
Staging That Scene from ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ - wallflower
https://www.vulture.com/2019/06/eyes-wide-shut-orgy-scene-oral-history.html
======
adwi
If you’re interested in this article / Kubrick, I highly recommend you watch
the documentary Filmworker[0], which is a beautiful portrait of Leon Vitali
[1], Stanley’s long term assistant quoted in this article.

He was cast in Barry Lyndon in 1974 and, after experiencing Kubrick’s genius
and work ethic up close, gave up a promising acting career to devote his life
to helping him achieve his vision— at great personal sacrifice. It’s moving,
and helps explain the true cost of artistic excellence.

[0]
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PEZ2r1YGKSA](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PEZ2r1YGKSA)
[1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Vitali](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Vitali)

------
debatem1
I often hear that this director or that film was
genius/groundbreaking/important and upon watching it fail to understand what I
was supposed to be looking for. To those of you who are better versed in this
sort of thing than I am, how did you come to know what you know?

For example, I had a friend a few weeks back tell me that a particular scene
in the movie we were watching was the first time a cinematography technique
(whose name, along with the movie in question, I've now forgotten) was used.
Knowing the history of it might simply be an exercise in good trivia
retention, but understanding the technique and even knowing its name would
seem to be something very different. How do you learn that?

~~~
markoman
Its likely that most people watch a movie with an aim towards tracking the
plot, so that the movie makes sense. Still, you get a sense for the director
or cinematographer's talent/style by watching a film even more broadly. It
takes a few examples and then you are sensitized to the idea.

Consider the opening shot from Boogie Nights (1997) which is available here
[0]. If you watched it and came back here, would you have noticed that it was
done all in one take (without a single cut, until the one right before the end
of the video) aka the 'long take' technique. Apart from the fact that it was a
crane and a steadicam being used, think of the immense work required to
coordinate all the actors and crew so that a minimum of takes were required to
achieve this desired outcome. (And, that director Paul Thomas Anderson was
about 27 when it was shot.) This is the stylism of the director shining
through.

One blog's assessment of the best movies openings is in [1] and might offer
some insight as well...

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiXtFyZqvQQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiXtFyZqvQQ)
[1] [https://youtu.be/dEXX7w2la0Q](https://youtu.be/dEXX7w2la0Q)

~~~
e40
Loved your comment.

And before Boogie Nights there's a history of it in Cinema:

[http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2016/the-10-longest-unbroken-
sh...](http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2016/the-10-longest-unbroken-shots-in-
cinema-history/) the ones earlier than Boogie Nights:

Nostalghia (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1983, 9m20s) Rope (Alfred Hitchcock, 1948,
1h20m)

and this came out about the same time, so I'm pretty sure they had overlapping
production:

Snake Eyes (Brian De Palma, 1998, 12m57s)

~~~
Mediterraneo10
> Rope (Alfred Hitchcock, 1948, 1h20m)

As Hitchcock explained in the Hitchbook, that is not an unbroken shot, merely
an illusion of one. Film reels at the time just weren't long enough.

------
xamuel
Kubrick films often have amazing optical illusions of the "once you see it,
you can't unsee it" form. In EWS, it's the mask on the pillow. Watch the film
enough and you'll suddenly realize what Bill really sees when he walks in that
room: he sees his wife sleeping with another man (the mask is the other man).
Somehow the way the wife and the mask are positioned, you can "see" the entire
outline of the other man, even though he's nothing but a mask. And now, you'll
never see Eyes Wide Shut as the same movie ever again :)

~~~
givan
The Shining also has many of these
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_u4A5tJ2j3o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_u4A5tJ2j3o)

~~~
AlexMuir
To save anyone else this pointless click: that video is total nonsense and the
ramblings of a moon landing conspiracy theoryist.

~~~
Joeboy
It's an excerpt from a feature length documentary called Room 237. Taken as a
whole, it's a pretty fun, non-judgmental tour through some colourful
interpretations and theories surrounding Kubrick and The Shining. I don't
think it's actually intended to convert anybody to moon landing skepticism.

~~~
JetSpiegel
[https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/31/movies/aide-to-kubrick-
on...](https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/31/movies/aide-to-kubrick-on-shining-
scoffs-at-room-237-theories.html)

> “I stood staring at all that stuff for weeks while we were shooting in that
> room. It’s a downhill skier. It’s a downhill skier. It’s not a Minotaur.”

Etc, etc. Room 237 is not only the ravings of madmen, it has a bit right st
the start where a guy is talking over The Shining shots, a baby starts crying
on the background (of the guy talking) and they stop and discuss that. I
turned it off in disgust after that.

------
mynameishere
The article dismisses the various theories ("Illuminati", etc) about the film
by pointing out that powerful people in fact have fairly sordid affairs rather
than satanic/black mass/ritualistic events.

It's worth pointing out that Sydney Pollack's character uses this same exact
argument _in the film_ (in the billiard scene). "We fucked her brains out, the
end." Clearly, that was not what was happening in the movie, and that wasn't
the point of the movie either.

The article mentions Jeff Bezos, but they might have mentioned Jeffrey Epstein
instead. For instance.

~~~
microwavecamera
Regardless of what the article posits, the movie was based on actual secret
societies. I'm pretty sure Kubrick was trying to tell us something.

 _Anthony Frewin (assistant to Stanley Kubrick):

I had a friend who lived in the south of France, G. Legman. He supplied us
with a lot of information about secret societies and sexual mores in Vienna at
the time of Schnitzler. He also sent over a lot of illustrations of secret-
society rituals and the Black Mass, mainly from the 19th century. We had a lot
of illustrations, contemporary and even much older, of some ceremonies._

~~~
bencollier49
That's a tautology. The film involved a secret society with sexual elements,
so they lifted the recognisable _aesthetics_ of some secret societies,
particularly ones which involved, or purported to involve, naked ladies.
There's no philosophy in there, and the costumes and rituals were a
lightweight confection from a bunch of different sources. It's not like he was
going to have them dress up in giant rabbit outfits and play kazoos.

Unless your point is that he features a monied sex cult so he's saying that
they're somehow endemic. That seems rather a stretch.

