Eyes Wide Shut: a summer blockbuster

 I read yesterday this article from digitaltrends, about Eyes Wide Shut,which has been released 25 years ago. The article made me discover one thing I had kind of forgotten about it: it was technically a summer blockbuster. I know it had been released during summertime of 1999, but since I discovered months later and I have always associated it with Christmastime due to its setting (not unlike another summer blockbuster, come to think of it), I never thought about it this way. I didn't know it was so successful at the box office. It's kind of a posthumous sweet revenge for Stanley Kubrick, given that the initial reviews were mixed at best when it was released. I personally consider it a masterpiece and I think it is finally getting the recognition it deserves. Anyway, I found some of the interpretations of the article questionable, but overall interesting, so I recommend you read it. Otherwise, I would generally find watching Eyes Wide Shut this time of year kind of out of season, but I might give it a shot. I might see the film in a new light.

Cate Blanchett and Eyes Wide Shut

Sometimes you learn things about your favourite film or work of fiction that makes you rediscover it and appreciate it even more, even if the new thing is of almost anecdotal level. So recently, I have been rewatching Eyes Wide Shut, as it is one of my Christmas movies (no joke, read this for more info). I learned recemtly that Cate Blanchett had a small part in it. She's only a voice, basically playing the voice of the masked prostitute/sex slave at the manor who warns the character of Tom Cruise of the danger he is puting himself in, then redeems him at the end. This is because the actress playing the part could not take a credible American accent. You can read more about it here. So it was a small part, only a voice, but that is really cool nonetheless. My favourite actress in one of my favourite films. And I didn't even know. For the record, I thought the voice sounded familiar, but I would never have guessed, being a masked role and all.I will enjoy the movie even more.

Masks for Christmastime?

I took this picture last year, right before Christmas (I believe it was literally the 24) in a nearby garden centre, right in the Christmas section. Masks. I have to say, they intrigued me, because one would not expect party masks, these kinds of party masks, for Christmastime. Then again, I thought, maybe you could. It reminded me of the scene in Eyes Wide Shut showing a, ahem, secret ceremony. I looked at them and wondered if there was such... special events, on invitation only, where masks and anonimity were de rigueur. Especially since the garden centre was very near the hotel where my brother PJ and parents stayed during their time here. A hotel which reminded PJ of EWS. Since I saw these masks, and as I associate the film with Christmas (see my post here), I can't help wondering how people with lots of money do to celebrate Yuletide...

Traumnovelle for Christmas

'Tis the season to be reading and tonight's suggestion is only indirectly related to Christmas and even then, via its movie adaptation.So anyway, I read last year Traumnovelle (or Dream Story as it is often translated) by Arthur Schnitzler. The novella that inspired Eyes Wide Shut. I consider the film a seriously underrated masterpiece, not Kubrick's best, but a worthy swansong. The movie is surprisingly very close to the novel, with one noticeable difference: it is not set during Christmastime but during Mardi Gras. All the same, as Eyes Wide Shut is a Christmas movie, it makes sense to use its source material as literary reference while you enjoy it during Yuletide. As for why the film itself is a movie for the season, read my post from 2015. There is more on the Wikipedia entry. Anyway, tell me in the comments what you think about either book or movie as Christmas stories.

Eyes Wide Shut for Christmas

In the first year of Vraie Fiction, I once listed Eyes Wide Shut as one my my favourite Christmas movies. I am a huge Stanley Kubrick fan and I consider his last film a very underrated gem, if not a masterpiece. Well, I was happily surprised recently to find an article in Rolling Stone arguing not only that it is a great movie, but that it is actually a great Christmas movie, deemed even a holiday classic. It may not be obvious to see, after all Christmas movies are often deemed more innocent than this modern tale of troubled couple and fantasized (or maybe true) adultery, but it always made sense to me. Kubrick's last movie belongs to a Yuletide tradition of dark stories (such as this one) with bizarre and or supernatural elements, when life and love are placed in danger and when one's perception of himself and the world he inhabits are radically altered. This is, in essence, what happens in the Nativity story. In Eyes Wide Shut, however, diabolical forces, not divine ones, are mainly at work, forces that are conceived in the characters' mind before taking shape. If you have seen the movie, read the article and rewatch it with new eyes. If you have not seen it yet, do it, put it on your list of movies to watch during the season. Enjoy a true Christmas classic.

Rising Spectre

Oh, goodie, goodie, goodie! The geek in me is so happy today! The James Bond fan, a thousand times more. If it is even possible. Because the Spectre teaser trailer was finally released. What can I say? First, as you can see, I love it. I love how the story will tie in with the previous three Craig Bond movies. I love that at least a good deal of the plot seems to be based on the short story Octopussy. Also, Eyes Wide Shut, one of Kubrick's most underrated masterpiece, seems to have inspired the meeting scene, down to the use of the James Bond theme. There is a neat little nod at ornithology, which gave Ian Fleming his inspiration for the name of James Bond, when you see Bond walking in the old house and the crows flying by him. Maybe I am reading too much about it, but I don't think so: Sam Mendes is good with making these kind of references.

