> But as for "Eyes Wide Shut," while I appreciated the artistry, it seemed
completely disconnected from anything.
What would you have wanted it connected to? Must a work of art connect to something or can its existence and beauty be enough?
> The orgy scenes were only slightly less interesting than paint drying...
As Kubrick intended. The last thing they were supposed to be were erotic. The eroticism is in the tracking camera moves and the editing on the gaze.
The lack of eroticism also helps to set up (among other things) Alice Harford's final line:"Fuck." Beat. Cut to black.
> and the anti-semitism completely gratuitous.
Where was that?
The wonderful film critic David Ehrenstein (full disclosure: a dear and close friend) points out that a recurring theme in Kubrick's work is the exclusion of the main character from the elite reflecting Kubrick's status as a Jew and his own problematic position within the film industry: a giant whose films were often dumped into theaters. As he wrote:
Dealing with sexual guilt in the manner that it does "EWS" is Kurbrick's second-most-Jewish movie."Barry Lyndon" being the all-time champ with its message of "If you try and rise above your station God will get even with you and cut off your leg."
Kubrick complicates the situation by placing a menorah in the Harford apartment which is visually overwhelmed by the Christmas tree. But once Dr. Bill has finished his adventure, he comes home and switches off the lights on the tree as if he is turning off his efforts to appear Christian. Then for another layer of complexity add Sidney Pollack's delicious turn as Zeigler which can be read as a performance on several levels: the character who seems Jewish may not be and the character who appears WASP may be a Jew who has decided to abandon his performance/mask. Harford's switching off the lights on the tree is preceded by a shot of his mask lying on his pillow. Did Alice put it there? Was it left there as a warning? The shot is also bathed in a blue light which was previously used in the taxi cab scene where Harford appears "maskless" and is reminiscent of the shot of Pyle in the bathroom in FULL METAL JACKET just before he goes bonkers (both shots also share a discrete zoom-in).
Dennis:
> But I thought the early scene of Cruise and Kidman at the posh X-mas
party, where they each flirt heavily with other people, was very erotic.
Very.
Because clothed sensuality is more erotic than naked sexuality. Kubrick also instructed his co-screenwriter to avoid any traces of wit in the screenplay so that the film would not come off as some latter day revival of 1940's romantic comedy.
Brian