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Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
Eyes Wide Shut is a 1999 erotic psychological mystery thriller film directed, produced, and co-written by Stanley Kubrick, and starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. The plot centers on a Manhattan doctor who is shocked when his wife reveals that she contemplated cheating on him. He embarks on a night-long adventure and infiltrates a masked orgy of a secret society. It is based on the 1926 novella Dream Story by…
Directed by Stanley Kubrick · Shot by Larry Smith · Music by Franz Liszt, Dmitri Shostakovich · Ratio 1.85:1 · 159 min
How it was made
- Kubrick filmed many scenes upward of 70 times to break down his actors; one shot of Tom Cruise walking through a door was filmed 95 times.
- Cinematographer Larry Smith lit scenes using practical sources visible in frame, such as lamps and Christmas tree lights, supplementing with Chinese paper lanterns when needed, and push-processed the film to intensify colour and brighten highlights.
- Kubrick sent production designers to Manhattan to measure street widths and note the positions of newspaper vending machines before building a recreation of Greenwich Village at Pinewood Studios.
- The masks used in the orgy sequence were sourced to match those worn at the Venetian carnival and shipped to London, where Kubrick personally chose which mask each performer would wear.
- Filming took place exclusively at night over what Guinness World Records recognised as the longest constant movie shoot, including an unbroken 46-week stretch.
Behind the scenes
Elsewhere
More by Stanley Kubrick
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