuminati-like lodge, and by Ziegler himself.

Probably the most interesting sequence rumored to be cut is Alice Harford’s dream, which Nicole Kidman mentions indirectly.  The interviewer asks her why did she laugh while sleeping?  Kidman replies, “I was laughing at the imagery of the dream.”  Apparently, her character is a victim of a secret society (the Illuminati) and she’s remembering her MK-Ultra programming thru the dream.

Warner Bros. were especially disturbed by whatever was in this scene.

Further proof of the cut dream sequence occurs at the film’s conclusion.  At the toy store, Helena Harford (Madison Eginton) picks up a Barbie doll with wings.  In the edited dream, Alice is seen “flying”.  [ILLUMINATI BUTTERFLY SYBOLISM.]

Helena Harford shows mother an image of her other half.

Not edited, but not easily understood are the final scenes.  The daughter appears separated from her parents, while Alice keeps Bill occupied in conversation.  (As their daughter is being taken away by the secret society.)

Nicole Kidman said she’s seen the movie twice.  Is this a hint, i.e., once the original, twice, the cut version?

Of the three interviewed, she’s the only one who cries, saying Kubrick’s death “seemed wrong” and “that he had more to say.”

Tom Cruise describes his director as a “magical, wonderful guy.”

Tom Cruise with director Stanley Kubrick.

“Eyes Wide Shut”, three years in the making, was wearing on Cruise, who both “dreaded and looked forward to ending” the Dr. Bill Harford character.  Kubrick said, “Every scene, every moment, has to be earned.”  Cruise asks, “Just tell me how long is this gonna take?  Two years?”  Kubrick laughed, saying, “Tom, if it took that long, then everything they say about us is true!”  When asked about his death, Cruise replies that he had great concern for the movie – another indication that he was telling us something happened to “Eyes Wide Shut” after the director died.

Stanley Kubrick & Steven Spielberg

The Salieri of the piece is Steven Spielberg, who doesn’t talk about “Eyes Wide Shut” at all.  He mentions that he didn’t like “The Shining” at first, that Jack Nicholson’s performance was “Kabuki theater”; however, “Stanley’s films grow on you over time.”  For him, Kubrick’s best gifts were “his friendship” and “his impeccable craft, his compositions, and his films.”

Sketches for Kubrick’s concept for “A.I.”

In another interview, not on this DVD, Spielberg claims that Kubrick wanted him to direct “A.I.” (Artificial Intelligence.)  Kubrick would produce it.  What most people aren’t aware of is that Spielberg completely rewrote the script Kubrick wrote.  “A.I” (based on the short story “Summer Toys Last All Summer Long” by Brian Aldiss.)  “A.I.” was headed for darker themes, something Steven Spielberg wanted no part of.  Thus, with “A.I.” we have a Disneyized version of an unrealized Stanley Kubrick film.

As for any hope for the missing “Eyes Wide Shut” footage reappearing, it ain’t gonna happen.  The cast, the crew and Kubrick’s family have been sworn to secrecy.  Warners denies there ever were any major cuts.  (There is what is called the “European Version” containing 90 seconds more of orgy footage.)

A positive note:  only Stanley Kubrick would’ve dared make this movie and there are still clues to what can be learned from it.

Text ©2017-ERN

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Eyes. Wide. Shut. 1999

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Eyes Wide Shut

Stanley Kubrick

Cinematographer:

Larry Smith

Stanley Kubrick was nominated numerous times on the film circuit for awards for Best Director and Best Foreign Film

• Tom Cruise as Dr. William Harford
• Nicole Kidman as Alice Hartford
• Vinessa Shaw as Domino
• Julienne Davis as Mandy
• Sydney Pollack as Victor Ziegler
• Marie Richardson
• Leelee Sobieski
• Abigail Good as Masked Mysterious Woman at Party
• Rade Serbedzija

Production Design

• Leslie Tomkins

Costume Design

• Marit Allen

Mystery of 20-25 Minute Cut from Stanley Kubrick’s ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ Revealed

Stanley Kubrick is widely regarded as one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. His last movie, Eyes Wide Shut, received mixed reactions upon its release in 1999. Kubrick was known for making controversial films and being linked to conspiracy theories. In a notable instance, his film “2001: A Space Odyssey” depicted a realistic moon landing in 1968, a year before the actual moon landing in 1969. Some even speculate that Kubrick might have been involved in faking the moon landing footage.

