Every ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ rumour you shouldn’t believe: “His greatest contribution”
Just six days after presenting Warner Bros with the first cut of his film Eyes Wide Shut, Stanley Kubrick died from a heart attack. The film was released several months later, and while some critics were on the fence about the daring piece of work, which took viewers into the mysterious world of a sex cult, many others lauded it as one of the director’s finest achievements.
It’s a film that feels supercharged with seediness and suspicion, with many scenes taking place at night, the streets of New York illuminated in neon as untrustworthy figures emerge from the shadows. Tom Cruise stars as Bill Hartford, a doctor whose reality becomes fractured when his wife, Alice, played by Cruise’s then-wife Nicole Kidman, reveals a fantasy of cheating on him. Eyes Wide Shut is perhaps one of Kubrick’s most thematically complex films, diving into the relationship between desire, control, sex, the commodification of the body, corruption, and distrust.
However, despite the film’s brilliance, discussions around it often focus on various conspiracy theories or false narratives. We’re here to debunk some of the most popular, starting with the questions regarding the final cut of the movie. While some people argue that the film was finished by Kubrick when he screened it for Warner Bros, Cruise, and Kidman, this simply wasn’t the case.
The final version of the film was slightly different, with Kubrick dying before the finishing touches could be made, such as adjustments to music and sound. The obsessive filmmaker certainly would’ve made changes to the film before it was officially released, but he had to deliver a cut of the film for Warner Bros by early March, so who knows what he might have changed if he’d lived to see the movie’s release?
According to Michael Herr, “He had to show it to Tom and Nicole because they had to sign nudity releases,” which suggests that Kubrick might not have reached the final stage of editing the film – he just had a deadline to present a first cut. Thus, following his unfortunate death, others were left to make edits that the filmmaker hadn’t approved of, which made it into the final film.
But did he actually hate the film as several people have claimed? It has long been said that Kubrick wasn’t happy with the movie before he died, with Full Metal Jacket star R Lee Ermey claiming that the director had told him how dissatisfied he was with his work. In fact, the actor claimed that the perfectionistic Kubrick thought it was a “piece of shit”. There are even rumours that Kubrick was ready to ditch the whole film before he finished post-production because he was so unhappy with the project, but this isn’t true.
Jan Harlan, a long-time collaborator of Kubrick’s, doesn’t believe this to be the case. Not only was Harlan his executive producer, but he was also his brother-in-law, which suggests that his opinion is much more trustworthy. Talking to Sight and Sound, Harlan once said, “I am very happy to know that he considered Eyes Wide Shut his greatest contribution to the art of filmmaking – and I think he is the only judge that matters.”
There have also long been rumours about Harvey Keitel’s involvement in the film, with reports suggesting at the time that the actor had to leave the project due to scheduling issues. The real reason is much harsher – Keitel was actually fired by Kubrick after the pair clashed on set. While he might have been a genius, Kubrick wasn’t the easiest to work with, and for Keitel, being treated rudely by his director simply wasn’t going to fly.
The mystery surrounding Eyes Wide Shut has lingered for over 25 years now, but really, there’s not much to conspire about. Kubrick didn’t hate the film, even if the final cut that was released in cinemas was not the final cut he had approved. He was still proud of his work, which remains his final great masterpiece.
