Customer Reviews

Eyes Wide Shut (Bfi Modern Classics)

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Stanley Kubrick must have been habituated to negative reviews, given the controversy that many of his films inspired. Still, there was something poignant about seeing Eyes Wide Shut scathed by the critics when Kubrick himself had just passed away. It is a great film, a masterpiece, and yet it seemed so vulnerable there without the director himself able to lend his considerable energy to its defense. Apparently everyone was expecting a Tom and Nicole lovefest and thus could not see the film for what it was -- a kind of fin-de-siecle film about love, albeit seen in a glass darkly.

Fortunately, defenders of the film are finally emerging from the woods, and at their forefront is Michel Chion. His book -- which is insightful, elegantly written, and unpretentious (a notable quality in film books) -- makes a very strong case for considering Eyes Wide Shut as the work of genius that it no doubt is. He writes with extreme sensitivity to the film's meticulous construction, luminescent cinematography, sinuous psychology, and stylized dialogue. Attentive to the smallest of details, Chion demonstrates how a simple transition shot -- Tom Cruise entering an apartment and knocking on a bedroom door (a scene that Kubrick apparently filmed dozens of times) -- plays an important part in the semantics of the entire film. And those who think of Kubrick as a cinematic purist will be surprised by Chion's convincing analysis of the film's deliberate use of language -- passwords, repetitions, even spelling, as when an incidental character spells her name aloud with such insinuation that no come-on ever sounded so alluring.

It is not always easy to explain the roots of admiration, and sometimes you simply do or do not love a thing -- a book, a film, an artwork. But Chion's book has the great merit of transforming the author's love for the film into insight and exegesis, and perhaps in this way it might inspire admiration in others too...

Michel Chion's book on Eyes Wide Shut may disappoint some looking for a solid, unwavering analysis of the film. Chion offers no such thing. Rather, he approaches the film with a sensitive, keen eye for detail and a penchant for unique and quirky insights. He makes many observations, but has no urge to unite all these observations under one thematic banner, as many are wont to do. That is, Chion observes Eyes Wide Shut as a film full of signifiers, without signifieds. For Chion, there is no signified-in-waiting, no monumental possible revelation of the film's "meaning," that will tie all the patterns and events of the film together. This is somewhat refreshing, as most people seek to pin a film down- to make declarative, concrete statements on what the film, without hesitation, is "about."

Chion's love for the film is so seemingly great that he cannot bring himself to pin it down to anything in particular. Which is fine; Eyes Wide Shut is indeed a film brimming with ambuguity, a film in which, as Chion notes, banal and supposedly important lines of dialogue are given the same level of attention and emphasis. (Chion: "The film does not impose on us a hierarchy of what is important and what is not.") All in all, this is a great, fascinating read- though somewhat slight, coming in at just under 100 pages. Anyone infatuated with Eyes Wide Shut would do well to give Chion's book a chance, though with a fair warning not to expect any sort of traditional analysis.

I'm not a film student or a literary expert. I am just a Kubrick fan who always wanted to know more about the director's work. I personally found Eyes Wide Shut intriguing, and always felt that there was more to know about it. I went about and read the novel Traumnovelle, and also read the script. I am very satisfied with Chion's analysis, since it has given me useful details that have helped me understand the film better by paying attention to subtle details. At moments, though, I felt that the author was rambling without any concise or rigorous view; but I understand that such thing is a part of film analysis. I would highly reccomend this short essay, for people who would like to know more about this wonderful film.

You really need to be a big fan of Stanley Kubrick to appreciate Eyes Wide Shut (the movie or the book). It covers the movie in extraordinary detail pointing out things I hadn't seen or thought of in the many viewings I've made of Kubrick's finale. It refers frequently to the novella it's based on, Traumnovelle, and draws a lot of comparisons to the fin-de-siecle original and the end-of-the-20th century contemporary setting of the movie. Loved this book. Buy it.

When Chion remembers to write about the actual film Eyes Wide Shut, he can be most interesting. His notes on the repetitious dialogue in this film, and in much of Kubrick's work, are very interesting, even if they don't go very far.

Unfortunately, entirely too much of M. Chion's writing is vague and unmoored, unorganized. In the beginning of the essay, Chion makes what must be one of the most ridiculous assertions in the history of film criticism: that Eyes Wide Shut is narrated by Bill and Alice's unborn (and unconceived) son. This little bombshell is dropped into the reader's lap and not explained for several pages, and M. Chion's evidence to support this outlandish claim is, to say the least, unconvincing.

If you want to read an interesting and thought-provoking essay on Eyes Wide Shut, seek out Thomas Allen Nelson's excellent book on Kubrick, entitled Kubrick: Inside A Film Artist's Maze. It is clearly and concisely written, and Nelson never makes an outlandish critical interpretation without rock-solid evidence to back it up. M. Chion would do well to follow Nelson's example.

EYES WIDE SHUT is a beautiful film filled, like most of Stanley Kubrick's movies, with a great deal of ambiguity open for rich interpretation. Michael Chion, the author of this BFI monograph, for the most part fails to deliver.

It is not so much that Chion, like the authors of other BFI movie analyses, devolves into unintelligible post-modernist babble. For the most part, Chion's writing is accessible to the average reader who may be unfamiliar with all the ins and outs of film school analysis. The problem is that Chion's analysis just seems rather empty. I may have gained a point or two out of this book, but not as much as I would have liked and not as much as others in the BFI series have provided.

A large part of the problem is the structure of the book. Chion breaks the book into 34 little subsections (in a book with only 88 pages of text and with a lot of pictures), each one providing a bite sized take on some aspect or another of the film. Yet these are not substantial enough to be satisfying and they are only loosely tied together. The lack of a central organizing structure takes its toll with the result being a book that is not as good as it should have been.

Maybe it is Kubrick's fault, as Eyes Wide Shut is a very obtuse piece of work. As such, I really wanted to learn more about it themes and narratives and film techniques. The BFI books are generally very good, but this specific one is really bad. It is probably the worst piece of nonfiction I've encountered in a long time. Not to be unkind, but Chion provides endless pointless meandering unfocused crazy observations.

I would like to meet the editor who greenlighted this project and ask him or her some questions about that decision.

I think the vast majority of people who read this book will be extremely disappointed in it, as was I. sorry!

Stanley Kubrick was quoted in several books as saying, "I would never argue with (any) interpretation of (my) films."
Smart move. What's been interesting about the criticism of Kubrick's films over the years is the sheer volume and diversity of the interpretations. I remember reading a long Film Comment review of THE SHINING in 1980 that delved into the film's symbolism about America's troubled history of Native Americans and the breakdown of the traditional family.
I thought it was supposed to be horror movie.

For the most part, I enjoyed this BFI book about EYES WIDE SHUT but I thought the volumes about THE EXORCIST and LAST TANGO IN PARIS were more interesting since they were less abstract about their subjects. This particular take on EYES lost me when it tried to say that the film was from the point of view of the son of Tom and Nicole who hadn't been born yet. Huh?
But it's a Kubrick film.
And who can argue with any interpretation?