“Eyes Wide Shut” is a psychological thriller. After spending two years making the movie, Kubrick showed it to Warner Bros in June 1999. However, the studio refused to release it unless Kubrick removed 24 minutes from the film. Kubrick refused, and four days after the screening, he passed away from a heart attack.

After Kubrick’s death, the studio released “Eyes Wide Shut” with the edits. Some suspect that the timing of Kubrick’s death is suspicious, and they question if he was actually killed under mysterious circumstances. The mystery revolves around the significance of the 24-45 minutes that the studio wanted Kubrick to remove from the movie.

Various theories suggest that the deleted scenes may have depicted a real satanic ritual, including elements like cannibalism, human sacrifice, and child sexual activities. Despite the speculations, no one has seen a single second of these alleged 24 minutes. Kubrick’s daughter Vivian Kubrick confirms that there are no deleted scenes, but some still believe they exist, waiting to be discovered.

In this video , Vivian states that her father was under enormous pressure from the elite not to make his films: “He was subject to a lot of pressure not to make the films he made… I feel that my father was very… haunted by those factions on this planet that try to manipulate humanity,” she said.

David Icke said , “Kind of interesting, Eyes Wide Shut because Stanley Kubrick was trying to tell us something. He died very soon after that film was given to Warner Brothers. But when he gave them the original movie, the Warner Brothers executives were watching it in the theater. And when they walked out, basically, this great director was just ignored. They just walked past it and insisted that 25 minutes of the movie be cut. When he agreed to fake the moon landing shots, he thought, ‘Well, I’m going to make sure that I get a deal here.’ And he got a deal, according to J. One, that his movies could never be edited or censored again.” ( Source )

So when they asked for 25 minutes to be taken out, he refused. And a few days later, not long after, he’s dead. And they took out 25 minutes that have never been seen. When you see what’s in the movie and how far that goes, what the hell is in the 25 minutes that they wouldn’t have shown? It’s a dark movie. Yeah.

In “Eyes Wide Shut,” Dr. Bill Harford (played by Tom Cruise) and his wife Alice (played by Nicole Kidman) explore the idea of cheating as they enter high society. This takes them from being naive to more mature, but Bill’s search for new experiences leads him to places he shouldn’t be. In a key part of the movie, Bill attends a secret party where he witnesses a masked orgy. Because of his actions, a woman dies under suspicious circumstances.

It’s important to note that one widely cited Nicole Kidman interview was made up by the fake news site NewsPunch. Equally false are descriptions of 24 minutes of lost footage, cut from “Eyes Wide Shut” to protect the elite. Photos exist of a deleted scene featuring Bill, Alice, and their daughter rowing a boat in Central Park, but it’s hardly a smoking gun. A dream sequence—which would have counterbalanced Bill’s experience at the orgy with the sexual imaginings of Alice—was storyboarded but never shot.

“Eyes Wide Shut” co-writer Frederic Raphael asserted that the final edit of the film was overseen by well-acclaimed director Sydney Pollack. Following this, the movie underwent editing by Pollack, who, indeed, played a role in the production.