~~~
microwavecamera
That's an oddly specific response to something that was never said. My point
and the overall arch of what I think Kubrick was implying in EWS is that these
people exist and people in positions of power we would otherwise hold in high
social regard are no different or ethical than anyone else and more often less
so. What's the difference between a corrupt elite "secret society" verses the
Mafia and organized crime syndicates? Socially we tend not to view them as
morally equivalent because one group is at the top echelon of society while
the other are just lowly "criminals" when in fact there is no difference.

~~~
bencollier49
"that these people exist"

Thats what I was responding to. I disagree, because the cult in the film is a
device, not the central point of the film. The same logic would conclude that
Kubric believes that there are obelisk gateways to hyperspace orbiting
Jupiter.

------
harry8
"No Botox, no breast enhancements, anything like that. I made it very clear to
everybody who came and their agents. But there were a couple of times when we
[agreed to use] somebody and their agents actually made them go out and get
breast enhancements. "

Hollywood is vile. "Let us mutilate you because you have a dream that will
otherwise die." Yeah they're all adults. It's still vile.

~~~
bostik
> _Hollywood is vile. "Let us mutilate you because you have a dream that will
> otherwise die."_

If there was a way to condense that one to just a few words, it would make one
hell of a T-shirt slogan.

~~~
cgio
If you don’t wake up, the dream never dies.

Or

Body chop, dream shop.

------
dmix
I've never watched a Kubrick film I didn't like. I don't think there's another
filmmaker I could say the same about.

I even found Kubrick's college-aged first movie he made (Fear & Desire) on
BitTorrent, which he later tried to buy up and destroy because he didn't like
it, and even _that_ was a nice and very watchable low-budget war story.

------
gwern
> "You know, there’s apparently an Eyes Wide Shut club in L.A. They actually
> have women there in masks and guys in evening suits who patronize them. I’ve
> never been. It’s somewhere up in the Hollywood Hills, or around that area.
> When we were shooting, somebody said — I think it was Tom — “Do you think
> these places really exist?” And Stanley said, “Well, if they don’t, they
> will soon.”"

~~~
Animats
Oh, that's "Snctm". Costs $10K a year.

There was more of that sort of thing back in the 1990s. It was never that big.
An event organizer once told me that the pool of people who go to things like
that in SF was about 400. If you went to the SF Fetish Ball and the London
Fetish Ball, you saw many of the same people.

It kind of died off with goth.

~~~
9380q1
It's now for sale including a claimed client list of 100,000.

[https://radaronline.com/exclusives/2019/06/hollywood-
stars-f...](https://radaronline.com/exclusives/2019/06/hollywood-stars-fear-
sale-private-sex-club/)

------
intopieces
Disappointing that the article doesn't mention the fact that the non-CGI'd
version of the movie does exist on DVD, but not Blu-Ray. That scene was
beyond-R rating at the time, but in the 20 years since it's certainly not.

Along with the International cut of The Shining, I wish we could get, in the
US, what are certainly the best versions of Kubrick's work. In the case of
EWS, the CGI people covering the sex is distracting and silly. The movie is
meant to be erotic and surreal.

~~~
Mediterraneo10
I think the fact that the Blu-ray version is non-CGI has to do with the fact
that 1) after years had passed, it was assumed that customers know what they
are getting into, and 2) over the first decade of the new millennium, studios
began supplying "non-rated" cuts to the home rental market – with raunchy
scenes beyond the R-rated cut – and it was not met with much outrage from the
morals police.

> I wish we could get, in the US, what are certainly the best versions of
> Kubrick's work.

You can always torrent a European Blu-ray.

------
kstenerud
I've always like Kubrick's films, but this one was lost on me. I kept looking
for some deeper meaning than a big secret get together where rich people have
sex and for some reason everyone finds it sinister and titillating.

~~~
throwaway13337
It's about the status-driven whores we all are.

Everyone in the movie is clearly from one social class or another and is made
starkly aware of it.

The men are buying power over one another while the women are literal whores -
even the doctor's wife - sex toys & arm candy for whomever they can gather the
most status/money from.

------
samch93
Highly recommend the novel which provides the basis for this movie
„Traumnovelle“ by Arthur Schnitzler
([https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traumnovelle](https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traumnovelle)).
The novel seems to be heavily influenced by Freudian psycho analysis, I also
think the location of Vienna at the beginning of the 20th century is very
interesting.

------
cheez
I ran in the circles depicted in the movie for a very short while, and
although I never attended one, these type of parties definitely do exist.
Though I think they use high end prostitutes.

------
zaroth
The bit about the film being recalled to rescore the music in the orgy scene,
because it inadvertently includes some verses from a Hindu scripture...

Led me to this interview which is pretty interesting;

[https://m.rediff.com/%0D%0Anews/1999/jul/26us2.htm](https://m.rediff.com/%0D%0Anews/1999/jul/26us2.htm)

------
lostgame
This is my absolute favourite film of all time. For those who enjoy it, I
highly recommend 'Lolita' \- IMHO it is underwetched and underappreciated.
Peter Sellers is absolutely fantastic.

------
jancsika
> I said to the other girls, “If you do this, that’s a completely different
> scenario. I would ask for more money if I were you.”

So what happened?

------
meitham
>>> "The rich are too busy screwing the world over to screw each other with
any imagination."

This has been true so far, but the bigger the gap between the rich and poor
the more Victorian rich society descend into.

