‘Small and Scared Behind That Mask’

A.V. Club’s Scott Tobias on Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut:

But the charge that his Manhattan looks nothing like the real thing strikes me as completely irrelevant: Just a rough translation of the source material’s title, Arthur Schnitzler’s Traumnovelle (“Dream Story”), should erase any expectation of gritty verisimilitude. Once Cruise is jettisoned into the night, Kubrick’s New York becomes a kind of backlot ghost town, populated only by figures that play a role in his waking dream.

★ Thursday, 19 February 2009