 And of course there is Blofeld, the character I was looking forward to meet (again). Because I think it is fairly sure now that Christoph Waltz will be Blofeld, as I was expecting/hoping when we learned he was cast. Here, if he is not Blofeld, he seems to have the same function as him in the organization: chairman of the board, leader, literally the enemy in the shadow, the affable villain whose veneer of amiability does not hide his ruthless and cruel nature. If Waltz is indeed Blofeld, he is devoid of all the parodied elements of a certain spoof I will not dignify to name here. He is back to its roots. Anyway, here is the trailer for you to enjoy, if you have not done so. And tell me what you think.

King George V and speedball

The things one learns sometimes. I was checking about speedball, which is the name of the cocaine and heroin mix, or cocaine and morphine, on Wikipedia. I then saw King George V among the list of famous people killed by it. I thought at first it was pure hogwash, something added by someone with a twisted sense of humour, or some urban legend that got through.It seems that it is in fact genuine: his doctor apparently did give him a mix of cocaine and morphine to treat his cancer, which may have hastened his death. Of course, in later slang terms, the mixture would be known as speedball. And, for the record, I know of the term from Eyes Wide Shut. Not from any personal experience.

Baby Did a Bad, Bad Thing

I know this song from Eyes Wide Shut. The movie was showing yesterday and since then I have it in the head. It's a great rock song, if only for the beat which I love, so I decided to upload it here. I know zilch about Chris Isaak. I should know more. But until then, there is this song to listen to.

Reflection on masks

This is is a mask I received as a gift a few years ago, a decorative mask in papier-mâché, a strange mix of Venetian and primitive masks, made by a local artist in Chicoutimi. It is on the wall of my bedroom there.

I have blogged about masks before. It is a fascinating object: used to conceal identity, to create a character, for more prosaic, functional reasons, to decorate or a mix of many functions. Even the prosaic masks, say a surgeon mask or a gas mask, can be quite sinister in the proper circumstances. A mask is an artificial layer of skin that deforms or recreates features, or erases them. When a mask is worn, as I said in my previous blog, it reveals just as much as it hides. One of my favourite comic book characters, Batman, does not wear a mask to conceal his identity: it reveals it, it shows his true nature. Batman is the real persona, Bruce Wayne is the disguise. Of course, masks have been used in fiction to play this ambiguity between hiding and revealing. Think about Eyes Wide Shut (a criminally underrated movie). Masks should be used more often in fiction, they have such an evocative power.

My movies for the Christmas season

My wife says I am a man of habits and rituals. She is absolutely right. As you probably know (you, my modest readership), I try to read and watch movies that in a way follow the seasons. It is a way like another to prioritise books and films when you have many on your shelf. It is also a good way to get into the seasonal spirit. During Halloween, this is easy enough: I read horror stories and watch horror movies. When Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat (although I eat turkey), it is trickier for me, because I don't like the marshmallow Christmas movies we are saturated with, with the silly two-bit moral and obvious consumerism. Maybe it has something to do with my Catholic past, maybe I think there is solemnity in the season that we lost, or whatever, but I prefer things that are not necessarily religious but more atmospheric. Jesus of Nazareth I consider it to be more of an Easter movie, so I watch it around that time. But here are some of the movies I watch around Christmastime:

-A Charlie Brown Christmas. Do I need to explain why? For me, it's the ultimate Christmas movie. Sweet, soft, simple, genuinely heart warming (without ever being preachy) and with great characters. The music is simply gorgeous and who can forget the classic speech of Linus about the meaning of Christmas?
-On Her Majesty's Secret Service. I mentioned it before, over and over again. Yes, it's a James Bond, but it is mainly set around Christmas and the scenes in the snow are beautiful. Whatever the time, a remote hideout on a mountain covered with snow is always menacing, but when one mixes it with a time of the year when you should be celebrating instead of chasing badguys (or being chased by them), it makes everything else worksI think Christmas works beautifully as a background for crime fiction (which spy thrillers are part of). The blood on snow, the Nativity story to emphasize the death that surround the protagonists, etc. Come to think of it, the Nativity story itself has its share of sinister elements, so using Christmas as a background for more sinister stories is a logical choice. In Victorian times, ghost stories were often set during Christmastime, it was a tradition to read them at this time. In Québec and in many other places, many tales are also set during Christmas.
-The Godfather and The Godfather Part II. I do watch them at other times of the year too, but simply because some of their stories are set around Christmas, I try to watch them at least once around that time. Any excuse is good to enjoy those classics.
-Eyes Wide Shut. A great underrated Stanley Kubrick classic. Beautiful and haunting. I absolutely love it. Oh, and it is set during the Christmas season too.
-La Guerre des Tuques. Translated in English as The Dog Who Stopped the War, which sort of gives a bit of the ending. A Québec classic, I used to love it when I was a child. The proof that children movies can also have serious themes and still be entertaining.
-C.R.A.Z.Y. A "new" classic, and my favourite recent Québec movies. The story of a child (then teenager, then man) born on the 25th of December growing up in the 60s and 70s Québec.