Kubrick's
masterpiece in the making
The truth, they say, is
out there. But when it comes to Eyes Wide Shut, the latest film by the planet's most elusive film-maker, Stanley Kubrick,
the truth is locked in a box and buried on a distant island, surrounded by
armed guards and snarling Dobermans.
We exaggerate.
Slightly.
Eyes Wide Shut is Kubrick's first film for nine
years, and the gestation period is ever-lengthening. As director, producer and
editor, he assumes total control, and can apparently adjust the movie's
schedule to please himself.
So far, Eyes Wide
Shut has been shooting for a breath-taking 67 weeks. Filming began in November
1996; it was due to finish in spring '97, then summer, then autumn. The latest
completion date was said to have been last month. Now, we calculate, the movie
may be finished, post-production and all, by Christmas.
And because
Kubrick is a man beset by strange obsessions, paranoias, phobias and fears -
many of which involve travel and prevent him from flying - the movie has been
made wholly within the UK and mostly at Pinewood Studios in London. In
September last year, shooting took place briefly in the City, where Worship
Street was turned into a New York thoroughfare. At Christmas.
So, this
mega-movie is being made beneath our noses, and has been shooting for more than
a year. Yet it remains the film industry's biggest enigma, a puzzle which
becomes more intriguing each time another little nugget of information is
leaked.
Some people will
talk about Eyes Wide Shut, though they remain nameless. We know, therefore,
that the screenplay is based on the controversial 1920s novel Traumnovelle by
the Austrian writer Arthur Schnitzler, published in this country under the
title Rhapsody: A Dream Novel. The book is about a Viennese doctor and his
wife, their erotic dreams and daylight obsessions. Hence the film's paradoxical
title.
Kubrick has
updated the plot, and made New York its location. He may, indeed, have changed
the book's plot so radically that the final film bears little relation to it.
It is, however,
safe to say that Eyes Wide Shut is a twisted love story, featuring sexual
obsession and drugs. We know about the drugs because Kubrick has hired a drugs
consultant - Clive Froggatt, the disgraced former doctor who devised government
health service reforms before admitting to heroin addiction. He is believed to
be advising specifically on scenes which depict the results of a heroin
overdose.
We also know that
the screenplay was written by Frederic Raphael. The writer confessed the fact
to us during a tense telephone conversation, and then said: "I really
can't talk about it. Stanley has sworn me to secrecy. I'm sorry. Goodbye."
We know that the
stars - Hollywood husband and wife Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman - have been
forced to make London their home for more than a year. They have been here,
indeed, for rather longer: London was the location for the filming of Mission:
Impossible, in which Cruise starred, and so the couple moved to England for a
brief spell in 1995.
Eyes Wide Shut was
originally to have starred Harvey Keitel, too, but he was sacked earlier last
year. Try to find out why and telephone receivers slam down in response.
Cruise and Kidman
play psychologists, presumably a modern version of the Viennese doctor and his
wife; Keitel was playing a stalker.
The two
principals lead a low-profile life in London, though they have become
semi-permanent fixtures within London's classiest social circles. They are
often seen at the theatre - in particular at the Donmar Warehouse on Earlham
Street. Nicole Kidman is occasionally found sharing a large table at the Greek
Street club Soho House. Favoured restaurants include La Famiglia in Chelsea,
Nobu in the Metropolitan Hotel and, of course, The Ivy in Covent Garden. The
capital's up-market shops - Space NK Apothecary, Tobias and the Angel, The
Cross, Browns - have all had cause to swipe the Cruise and Kidman platinum
credit cards. The couple have settled in London and Hertfordshire with apparent
ease, their two adopted children benefiting from the privacy - secrecy, indeed
- which surrounds the Kubrick enterprise.
And Kubrick
demands absolute loyalty to his movie. The director of A Clockwork Orange,
2001: A Space Odyssey and Full Metal Jacket is a man for whom the phrase
"hands on" might have been coined. He oversees the design, production
and printing of the posters in every country where the film is released. He
personally works on the dubbing of French, Italian and German trailers for his
films. He is known to impose his own rules: all drivers on Eyes Wide Shut, for
example, must not exceed 35mph - on his orders.
Kidman and Cruise
have kept their discreet side of the bargain, and have said very little about
their roles, other than to confirm that the director deals with each of them
separately. "When you see the film, you'll understand why," Kidman
has said, intriguingly.
With the exception of Keitel's hurried departure, however, Kubrick
appears to run a happy film-set. And despite his perfectionism - Tom Cruise was
once required to weep on cue for 37 takes - he seems in other respects a normal
sort of person. Whenever he can, he watches the soap
opera Eastenders. He is a keen football fan, an Arsenal supporter.
It is also hard
to find anyone who disputes his genius. For that reason, when the armed guards
finally release Kubrick's new movie, most pundits expect to see a masterpiece.
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