Kubrick's final edit
Alex Peters
which is seen as his approved final cut. Most seem perfectly happy to
follow this received notion, Tom Cruise and Warner Bros as well as his
family have endorsed it.
Discounting the well-known blocking in the orgy scenes, there were
several terrible scene transitions that Kubrick would have been
outraged over.
Finally I have discovered another film critic who agrees. Lucius
Shepard is about the best independent film critic I have come across
on the 'net (he is also a highly regarded SF writer) and the following
extract not only describes this 'final cut' mess but also lambasts
every journalist and fan for passively allowing it to pass.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This sort of butchery has been done previously and frequently should
not be in question. For instance, I am convinced that Stanley's
Kubrick's last film, Eyes Wide Shut, widely trumpeted to be Kubrick's
final edit, was mucked with by an idiot wearing moonglasses and
listening to Brittany Spears on a Walkman. Anyone who has paid close
attention to Kubrick's other films knows he would never have made such
clumsy scene cuts as are evidenced by the print that was circulated in
theaters. Had Kubrick lived to oversee its release, Eyes Wide Shut
would surely not have been a great picture, but it would have been
internally consistent — all Kubrick's scripts were models of
internal consistency. Whoever it was that hacked up Eyes Wide Shut may
be in question, but I could easily come up with a list of films edited
by distributors with no regard for quality that would be far longer
than this column. What astonishes me is not that the practice goes
unnoticed by the public, but rather that it has been ignored by and so
given the tacit blessing of the critical press. It would seem that
these tastemakers, who know what is happening, might feel compelled if
not by conscience, then by professional ethics, to report on the
practice, which must be at odds with — if not completely
contrary to — at least some minor consumer regulation. But no.
Musty concerns such as journalistic integrity and an artist's right to
determine the presentation of his or her intellectual property do not,
apparently, serve them.
Lucius Shepard - http://www.electricstory.com/reviews/kghost.asp
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I agree. Kubrick said in a "Shining" interview that he disliked using
dissolves/wipes/fades if he could help it but there are several of
these in Eyes Wide Shut. And the transition from a Tom Cruise closeup
to a wide shot in the street near the end was definitely not a Kubrick
approved shot.
Does anyone else agree, and do you have any other examples in the
film. I am aware that there is a bootleg 'uncut' version of Eyes Wide
Shut circulating and if anyone has seen the two, I would be interested
in hearing of any other noticable changes.
Darth Nub
Huh?
What does '—' mean? I guess it must be some legal clause.
I've also often wondered whether the final cut of EWS was actually
Kubrick's final cut.
However, this article quoted is complete gibberish - this critic
attacks the practice of re-cutting films, but doesn't actually point
out any examples or evidence of EWS having been re-cut. He attacks the
film as being crap, but doesn't say why.
Plenty of people were disappointed with EWS, expecting better from
Kubrick (not me - I loved it), but they didn't jump up & say it must
have been butchered by studio execs.
As for the comment about internal consistency - the movie's a dream
for Christ's sake! There were heaps of examples in EWS of breaking
cinematic rules - jump cuts, 180 degree cuts - they were there on
purpose, & few filmmakers would be able to use & break such rules
Regardless of whether or not EWS was recut, if this is an example of
this guy's writing, he sounds like a complete fucking idiot. Last
thing this stupid I read on AMK was that thread about Kubrick being a
Luciferian Freemason or something, & how that's what EWS was about.
Sorry, but I'm sick of reviewers who simply attack a film without
actually specifying what's wrong with it. When this happens, it's
usually because the reviewer simply has a particular chip on his or
her shoulder & wants to vent. Half of the time you wonder if they even
saw the movie.
Darth
Newton
> dissolves/wipes/fades if he could help it but there are several of
> these in Eyes Wide Shut.
There are several dissolves in The Shining as well, despite Kubrick's
stated preference to not use them. That there are dissolves in EWS,
therefore, proves nothing.
Wordsmith
Dissolves are to film what chapter breaks are to novels: smooth transitions
to the next order of events.
Seguesmith :)
Alex Peters
No, Kubrick has stated in an interview with Ciment that dissolves were
neccesary in the Shining to indicate considerable passage of time in
one room --"I don't particularly like dissolves and I try not to use
them, but when one scene follows another in the same place, and you
want to make it clear that time has passed, a dissolve is often the
simplest way to convey this."
http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/interview.ts.html
In reply the previous posting, I should point out the the Shepard
article is actually from a review of "The Others" by Alejandro
Amenabar (which he believes was cut without the director's assent as
in Eyes Wide Shut) and is only a part of a much longer review.
