I’ve been out of touch with all things Kubrick for some time, so please excuse my potentially obvious thoughts on this:
Kubrick’s entire catalogue is comprised of sterile environments with sterile characters, and almost every gesture or action in them feels meticulously orchestrated. This isn’t, in description, entirely befitting to a film so ostensibly draped in eroticism and sexual intrigue because the enterprise is therefore deprived of any eroticism or sexual intrigue. It’s indescribably enrapturing, but chiefly in regard to the craft and aesthetics on display. Dr. Harford’s descent into an upper-class orgiastic underworld is more arbitrary than it is motivated because we never feel his connection to his wife (or rather, how her admissions spur his furious jealousy), nor are we sufficiently convinced of his capacity for sexual exploration or prowess (a signifier, perhaps, for how appropriate Tom Cruise is in this role). He’s a man familiar with the human body, but little comprehension of the logic and motives within it.
by Rumsey Taylor | Source: Warner Bros. DVD
09 Nov 2006 11:24 AM | Comments (2)
I wouldn’t say they’re all too obvious (plus, it’s always good to read an articulation of how Tom Cruise’s own acting befits many of the roles he takes on, something a good director will always know how to pair up). I’m still waiting for the majority to catch up on this one. Unfinished masterpiece? Lose the prefix and you’re right on.
I always felt Stanley knew this was to be his last film. The cinematic nods to all of his other work are extremely funny-a trait which he is not credited enough with. In a sense this is almost his Airplane-checking scenes he has plundered from himself. A beautiful film, elegant in every respect, and a fitting end to a true master.
rob
9 November 2006
8:46 AM
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