IFDB Review: Eyes Wide Shut - Fidelio Edition:

[MCP]

I've always really liked Eyes Wide Shut, even though it is a very long and deliberately paced film. While its length never bothered me, I was fascinated by the idea of an hour and a half version and wondered if that would even work. Yes, as it turns out, it does work, but it's not at all the same film. What Gatos has done here is cut over an hour from the international cut of the film in order to "make a version...that [he] would like to watch." It's really solid work, too. He's done a fine job of keeping everything coherent and focused while stripping away large chunks of the plot that don't fit his vision for this cut. It's all surprisingly well-paced, the scenes that were shortened were done so at ideal moments, and the whole thing ends at just the right spot (really, kudos for that, very elegant). The problem for me is that apparently Gatos and I have different ideas about what makes Eyes Wide Shut interesting in the first place. I've always felt that the most engaging scenes were the ones between Bill and Alice Harford. Stanley Kubrick famously put Tom and Nicole through the ringer while shooting the film, and all of that tension comes across on screen. In "The Fidelio Edition," Nicole Kidman is barely in the movie at all. Her character is not as important to the story that Gatos' version is trying to tell, but her absence was a major disappointment for me. What we're left with is a pretty straightforward thriller, but without the lingering tension and resultant psychological turmoil of those earlier domestic scenes, it comes across as kind of flat. It's not that it doesn't work, it's just that, for me, it's not nearly as engrossing. The DVD had a nice presentation with good sound and picture. As Gatos has noted in the description, there is quite a lot of film grain, but as this is a particularly grainy film to begin with, I really see no problem at all. Blacks are deep and colors pop; it's as fine a picture as you could expect from a DVD5. Sound was perfectly satisfactory as well, nicely and consistently balanced with audible dialogue throughout. As far as editing goes, I only noticed a couple of minor issues. The sound dropped out for a second on a couple of edits, but that was it for sound. The other thing is a little tougher. The next evening after Ziegler's party, Alice asks about wrapping the rest of the presents, and an exhausted Bill says they should put it off until tomorrow. Suddenly, the scene ends, and Bill is on his way out that very night. Considering what happens between those two scenes, I'm not sure how you'd fix it, but the way it played out here was pretty jarring/confusing, especially considering we don't see Alice again until the very end of the film. Overall, I respect the hell out of what Gatos has done here, even if I don't particularly enjoy it. But if you also feel like the masked party and the following investigation were the best parts of Eyes Wide Shut and were bored with everything else, this just might be the cut for you.

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