“Eyes Wide Shut” has a runtime of 2 hours and 59 minutes. In a screening held a few days before Stanley Kubrick’s passing, he purportedly informed Terry Semel, the head of Warner Bros., that the final cut would be 2 hours and 39 minutes long. As noted by a reputable Kubrick site:

Kubrick’s film found itself in an unusual position. His contract explicitly prohibited any unauthorized editing of his work, granting him exclusive rights to final cut. Consequently, while his sound editor could arrange audio elements and incorporate music following his guidelines, they were not permitted to make actual edits to the footage. Typically, music and visuals are edited simultaneously, but this was not the case with “Eyes Wide Shut.”

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This suggests that Kubrick may not have completed the editing process. It also indicates that sound and music were intended to follow, suggesting that the soundtrack may not have been finalized.

It is plausible that Pollack’s role involved overseeing the removal of the anticipated 20 minutes of footage, as perceived by everyone involved. Furthermore, Pollack likely supervised the development of the sound mix and the selection of final music cues. This significant responsibility underscores the need for an experienced director like Pollack for such a task.

Boating scene from “Eyes Wide Shut”

Why did Stanley Kubrick cut this boating scene from “Eyes Wide Shut”? Why didn’t he want the audience to see it anymore? What’s in it exactly? And what was he trying to say? What relation does it have to the film’s original source novel Arthur Schnitzler’s Traumnovelle? Where would it have been placed within the film? Did it no longer fit the film’s rhythm, thematic or mood? Or was it taken out for deeper, darker, and more personal reasons?

Stanley Kubrick’s daughter, Vivian Kubrick, left the family to join the Church of Scientology. Some people think that this caused stress for Stanley, and it might have led to his heart attack while he was editing “Eyes Wide Shut.” In the movie, there’s a scene where the main character, Dr. Harford, is warned not to talk about a secret society or face dire consequences for his family.

Knowing this makes the scene where the main character is in a boat with his wife and daughter more important. The only information we have about this scene is from a picture in Stanley Kubrick’s archives. In the photo, the main character, Bill Harford (played by Tom Cruise), is rowing a boat with his wife and daughter. They are close, and it looks like a happy moment. The scene is reminiscent of leisure scenes in another Kubrick film, “Barry Lyndon.” The picture, with its beautiful visuals, is like a painting by Édouard Manet. The colors in the shot, like the reds and blues, add to the mood of the film. The greens in Helena’s dress and the lake suggest nature, spring, and ideas of innocence and rebirth.

Toronto Film Review blog writes: “ This rowboat scene is synchronous with Alice’s fantasy of ‘fucking’ a sailor, which would have provided a more calm and peaceful counterpart. But this isn’t what the film is about. It’s dark and pessimistic and supposes that intimate relationships are based on deep uncontrollable passions that can never be fully explained.

Illum1nat1 also discusses another short scene that was unfortunately cut from the film of Dr. Harford walking down an empty hallway and seeing an empty ceremonial room, which would have been very significant. And Welcome to Somerton brings up there was also another deleted scene where Alice and Helena were supposed to go horse riding in one scene. These missing scenes in Stanley Kubrick’s film, as Justin Morrow suggests, bring out and further contribute to one of Kubrick’s films most important qualities: their mystery .”

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Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

Tom cruise: dr. william harford.

• Photos (124)
• Quotes (35)

Photos 

Quotes 

Dr. Bill Harford : No dream is ever just a dream.

Alice Harford : Millions of years of evolution, right? Right? Men have to stick it in every place they can, but for women... women it is just about security and commitment and whatever the fuck else!

Dr. Bill Harford : A little oversimplified, Alice, but yes, something like that.

Alice Harford : If you men only knew...

Dr. Bill Harford : Now, where exactly are we going... exactly?

Gayle : Where the rainbow ends.

Dr. Bill Harford : Where the rainbow ends?

Nuala : Don't you want to go where the rainbow ends?

Dr. Bill Harford : Well, now that depends where that is.

Gayle : Well, let's find out.

[last lines] 

Alice Harford : The important thing is: we're awake now. And hopefully... for a long time to come.

Dr. Bill Harford : Forever.

Alice Harford : Forever?

