A mask, from Eyes Wide Shut
Kubrick’s Final Film
Ilana Mercer grabs more shut-eye
Stanley Kubrick’s farewell film, Eyes Wide Shut, has turned 20. I reviewed it for a Canadian newspaper on August 9, 1999, and found it not only pretentious and overrated, but something of a snooze. This flick is the last in a series of stylized personal projects for which the director became known. Given the mystique Kubrick acquired or cultivated, this posthumous flop is unlikely to damage the legend.
For all the film’s textured detail, its yarn is threadbare and its subtext replete with clumsy symbolism. The screenplay consists of labored, repetitive and truncated dialogue, where every exchange involves protracted, pregnant stares and furrowed brows. “I am a doctor,” is Dr Bill Hartford’s stock-phrase. An obscure, campy, hotel desk clerk delivers the only sterling performance. This is cold comfort, considering the viewer is stuck with over two hours of Hartford’s halfhearted, libidinous quests.
“Eyes” is really a conventional morality play during which Hartford, played by Tom Cruise, prowls the streets of New York in his seldom-removed undertaker’s overcoat, in search of relief from his sexual jealousy. His jealousy is aroused by a fantasy that his wife Alice—played by then real-life wife Nicole Kidman—relays in a moment of spite, and involves her sexual desire for a naval officer she glimpsed while on holiday. So strong was her passion, she confides, that she would have abandoned all for this stranger. Continue reading
Letter to the Editor
Letter to the Editor
SIR –
How should Boris Johnson deal with the Bill which requires that he seek a further extension from the EU, expected to be on the Statute Book by Monday 9th September?
When asked “What will you do if Parliament passes a Bill which obligates you as PM to go to the EU and seek an extension to the leaving date?”, Johnson has made some indeterminate responses, such as “I would rather die in a ditch”. At no point before the 31st should he say that he will ignore the new law. Rather, he should continue making indeterminate statements and for two reasons: (1) because if he says that he will not obey the law, that will probably prompt legal action from the likes of Gina Miller and John Major and (2) because if he has not flouted the new law or said that he will flout it, it will be difficult for the Remainer gang to take any political action against him.
On 31st October, Boris Johnson should simply decline to ask the EU for a further extension. That will get us out of the EU with a no deal Brexit because the Remainers will not be able to act quickly enough to stop the UK leaving by default.
At that point Johnson, on the face of it, would have failed to obey the law. But what penalty could he incur? It is a fair bet that there is no penalty stipulated in the Act. Likewise, what other criminal offence will he have committed? That being so, all that the Commons could do would be to launch a vote of no confidence.
A vote of no confidence could also result in a general election, if no new government can be found within 14 days, the thing Remainers fear most. But whatever happens, after the 31st October, by using the strategy I have laid out, the UK would have left the EU and could only be drawn back in by a future UK government applying to re-join. Moreover, it is difficult to see how such an application could be made without a new referendum, given that the decision to leave was itself made by referendum.
Robert Henderson, 6th September
*************************************
Editorial endnote. Stop the press! The Prime Minister has reportedly stated that he is prepared to break the law. Tempus fugit…
Share this:
Like this: