ConnRog: I have heard conflicting reports. I have heard that four days before he died he screened the final cut of the film, yet Todd Field has said that he was still working on it.

TheRuralJuror: As far as I understand, he delivered the final cut just before his death.

TM: No, I don't think so. My guess is that it's probably 95 percent finished. Kubrick liked to trim his films up until and well after release. “Full Metal Jacket” had many big scenes chopped a few weeks prior to release while “Space Odyssey” and the “Shining” had several scenes chopped after their release.

The pattern is that Kubrick removes scenes, rather than adds anything. So what we see of “Eyes Wide Shut” is possibly more than we would have, had Kubrick survived a couple more months. My view is that the editing wasn’t finished, the sound wasn't finished, and that he planned to cut the film down to 2 hours 19 minutes, as originally planned.

IceboxWarlock: I haven't seen the European cut of “Eyes Wide Shut” yet. Is it more graphic than the American version?

TM: No, it's the same film basically. The only difference is that the orgy sequence has some digital figures blocking the nudity.

Also, the orgy scene in the middle of the movie originally had the recitation of a verse from the Bhagwad Gita, one of the most revered Hindu scriptures. The verse read:

"Parithranaya Saadhunam Vinashaya cha dushkrithaam Dharmasamsthabanarthaya Sambhavami yuge yuge"

which means:

"For the protection of the virtuous, for the destruction of the evil and for the firm establishment of Dharma (righteousness), I take birth and am incarnated on Earth, from age to age."

ie, these powerful masked people see themselves as righteous rulers who represent virtue and righteousness. They believe all their actions are done for the common good.

Anyway, the nudity pissed off Warner Brothers and was removed from the American cut. But it was left intact for the European release of the film. The Hindu chant pissed off Hindus and was removed from all cuts of the film. This chant was only heard during the original theatrical run. The chant originally took place when Tom Cruise walks through the corridors and sees all the naked figures having sex. It takes place right after the ironic Catholic chant (played spookily backwards).

Warner claimed that the inclusion of the Hindu chant was an accident and thus okay for them to remove, but Full Metal Jacket contains the words "I am become death" (on Animal Mother's helmet), which is also a line from the Bhagwad Gita. Kubrick doesn't seem like the person to pick music arbitrarily.

Faithless-TheWonderboy: Speculation aside, he did finish the film. Nobody had to film extra scenes to bridge the gaps, no one had to finish editing it without him overlooking.

TM: He finished the actual process of filming, but he didn't finished editing. My view is that he would have tightened the film by as much as twenty minutes, shortening scenes without removing any one entirely. You just have to look at the film to see that many of the establishing shots looked botched and not edited properly. Arguably some of the voice over and flashbacks would have been altered too, like he did with Full Metal Jacket just before release. Kubrick recorded a full narration for the film, who knows how much more he would have taken out?

And we know that much of the music and sound work was done AFTER his death. Sound and music help pace and guide an editor, but Kubrick's film was in a weird position. His contract forbids anyone from cutting his film. He alone had final cut. So while his sound editor could lay down tracks and put in music, per his guidelines, they could not actually edit the footage. Usually music and imagery is edited in tandem, not so in "Eyes Wide Shut".

Considering that it was a summer release, and that Kubrick was notorious for tinkering with his films up until and even after previews and release, I think it is likely that he would have made many changes. Films aren't ever finished, they're walked away from. And Kubrick finds it harder than most to walk away.

Much of the sound work wasn't ready. Music, sound effects and voiceoffers were put in by Nick Galt after Kubrick's death. Kubrick had just told Dominic Harlan how he wanted the Ligeti played, and after his death his family had to do a lot of tweaking on the film. For example they had to guess which version of "Strangers in the Night" to use because Kubrick had yet to finalise and select some of the music. And sound editor Paul Conway had to make numerous decisions based on nothing but Kubrick's notes. Details like where to start and stop music, what specific tracks to use, what telephone rings to use, etc. And then there's stuff like the colour correction, which was still being worked out.

But the thing that convinces me that it wasn't quite finished, is Michael Herr recounting a conversation he had with Kubrick just before the Warner screening. He asked him if he could see the film, and Kubrick answered that he wasn't comfortable yet, but that he HAD to show it to the execs and stars, and that it literally "pained" him to have to do so. Four days later and Kubrick dies. What are Warner going to do, release an unfinished film or fudge the truth a little? The release date was in the summer. You don't spend 2 years on a film and then rush the editing like that.

Faithless-TheWonderboy: I understand where you're coming from, and that he probably would have tinkered more. I don't know about the sounds and music you mention, or that interview. The last conversation I heard of him was that he was happy with it.

The point is though, that the version we see was the version he finished. The version he finished. Its what he shot, cut, and screened. What might have changed is by the byside, because he didn't get that chance. What he did though, was turn in a completed film. So in answer to the question, yes, he did finish it.

TM: You say he “turned in a completed film”, but that’s just Warner fudging language. You don't hand a film over until it's finished. We know that the colour correction, music and sound mix definitely weren't finished. We know he was editing it the night before he died. We know he held a small screening 4 days before he died.

This screening was held, on a Tuesday, at the Time Warner building in New York. Kubrick sent a courier who personally hand delivered a print of the film. Immediately after the screening, that print was rushed back to England by the same courier. Warner received NO print that day. Only about 4 people (The Cruises and 2 Warner execs- Terry Semel and Bob Daly) were present at the screening. We know Michael Herr was at Kubrick's house later that day and asked to see the film. Kubrick tells him that the film isn't ready yet and that it "pains" him to have to show it to "these people". After the screening, Kubrick tells Terry Semel that the final cut will be 2 hours and 19 minutes long. What they saw that night was 2 hours and 39 minutes long.

Warner claims that what their producers saw that day was the final cut. But it was just a screening. Kubrick wasn't handing over prints. They left empty handed. He showed them a work in progress. If he was finished and happy with what he showed them, he wouldn't still be editing before he died.

When Kubrick dies, Warner runs the story that the print used for the screening was his final cut. At first they called it a "working final cut", implying that it was still a work in progress. Weeks later they insist that it was his "final cut" (afterall, who wants to market an incomplete movie?). They spend the next 3 months consulting with the Kubrick estate on how to finish the music, sound loops and color etc.

They dabble with the idea of bringing another editor to trim the film (rumours of Spielberg and Cronenberg tweaking the editing a passed around), but Kubrick's contract specifically forbids this.

Weeks after Eyes Wide Shut was released, Ted Turner pushes Bob Daley and Terry Semel to resign from Warner, the rumour being that this was because they couldn't get Kubrick's film cut and edited.

EricBarker:  I agree with you TM. Every other Kubrick film runs somewhere around 2:20 (or 140 min) or less except Barry Lyndon, which is a genuine epic with themes that support a long running time, and of course Spartacus, on which final cut belonged to someone else. Kubrick fine tuned his films up until the day of release, and in some cases after, as with 2001.

So whether we call it "finished" or not depends on how we define finished. For me, 2001 is finished because he stopped cutting it and moved on. Eyes Wide Shot isn't finished because he died before he completed the edit to his own satisfaction. I have no doubt if he'd seen the film with the same restless opening night audience that I did, he would have trimmed several scenes.

TM: Yeah, perhaps. But my point is that he would have trimmed it (along with finishing editing, sound, colour correction, music selection etc) before any premiere, because what was shown (note- shown, not delivered as Warner claims) to the 2 Warner producers was in no way a complete film. Warner just didn't want to have to market an "incomplete film", so they changed their tactics a couple weeks after he died. Everyone was too busy arguing over the digital figures Warner had inserted, to notice what else they were doing.