Dr. Bill Harford : Forever!

Alice Harford : Let's not use that word, you know? It frightens me. But I do love you. And, you know, there's something very important that we need to do as soon as possible.

Dr. Bill Harford : What's that?

Alice Harford : Fuck.

Dr. Bill Harford : [Sobbing in front of Alice]  I'll tell you everything!

Dr. Bill Harford : The woman lying dead in the morgue was the woman at the party. Well, Victor, maybe I'm missing something here. You call it fake, a charade... Do you mind telling me what kind of fucking charade ends up with somebody turning up dead?

Victor Ziegler : [getting angry and defensive]  Okay Bill... let's cut the bullshit, alright? You've been way out of your depth for the last 24 hours! You want to know what kind of charade? I'll tell you what kind. That whole play-acted, "take me" phony sacrifice that you've been jerking off with had nothing to do with her real death. The truth is nothing happened to her after you left that party that hadn't happened to her before. She got her brains fucked out. Period! She was just fine when they took her back to her hotel room. And the rest is all there in the paper. There was no foul play regarding her death. She OD'd. She was alone in her room, her door was locked from the inside, the police are happy... end of story! Come on, Bill. You said it yourself to Mandy... that woman with the big tits who OD'd in my bathroom? She was an addict. You told her yourself the other night that it was only a matter of time before it came to that.

Dr. Bill Harford : Are you sure of that?

Alice Harford : Am I sure? Only as sure as I am that the reality of one night, let alone that of a whole lifetime, can ever be the whole truth.

Dr. Bill Harford : And no dream is ever just a dream.

Nick Nightingale : I play blindfolded.

Dr. Bill Harford : You're putting me on.

Nick Nightingale : No, it's the truth. And the last time, the blindfold wasn't on so well. Oh, man. Bill, I have seen one or two things in my life, but never, never anything like this - and never such women.

Victor Ziegler : Bill... What the hell did you think you were doing there? I couldn't... I couldn't even begin to imagine how you'd even heard about it, let alone got yourself through the front door. And then I remembered seeing you talking with that prick piano player, Nick... or whatever the fuck his name was, at my party here the other night. And it didn't take much to figure out the rest.

Dr. Bill Harford : It wasn't Nick's fault. It was mine.

Victor Ziegler : Of course it was Nick's fault! If he hadn't mentioned this to you in the first place, none of this would have happened. I recommended that little cocksucker to those people, and now he's made me look like a complete asshole by telling you about it!

Dr. Bill Harford : [humbly]  Victor... what can I say? I had absolutely no idea you were involved in any way.

Victor Ziegler : I know you didn't, Bill. But I also know that you went to Nick's hotel this morning and spoke with the desk clerk.

Dr. Bill Harford : How did you know that?

Victor Ziegler : Because I had you followed.

Dr. Bill Harford : You... you had me followed?

Victor Ziegler : Okay, yes I had you followed. I owe you an apology. I'm sorry. But it was for your own good. I know you went to Nick's hotel looking for him and I know what the desk clerk told you. But what the desk clerk didn't tell you was that those two men with Nick... all they did was drive Nick to the airport and put him on a plane back to Seattle. I assure you that Nick is safely back home and he's probably banging Mrs. Nick as we speak.

Dr. Bill Harford : The desk clerk said that Nick has a bruise on his face... a black eye. That he looked frightened as if he was just badly beaten up.

Victor Ziegler : Yeah? Okay, so Nick had a bruise. But that's the least he deserved for telling you about that party the other night.

Marion : I love you. I don't want to go away with Carl.

Dr. Bill Harford : Marion, I don't think you realize...

Marion : I do, even if I'm never to see you again, I want at least to live near you.

Dr. Bill Harford : Marion, listen to me, listen to me. You're very upset right now and I don't think you realize what you're saying.

Marion : I love you.

Dr. Bill Harford : We barely know each other. I don't think we've had a single conversation about anything except your father.

