Celebrating the release of Eyes Wide Shut: Behind Stanley Kubrick's Masterpiece, Stanley Kubrick Archivist Georgina Orgill is joining her co-editor Nathan Abrams for a launch during a conference held at Bangor University. Following the launch will be a workshop session with students in the Centre for Film, Television and Screen Studies at Bangor. Georgina will speak with students alongside the acclaimed graphic artist Chris Baker (a.k.a. Fangorn) who worked for Kubrick in the development of Eyes Wide Shut.
Twenty years after its release, Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut remains a complex, visually arresting film about marriage, jealousy, domesticity, adultery, sexual disturbance, and dreams.
Released in 1999, this film was Kubrick's first finished project for 12 years (since the release of Full Metal Jacket in 1987). Kubrick's sudden death, which came just six days after delivering his final cut to Warner Bros, intensified the anticipation surrounding this release.
Based on the novella Traumnovelle by Arthur Schnitzler, Kubrick had been considering an adaptation of Schnitzler's novel for several decades before the film's release. The film starred the then-married actors Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise.
Much maligned and much misunderstood when it first came out, Eyes Wide Shut has since been the subject of an animated debate and discussion among critics, fans and academics. It has left an indelible mark on our popular culture and remains as relevant as ever. It has been explored from a wide variety of disciplines and methodological perspectives.
The book’s collection of essays brings scholars from diverse disciplinary backgrounds together with those who worked on the film to explore Eyes Wide Shut's legacy, discuss its impact, and consider its position within Kubrick's oeuvre and the wider visual and socio-political culture. It is based on the papers given at the Eyes Wide Shut Symposium held at UAL in 2019.
The book is available now in time for Christmas for all Kubrick uberfans and interested institutions.
Questions?
For any other questions about the Stanley Kubrick archive, or Archives and Special Collections more generally, please email archive-enquiries@arts.ac.uk