Chester-copperpot-1: Yes, I think he was finished with it, and that's why he died just a few days later. I think he died, because he could finally feel that he could "let go". Think of it as when you are involved in a heavy project, that you don't allow yourself to be sick. Once it's over, you relax, and then the sickness catches up, and then you are sick for a couple of weeks. Eyes Wide Shut was a tremendously burdensome filming experience; they shot the film more or less consecutively for 18 months in a row. Most films takes from four to six weeks to three to four months to shoot. I think he worked himself out, and when he was satisfied, he relaxed. And then the burden took its toll. The fact that he died just a few days later proves the point. Hadn't he been ready, he wouldn't have died at that point.

EricBarker: I respectfully disagree, Chester. Your scenario is possible, but not probable. He might just as easily had his sudden, massive heart attack from worrying about making the film work better during the four months remaining before release.

TM: I used to think it was finished too, Chester, but the more you talk to people and do some research, you realise that Warner did a massive about face after Kubrick's death. The film went from "working progress" to "final cut", as they systematically went about fudging details and just how "done" the film really was.

The only one outside of Warner and the Kubrick Estate who can confirm these things is Nick Galt, Kubrick's editor. But Nick (like in the film itself) does not talk and seems to have been clamped down by Warner. When "editors.net" was asked why they had never interviewed him for their Eyes Wide Shut article, they simply said "WB had blocked it". Editors.net had to interview William Butler, the editor of Clockwork Orange, instead.

David Cronenberg on Kubrick and "Eyes Wide Shut":

"He died too young, Stanley, and I'm sure he's absolutely pissed-off being dead. I think his movie [Eyes Wide Shut] definitely was not finished, because he had the sound mix still to do and the looping with the actors, where you add dialogue and so change performances. It's only people who don't know about filmmaking who think it will be Stanley's movie because a huge part of it won't be. And I wonder who the hell is finishing editing it. Are they going to get Spielberg? It did occur to me [to finish it], especially given the subject matter. It feels a little like Crash to me on one level. But I don't know that I'd want to be in the middle of that. It could get very political. The answer for a filmmaker is ‘Don't die!' I'm going to do my best. I relate to Kubrick's intelligence and literacy, and there seems to be a dearth of that in filmmaking these days, but I never thought of him as a comrade in arms. In terms of subject matter and methodology, I think we were at far distant poles. Even the way he made movies is much more techno-obsessed than I am. I don't think I'm techno-obsessed at all. I'm organic-obsessed. That's why my technology is all organic. My understanding of technology is as an extension of the human body. So when people say, ‘Are your movies about a fear of technology?' I don't see that. I see technology as innately human. It seems to be innate in us to create and so much of our creativity comes out as technological invention. And I don't think of it as being outside ourselves. I think it's inside us first and then it's an extension of us. And I don't get that from Kubrick's films."

David Lynch: "I really love "Eyes Wide Shut". I just wonder if Stanley Kubrick really did finish it the way he wanted to before he died."

David Culpepper: We've heard more than a bit of assurances regarding the fidelity of the film.  Remember, there is reputation and money at stake. I'll be damned as a cynic, but I fail to see how we can expect to get a straight story on the issue from any of the involved players.

One thing I know, Kubrick tweaked every film he made until the last possible moment. 2001 was tweaked AFTER its release.  The shining was modified at the last moment and substantially so for the European market.  Eyes Wide Shut…well, I'm resigned to having seen the "initial cut" of the final film.  That's about as solid as it's going to get, in my opinion.

One discrepency to note in the "official statements" regarding EWS.  At first it was stated that the music score only needed "minor additions and editing". Later, the music editor (I forget his name), stated that he was doing his very best to keep to the score that Kubrick “intended”.  That, in fact, he was working from notes, a playlist and a selection of recordings. Not from music that was already on the film.  Further, It was reported that the cut that was screened for Cruise/Kidman was sans music. Sorry folks, regardless of the comprehensiveness of Kubrick's  notes and plans, this is not the same thing as editing-in "minor additions".   Yes it’s a coherent score, but it appears that it will always be a 2nd degree of Kubrick that we'll be hearing in the music. But of course, some don't want to see this kind of info being talked about…