Red Cloak : [pleasantly]  Please, come forward. May I have the password please?

Dr. Bill Harford : Fidelio.

Red Cloak : That's right, sir! That is the password... for admittance. But may I ask, what is the password for the house?

Dr. Bill Harford : The password for the house...

Red Cloak : Yes?

Dr. Bill Harford : [short pause]  I'm sorry. I seem to have... forgotten it.

Red Cloak : That's unfortunate! Because here, it doesn't matter whether you have forgotten it... or if you never knew it. You will kindly remove your mask.

[Bill slowly removes his mask. The red cloaked cult leader continues talking in a pleasant tone] 

Red Cloak : Now, get undressed.

Dr. Bill Harford : [nervously]  Get... undressed?

Red Cloak : [sternly]  Remove your clothes.

Dr. Bill Harford : [hesitates]  Uh... gentlemen, please...

Red Cloak : Remove your clothes! Or would you like us to do it for you?

Dr. Bill Harford : There was a... there was a... there was, uh... a woman there. Who, uh, tried to warn me.

Victor Ziegler : I know.

Dr. Bill Harford : Do you know who she was?

Victor Ziegler : Yes. She was... she was a hooker. Sorry, but... that's what she was.

Dr. Bill Harford : A hooker?

Victor Ziegler : Bill, suppose I told you that... that everything that happened to you there... the threats, the- the girl's warnings, her last minute intervention, suppose I said that all of that... was staged. That it was a kind of charade. That it was fake.

Dr. Bill Harford : Fake?

Victor Ziegler : Yes, fake.

Dr. Bill Harford : Why would they do that?

Victor Ziegler : Why? In plain words... to scare the living shit out of you. To keep you quiet about where you'd been and what you'd seen.

[first lines] 

Dr. Bill Harford : Honey, have you seen my wallet?

Alice Harford : Isn't it on the bedside table?

Dr. Bill Harford : Now listen, you know we're running a little late.

Alice Harford : I know. How do I look?

Dr. Bill Harford : Perfect.

Alice Harford : Is my hair okay?

Dr. Bill Harford : It's great.

Alice Harford : You're not even looking at it.

Dr. Bill Harford : It's beautiful. You always look beautiful.

Dr. Bill Harford : You know what they say, once a doctor always a doctor.

Nick Nightingale : Yes, or in my case, never a doctor, never a doctor.

Dr. Bill Harford : Was it the second password? Is that what gave me away?

Victor Ziegler : Yes, finally. But not because you didn't know it. It's because there was no second password. Of course it didn't help you too much that those people arrived there in limos... and you showed up in a taxi. Or that when they took your coat, they found the receipt to the costume from the rental house in your pocket made out to you-know-who.

Victor Ziegler : Bill, I... I know what happened to you last night. And I know what's been going on since. And I think you just might have got the wrong idea about one or two things.

Dr. Bill Harford : [feigning ignorance]  I'm sorry Victor, but... what the hell are you talking about?

Victor Ziegler : Please, Bill... no games. I was there. At the house. "The house". I saw you, Bill. I saw everything.

Gayle : Do you know what's so nice about doctors?

Dr. Bill Harford : Usually a lot less than people imagine.

Gayle : They always seem so knowledgeable.

Dr. Bill Harford : Oh, they are very knowledgeable about all sorts of things.

Gayle : But I bet they work too hard. Just think of all they miss.

Dr. Bill Harford : You're probably right.

Mysterious Woman : Stop! Let him go! I am ready to redeem him. Take me!

Red Cloak : [stands up from his throne]  You are ready to redeem him? Do you realize what you are taking upon yourself... in doing this?

Mysterious Woman : Yes!

[there is a pause as the masked and cloaked cult members murmer and gasp while Bill looks on] 

Red Cloak : Very well. Take her away.