Obviously there is no hard evidence for these claims, and one must
respect the statements made by Tom Cruise and the Kubrick estate.
Nevertheless I think anyone who has seen how tight Kubrick's editing
was (he called it the most enjoyable part of film-making after
shooting and writing) in previous films, can see there is something
'wrong' in Eyes Wide Shut. Kubrick even re-edited 2001 after the first
theatrical run. Had he lived, I am sure the film would not be the same
print we see today.
Josh
>theatrical run.
He re-edited it after the preview, not after it had been put out in wide
release.
As for EWS, if he had lived to see its release, it's possible he would have
made some trims between studio previews and early screenings before it's final
wide release. Some of the color timing might have been done different, the
sound mix might have been slightly different, whatever. He may have trimmed a
shot here or there, but I can't imagine there would have been any scenes
removed or any content radically altered. I don't think an interview in 1980
where he talks about preferring not to use dissolves means anything in
reference to EWS. The dissolves seem to fit in with the mood of the film and
its pacing.
As for this article, I don't give it much merit. The reviewer doesn't give one
specific example of where he feels the film was cut, or what might have been
cut out of it. He simply states that it may have been edited because he
thought some of the transitions in some places were less than pristine. If
anything, I think the less than pristine transitions indicate that it was
released as Kubrick had left it, without altering it.
Josh
Me (cool stuff) http://members.aol.com/vertigoman/me
CDR Trading:
http://members.aol.com/vertigoman/me/bootlist.html
Mat Hunt
'Eyes Wide Shut' in the cinema. The one that stands out the most is
the abrupt ending of the Cruise/Kidman "Baby did a bad, bad thing"
scene.
I doubt that the film was recut by Warners post-mortem, but I do
believe that Kubrick would have made changes to the film, had he
lived, before it was given a general release.
Where Warners is at fault is their treatment of the film's video/DVD
release. The camera reflection was digitally removed from the bathroom
overdose scene. Nicole Kidman's line "we made love" was overdubbed as
"you and I made love", and the 'Bhagavad Gita' recital was cut from
the orgy sequence. None of these changes were Kubrick-approved.
Mat.
dutch_angle
> respect the statements made by Tom Cruise and the Kubrick estate.
> Nevertheless I think anyone who has seen how tight Kubrick's editing
> was (he called it the most enjoyable part of film-making after
> shooting and writing) in previous films, can see there is something
> 'wrong' in Eyes Wide Shut. Kubrick even re-edited 2001 after the first
> theatrical run. Had he lived, I am sure the film would not be the same
> print we see today.
Probably, but I don't really care.
The editing in EWS, to me, is very good.
(So is the sound design.)
I think the editing in EWS shows Kubrick's usual precision in laying
out the story; I certainly like the flow and the rhythem of the film.
The overall editing of the film also reveals a concept of cinematic
storytelling that I think is typically Kubrick; the way he handles
shots and mise-en-scene, how shots, elements, characters, events, etc,
"mirror" eachother within the overall structure of the film. Because
of this concept, in which editing has an important constructive role,
it is possible to see "connections" between, for instance, the Ziegler
Christmas party and the Somerton sequence, the supposed "orgy".
And I also very much like the cut to the mask, at the end. It is a
surprising one, a chilling one, not edited in a conventional way; like
it is a preceding point of view; we first see the "point of view",
then see the one who sees the object. It is much like Nick Nightingale
and Bill are "connected" by the editing, at Ziegler's Christmas party;
we first see Nightingale, then we see Bill who sees Nightingale. Here,
also, the point of view seems to come first, followed by the shot that
establishes the "source" of that point of view. It is because of that
second shot, Bill seeing Nick, that the preceding shot, becomes a
subjective shot, in a way.
The first shot kind of plays with that, I think: is it an objective
shot or a subjective shot? It certainly feels like a highly subjective
shot. That shot is like the "d.n.a." of the film ánd of it's editing;
the way the objective is connected with the subjective. A highlight of
this is the Somerton sequence; a sequence of "seeing" and "looking",
of "looking at" or "being watched" etc, about being "masked" and being
"unmasked"... The flow of shots when Bill looks up at the man on the
balcony; another example of how Kubrick first cuts to a shot that at
first "seems" objective, but that already has an eerie subjective
quality, followed by Bill looking up, thus "confirming" this whole
subjective and mental sense of what is going on.
The whole editing of EWS, to me, reveals a brilliantly conceived
cinematic concept, brilliant because of it's overall structure, the
way it is able to provoke the multilayered interpretation, the ongoing
quest for "meaning" that is triggered, for a great deal, by the way
this film is edited. There's a great deal of intelligence behind and
underneath that concept and the way it is revealed is through it's
editing.
d.a.
