Tom Cruise explains why Stanley Kubrick’s ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ was misunderstood
One of the greatest directors in history bowed out in a style befitting their reputation, with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman dedicating well over a year of their lives to the production of Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut.
Setting a world record for the longest-ever continuous film shoot at 400 consecutive days, the combination of erotic drama and psychological thriller marked the filmmaker’s final feature before his passing and opened itself up to heated debate and intense scrutiny.
Initially, critics and audiences weren’t quite sure what to make of it, with Kubrick’s luxurious examination of love, lust, and the human psyche proving to be surprisingly polarising. In Cruise’s mind, though, he was convinced that Eyes Wide Shut was facing an uphill battle before it had even been released.
The star admitted that “people had a preconception” of what the film was going to be, and as a result, it “affected the picture”. When being interviewed by Cameron Crowe for Vanity Fair, Cruise expanded on his belief by laying out how the more salacious aspects of the story were the ones to generate the most headlines heading into Eyes Wide Shut landing in cinemas in July 1999.
“There were rumours out there about how Stanley was going to make a pornographic picture. But that wasn’t the movie he was making,” he said. “You can see that they didn’t quite grasp what the movie was, even when they saw it, because they carried the baggage in.” Cruise then pinpointed the trailer as the source of the misunderstanding, which he referred to as “the first stage” for Kubrick.
“You have to understand: it’s Stanley Kubrick. It’s not going to be what you think it is. And he’s not going to tell you everything. So even the people who think they know Stanley Kubrick’s movies, missed it,” he continued. “Because whatever preconception you have, you’ve got to take it on its own merits and not the surrounding elements.”
Having been on the ground floor, Cruise was fully aware that somebody like Kubrick was never going to make a ‘sex movie’ in the broadest sense, but he was nonetheless mystified that even those who’d been following the filmmaker’s career for years – if not decades – couldn’t seem to grasp Eyes Wide Shut as anything other than a voyeuristic slice of eroticism sold on the back of one of Hollywood’s most famous married couples playing the lead roles.
It’s not often Kubrick tends to be misunderstood when his intentions are regularly clear for all to see, but the early assessment of Eyes Wide Shut was that of wanton titillation, something Cruise adamantly believed had an impact on the reception of the film itself. It was hardly panned, but nor was it lauded to the same extent as the auteur’s assorted masterworks, and the actor was confident he knew exactly why.