[to Bill] 

Red Cloak : Mister... you are free to go. But I warn you... if you make any further inquires, or if you tell a single soul about what you've seen here tonight... there will be very dire consequences for you and your family! Do you understand?

Dr. Bill Harford : [as he watches the mysterious woman being led away by another cult member]  What is going to happen to that woman?

Red Cloak : No one can change her fate now. When a promise has been made here, there is no turning back. As for you... you are free. Go!

Alice Harford : You sound very sure of yourself.

Dr. Bill Harford : I'm not, I'm sure of you.

Alice Harford : How do you feel about wrapping the rest of the presents?

Dr. Bill Harford : Maybe tomorrow night.

Alice Harford : You should call the Zieglers and thank them for the party.

Dr. Bill Harford : I've already taken care of that.

Alice Harford : Why do think Ziegler invites us to these things every year?

Dr. Bill Harford : This is what you get for making house calls.

Dr. Bill Harford : I know you would never be unfaithful to me.

Mysterious Woman : [whispering]  I don't think you realize the danger you're in now. You cannot fool them for much longer. You need to get away, right now, before it's too late!

Dr. Bill Harford : Why are you telling me this?

Mysterious Woman : It doesn't matter.

Dr. Bill Harford : Who are you?

Mysterious Woman : Believe me, you don't want to know.

Dr. Bill Harford : Will you come with me?

Mysterious Woman : That's impossible.

Dr. Bill Harford : Why?

Mysterious Woman : Because it could cost me my life, and probably yours.

Dr. Bill Harford : [moves to remove her mask]  At least let me see your face.

Mysterious Woman : No! Go... now!

[the mysterious woman exits] 

Dr. Bill Harford : Let's just - relax, Alice. This pot is making you aggressive.

Alice Harford : No! It's not the pot. It's you! Why can't you ever give me a straight fucking answer?

Dr. Bill Harford : I was under the impression that's what I was doing. I don't even know what we're arguing about here.

Dr. Bill Harford : What did he want?

Alice Harford : What did he want? Oh, what did he want? Sex. Upstairs. Then and there.

Dr. Bill Harford : Is that all?

Dr. Bill Harford : This is what you get for making House Calls.

Dr. Bill Harford : One of my patients died. I have to show my face.

Victor Ziegler : Sorry to call you out so late tonight.

Dr. Bill Harford : That's OK, I was out anyway.

Victor Ziegler : How about a drink?

Dr. Bill Harford : Are you having one?

Victor Ziegler : Sure! What would you like?

Dr. Bill Harford : Uh, I'll have a little scotch.

Victor Ziegler : Good. How do you take it, neat?

Mysterious Woman : [at the masked orgy]  I don't know who you are or what you think you're doing, but you obviously don't belong here.

Dr. Bill Harford : I'm sorry. I think you must have me mistaken for someone else.

Mysterious Woman : [whispering]  Don't be crazy. You are in great danger.

Domino : Would you like to come inside with me?

Dr. Bill Harford : Come inside with you?

Alice Harford : Let's say, for example, you have some gorgeous woman standing in your office naked and you're feeling her fucking tits. Now, what I want to know - I want to know what you're thinking about when you're squeezing them.

Dr. Bill Harford : Alice, I happen to be a doctor. It's all very impersonal.

Dr. Bill Harford : Do you suppose we should talk about money?

Domino : Yeah, I guess so. That depends on what you want to do. What do you want to do?

Dr. Bill Harford : Well, what do you recommend?

Domino : [giggles]  What do I recommend? Hmm. Well, I'd rather not put it into words. How about you just leave it up to me?

Dr. Bill Harford : I'm in your hands.

Alice Harford : Maybe I think we should be grateful. Grateful that we've managed to survive through all of our adventures - whether they were real - or only a dream.

Dr. Bill Harford : What's the big mystery?

Nick Nightingale : Hey, man, I just play the piano.

Alice Harford : There is something very important that we need to do as soon as possible...