Gordon Dahlquist
On 4 Dec 2002, Josh wrote:
> As for EWS, if he had lived to see its release, it's possible he would have
> made some trims between studio previews and early screenings before it's final
> wide release. Some of the color timing might have been done different, the
> sound mix might have been slightly different, whatever. He may have trimmed a
> shot here or there, but I can't imagine there would have been any scenes
> removed or any content radically altered. I don't think an interview in 1980
> where he talks about preferring not to use dissolves means anything in
> reference to EWS. The dissolves seem to fit in with the mood of the film and
> its pacing.
if his other films are anything to judge by, he would have been fiddling
with it until the moment the prints were made, and possibly even more
after the preview. with several months to go between the date of his
death and the film's release, it's extremely likely that, had he lived, he
would have made changes to the film. in fact, not doing so would have
been postively abnormal behavior.
certainly, as has been pointed out, he would have been personally involved
in deciding what to do about the orgy scene, and the ratings question (and
who knows, had he been alive, that whole issue might have been contested
in a different way) - whether the scene would have been re-edited, reshot,
or "simply" gone with the solution we now have in the us version (and
anty suggestion that what we have is "what he wanted" is disingenuous at
best). there are a couple of other minor moments - the chris isaak sound
cue - where things probably would have been cleaned up. beyond that, it's
speculation - I think he would have kept working on the pool table scene,
personally - but I don't think we can rule anything out. he did, after
all, decide to remove a major multi-scene sub-plot from fmj, as well as
significantly alter that film's ending as it was shot. I don't know when
in the editing process these decisions were made, but it's well known
that he continued to make decisions - like changing the ending of the
shining, post-preview - up to the very last minute.
ews is a finished film like the castle is a finished novel. we take what
we have, and treat it as such - it is as such, now - and read backwards
the intentionality of every moment. that said, I think even a cursory
comparison with his other films indicates that he would have continued to
work on it, not that we'll ever know what that work would have been.
Darth Nub
> Where Warners is at fault is their treatment of the film's video/DVD
> release. The camera reflection was digitally removed from the bathroom
> overdose scene. Nicole Kidman's line "we made love" was overdubbed as
> "you and I made love", and the 'Bhagavad Gita' recital was cut from
> the orgy sequence. None of these changes were Kubrick-approved.
>
> Mat.
>
> www.matthewhunt.com/kubrick.html
This is the first I've heard of these alterations, but I have looked
for the reflection in the bathroom & couldn't see it. Kubrick might
have done the same thing. Had it been unaltered, it should have been
there - the DVD was supposedly made from the original 1:1.37 negative,
so there wouldn't be any cropping or pan-and-scanning.
The overdubbing? Can't comment, as I don't have a cinema print to look
at. Are you sure? I can't see any reason behind it.
Removing the 'Bhgavad Gita' recital does sound like something Warners
might have done to avoid those looming lawsuits & controversy.
Darth
Angel C. Little
news:e5addd88.02120...@posting.google.com...
According to IMDB.com, the Region 3 DVD release for EWS has
the recital fully intact.
--
Angel C. Little
Bring Back Stone Cold Steve Austin Petition -
http://www.petitiononline.com/3162002/petition.html
FRED of LA
imo, all of Kubrick's authorized re-editing in the world would not have
saved EWS from the massive gobs of (intentionally?) turgid dialogue in
the screenplay as written.
i will always believe that EWS was Kubrick telling Hollywood (ie.,
Warner Brothers) to take it up the ass by delivering an this very
tongue-in-cheek faux-porn moviestar melodrama.
he gave them what they likely wanted: Tom, Nicole and bevy of big
titted women at a midnight sexy orgy.
i believe it was Ezra Pound who said, "every age demands an image."
if this is true, Kubrick probably still managed to hit his intended
target with this perfectly jaded swan song.
sadly, it appears that only Kubrick himself will ever fully understand
the real intention of this big budgeted joke of a movie.
even his biggest fan's still take EWS so seriously.
....go figure.
yup.
Mr. Kubrick was indeed a brilliantly subversive artist right to the
bitter end.
Bruce Law
that it is tongue-in-cheek, nor is there anything faintly erotic about the
film when compared to most Hollywood erotica (Basic Instinct et al).
I realise yours wasn't a criticism of Kubrick but I feel you've done this
film a great disservice but not appreciating that it takes itself entirely
seriously and is not intended (nor reads as, to most people) a big finger up
to Hollywood. Anyhow, how would Kubrick have intended it as a swan song? Did
he know he was about to cop it?
Bruce
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