Warner Bros. re-released some of Stanley Kubrick's films today in re-mastered editions.
EYES WIDE SHUT is now available in R1 in its unexpurgated version, now minus the digitial figures inserted to protect tender American pupils from too much of the old in-out, in-out.
The aspect ratio is 1:78 (a compromise between American 1:85 and European 1:66, but not the 1:37 Kubrick saw through the viewfinder). But Kubrick was such a master that he could compose for all three ratios simultaneously so there is no pan and scan. Since he died before its theatrical release, we do not know what ratio he would have opted for, but he filmed his last three movies open matte, so he probably would have wanted that for EWS on dvd as well (which is what the original release was, but with the stupid digital figures added).
They have kept the provisional sound mix as Kubrick had it at his death, but I have no problem with that. He was a notorious fiddler and certainly would have changed it (he re-cut both 2001 and THE SHINING after their theatrical openings, shearing almost 40 minutes from the latter for its Australian release), so worrying about a definitive version of EWS is a useless pursuit. A rough-draft Kubrick film is a treat in-and-of itself since a viewer acquires a sense of just how meticulous Kubrick was in creating his movies, layering them with incredible richness.
Along with BARRY LYNDON, I find EWS to be his greatest achievement (Kubrick himself thought it was his finest film): a commentary on mercantile society posing as an erotic/psychological thriller. Watching some of it last night also sent a wave of nostalgia through me as I realized that movies with this brand of mise en scene are a thing of the past. The use of space is incredible with Kubrick's moving camera devouring space as quickly as it creates it. The editing too is something from days long gone where it defines space and internal relationships rather than the neomontage that dominates today. (A wonderful commentary on this change is in Dave Kehr's column in the NY Times today about Eisenstein's BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN).
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/23/movies/homevideo/23dvds.html?ref=movies
Also, do not let the grain disturb you: Kubrick wanted it there (he lit all of his late films himself, and EWS is shot almost entirely with available light).
Although an inevitably reduced experience on home video, EWS on a home system still has the elegance that marked late Kubrick where he slows the metabolism of the film down so that the audience can absorb the myriad ambiguities that fill -- almost to the point of overabundance -- each shot. A viewer inhabits Kubrickian space as she does with Sternberg, Cukor, Hawks, Mizoguchi and a handful of others.
Worse than no more Kubrick is the unalterable fact of no more Kubrick movies (A.I. non-withstanding and one of Spielberg's few successes). As Zeigler says: "Life goes on. It always does... until it doesn't. But you know that, don't you, Bill?"
Brian