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Tom Cruise Is an 'Egocentric Control Freak': 'Eyes Wide Shut' Writer Questions Marriage to Then-Wife Nicole Kidman in Scathing Tell-All Book

Jul. 28 2023, Published 11:22 a.m. ET

Oscar-winning screenwriter Frederic Raphael , 91, who wrote the 1999 film Eyes Wide Shut alongside Stanley Kubric , took aim at Hollywood star Tom Cruise in his new tell-all book, Last Post , going on to blast Cruise's chemistry with his then-wife Nicole Kidman in the movie.

In the tome, Raphael wrote a letter in which he accused Cruise, along with Kubrick's wife, Christiane Harlan , and her brother Jan Harlan of trying to omit him from the director's "history."

"There has been an incessant campaign, led by the Harlans, whom I never met during the two or three years of addressing myself exclusively to you, to deny that I had anything much to do with the final version of Eyes Wide Shut ," he writes. "Until the Writers Guild intervened, they tried to eliminate me from the credits."

"The Harlans and Master Cruise have managed to insert some derogatory stuff in my Wikipedia entry," he adds. "There must be some way of excising the libel, but I lack the modern skill or the dreary energy to pursue the matter. Their sullen purpose is to establish your grand-masterliness..."

Raphael may have been referring to a Wikipedia entry citing film critic Roger Ebert 's 1999 interview with Cruise. "He [Raphael] wouldn't have written it if Stanley had been alive. Opportunistic. Self-serving. Inaccurate. I don't know that man at all and I've never met him. It's been interesting seeing how people have behaved afterward," he apparently said.

Raphael then criticized Cruise, 61, for trying to control the movie after it had wrapped.

"I have never been called a liar by anyone as I have been by the Harlan clan and by Tom Cruise, egocentric control freak to whom I have never spoken," he writes about the actor, who is a Scientologist. "He did offer me a job though, soon after you finished shooting; the better to have me on a leash, no doubt. In his turn, he too seems to need the control he finds in Scientology ..."

"Since Eyes Wide Shut , he has spent a lot of time running for his living, winning fixed fights or hurtling into space. Nothing like a helmet for heading off dialogue," he adds.

Raphael also wondered why Cruise, who was married to Kidman from 1990 to 2001 , was cast in the first place. (Cruise starred as Bill Harford alongside Kidman's Alice Harford in the hit erotica film.)

"[I]t was never admiration for his versatility, was it? From all accounts, you gave him slow h--- for Warner Brothers' money," he fumes. "You slave-drove him for what he cost and he took it like a man. What do you suppose he ever told the Scientology brass that locked him in hock to them? Was there something just a touch naïve in your idea that casting a married couple as a marred couple would enable you to put 'the truth' on the screen? One thing you can be pretty sure of: whatever any conjugal duo may disclose in public about their relationship, they rarely let any crucial cat out of the bag. Did you honestly suppose Cruise and Kidman were bound in genuine passion, rather than embraced in a careerist merger?"

• Tom Cruise 'Dumbfounded' Guests at Victoria Beckham's 50th Birthday Party by Breakdancing and Doing Splits: Insider
• Suri Cruise Turns 18! Birthday Girl All Smiles in NYC as Source Claims Estranged Dad Tom Hasn't Seen Daughter Since 2012
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Raphael also didn't have kind things to say about Kidman, either, writing: "Kidman has been a star for many years for many people: can you think of a single movie of hers you wanted to see again."

Never miss a story — sign up for the OK! newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what OK! has to offer. It’s gossip too good to wait for!

Christiane previously spoke out after his 1999 book, Eyes Wide Shut , saying: "Mr. Raphael's analysis of Stanley's personality bears no relation to the man we knew and loved so well."

Kubrick passed away six days after he screened the final cut of Eyes Wide Shut , and it was his final film before his untimely death in 1999.

Daily Mail reported on the new book.

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