- Joined
- Jun 10, 2003
- Messages
- 26,359
- Real Name
- Josh Steinberg
I remember when EWS came out, I wasn't even old enough to see an R rated movie without a parent! I begged my dad (and finally got him to agree) to leave work wicked early that Friday so I could see the very first showing at my local theater. (Whether or not I'd be allowed to see it was never in question.) I also remember at the time people being disappointed that it wasn't some sort of X rated porno flick with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman going at it for two hours.
Janet Maslin writing in the New York Times wrote a beautiful review of the film that I really think captured what it was about. (Rumor has it that she was forced out of her job there as head critic at least in part over that review.) You can still find it on the New York Times website, and it's well-worth reading, regardless of what your opinion of the film is.
It was the first Stanley Kubrick movie I had waited for; Full Metal Jacket had come out so many years before that it was before I was conscious of film in that way. So after seeing 2001 and then every other Kubrick film, EWS was one I waited years for, always hearing rumors, never quite believing any of the gossip, anticipating what might follow. Kubrick's death was a major blow, but the one bit of silver lining was that the film was finished, or close enough to finished that it could be shown. I have no doubt that had Kubrick not died right then, he would have fine tuned it up until the very last minute, but I don't think it would have been much different. Maybe a shorter or longer shot here or there, a different take or a cut in a different place, but I can't imagine any substantial changes being made.
The film blew me away. A serious film made for thinking adults about sexuality, never once giggling at its own subject matter. This came out around the same time American Pie did, and I remember thinking even then that there was something wrong with a ratings system that would declare both films "R", essentially saying that the content and appropriateness of said content and suggested audience should be the same. The digital figures didn't make the film any more or less appropriate, it just made a mockery of the MPAA. When I finally saw a version of the scene without the figures, I was shocked -- not at what they were hiding, but that the MPAA could be so petty. Anyhow, I digress.
Kubrick's brilliant use of color and texture, exaggerated lighting, getting such a grainy look (one that hasn't been faithfully reproduced on DVD, in either the original release or the new special edition)... what a mood it set. (To see this film without the beautifully pronounced grain structure prominent in the theatrical release is almost as bad as watching 2001 on video.) The film weaves in and out like a dream, something that goes between daydream and nightmare and back again, something that sought to examine what (to steal from a U2 song) is the mysterious distance between a man and a woman. As I've grown older and experienced more of what life has to offer, my appreciation for the film has only grown. It's Kubrick's most seductive work for sure, probably among his least understood, and the only movie that I actually own a 35mm trailer for. (Not that that has anything to do with anything.) Plain and simple, it's a masterpiece. This is a beautiful, delicate film, where every bit of lighting, use of color, light and shadow and darkness, impacts my emotions as much as the plot or the acting. That's not to say that those things are lacking, but to point out how brilliantly Kubrick has mastered his craft.
Like most other Kubrick films, I wish I could see this again for the first time. 2001 is and probably always will be my favorite, but EWS may very well be a close second. For me at least, it certainly has earned a place in the conversation, along with Dr. Strangelove. It's not a film I watch very often (it's long, to begin with, I wouldn't cut a thing but you don't always have 160 minutes), but when I do, it blows me away each and every time.
Besides, how many other movies can you think of where Tom Cruise is chased down an empty New York City street by a single piano note?
Janet Maslin writing in the New York Times wrote a beautiful review of the film that I really think captured what it was about. (Rumor has it that she was forced out of her job there as head critic at least in part over that review.) You can still find it on the New York Times website, and it's well-worth reading, regardless of what your opinion of the film is.
It was the first Stanley Kubrick movie I had waited for; Full Metal Jacket had come out so many years before that it was before I was conscious of film in that way. So after seeing 2001 and then every other Kubrick film, EWS was one I waited years for, always hearing rumors, never quite believing any of the gossip, anticipating what might follow. Kubrick's death was a major blow, but the one bit of silver lining was that the film was finished, or close enough to finished that it could be shown. I have no doubt that had Kubrick not died right then, he would have fine tuned it up until the very last minute, but I don't think it would have been much different. Maybe a shorter or longer shot here or there, a different take or a cut in a different place, but I can't imagine any substantial changes being made.
The film blew me away. A serious film made for thinking adults about sexuality, never once giggling at its own subject matter. This came out around the same time American Pie did, and I remember thinking even then that there was something wrong with a ratings system that would declare both films "R", essentially saying that the content and appropriateness of said content and suggested audience should be the same. The digital figures didn't make the film any more or less appropriate, it just made a mockery of the MPAA. When I finally saw a version of the scene without the figures, I was shocked -- not at what they were hiding, but that the MPAA could be so petty. Anyhow, I digress.
Kubrick's brilliant use of color and texture, exaggerated lighting, getting such a grainy look (one that hasn't been faithfully reproduced on DVD, in either the original release or the new special edition)... what a mood it set. (To see this film without the beautifully pronounced grain structure prominent in the theatrical release is almost as bad as watching 2001 on video.) The film weaves in and out like a dream, something that goes between daydream and nightmare and back again, something that sought to examine what (to steal from a U2 song) is the mysterious distance between a man and a woman. As I've grown older and experienced more of what life has to offer, my appreciation for the film has only grown. It's Kubrick's most seductive work for sure, probably among his least understood, and the only movie that I actually own a 35mm trailer for. (Not that that has anything to do with anything.) Plain and simple, it's a masterpiece. This is a beautiful, delicate film, where every bit of lighting, use of color, light and shadow and darkness, impacts my emotions as much as the plot or the acting. That's not to say that those things are lacking, but to point out how brilliantly Kubrick has mastered his craft.
Like most other Kubrick films, I wish I could see this again for the first time. 2001 is and probably always will be my favorite, but EWS may very well be a close second. For me at least, it certainly has earned a place in the conversation, along with Dr. Strangelove. It's not a film I watch very often (it's long, to begin with, I wouldn't cut a thing but you don't always have 160 minutes), but when I do, it blows me away each and every time.
Besides, how many other movies can you think of where Tom Cruise is chased down an empty New York City street by a single piano note?
