Original subtitles

♪♪ [orchestral waltz]

[Kubrick] Traumnovelle, which became Eyes Wide Shut,

interested Stanley directly after he'd finished 2001.

He had the book.

At the same time,

Terry Southern brought Clockwork Orange, the book, to our house.

So I read Clockwork Orange,

and Stanley had already been interested before in Traumnovelle.

We were very young. I was particularly stupid,

and he read the book over and over,

and started quoting from it, and that he wanted to do this.

And I hated the story.

As many young women might.

I had a particular dislike and a sort of Euro arrogance

that I thought psychiatrists are for Americans with too much money,

and it's all rubbish.

This was also the fashion amongst people of my age.

I thought it hugely embarrassing when people told their outcome

from some psychiatric session, and utterly selfish,

I found the people...

Their conclusions... rotten,

and the whole idea of Freud and Schnitzlerjust...

it was disgusting to me.

And also my generation didn't talk about sex at all, you know,

now that I was fuming and frothing at the mouth,

now he really became interested in the story.

It had the opposite effect. "Why don't you like this?"

"This is really interesting. You're really upset about this. Why?"

So then it becomes the ultimate man-woman conversation.

♪♪[foreboding bare piano line]

They don't have to be unfaithful. They don't have to be anything bad.

Just the very thought of something that they feel is impure will upset them.

And Catholics feel very sinful in all this.

I just was so upset about him wanting to do that,

that I kept saying, read this, read this, read this.

"I'm reading this Clockwork Orange."

Luckily he did,

and then that took over, because it would shut me up,

and he now was making Clockwork Orange.

Years later, he started again.

By now we are old people,

and I realized what a brilliant book that is.

And I also know how it steps far too close.

Everybody is an expert. You know, everybody knows this...

What goes on in people's heads,

and how they want things to be 100% pure.

Your emotional life, if it's worth anything, you want it to be right.

You don't want it to be messed up with what you disapprove of in yourself.

In countries where people are very aware of every thought they have...

Catholic countries, people in Japan took the film very seriously,

because they have tremendous constrictions...

and observe much more what they're thinking.

He glanced at me as he walked past.

Just a glance, nothing more.

But I could hardly move.

[Kubrick] And the minute you discover something like that,

you get angry and upset.

And so the film is the ultimate tactlessness,

in psychiatric terms,

you know, unrolling stuff that most of us find quite indigestible,

and people...

who have lived very intense lives,

and have explored everything they're thinking,

and condemned themselves and praised themselves in turn,

and you know, come to terms with all these things,

and think themselves much more moral and wiser than other people...

They really don't want some film guy then to rub in a story

that says, "Oh God, I'm wrong again."

So it's a tactless film. It hurts.

It hurts everybody. It hurts everybody somewhere.

Because while we are a pair-bonding species,

we live much longer, and it's much more complicated.

And people have-- very few people are lucky enough

that it really, really, really is

what they've always dreamt on their wedding day it would be.

[Kubrick] Then somebody suddenly makes this judgment on you?

So the film is a dangerous film.

I can easily see why people thoroughly dislike it.

And others say, "It's the most important film I've ever seen."

It falls into an absolute division.

♪♪ ["Baby Did a Bad, Bad Thing" by Chris Isaak]

[Kubrick] It's very interesting that in countries

that are fairly superficial, spiritually, and very Protestant,

and kind of don't want to talk about this kind of stuff at all...

the Anglo-Saxon world on the whole condemns it entirely, jokes it away,

and it's just a gaggy story.

You know, you don't think about this stuff.

Well, in other countries it was taken very seriously.

So it obviously hit a nerve.

"How much more" means that it would be a subtraction, right?

[Kubrick] These extreme choices are with us on every level,

even when washing dishes.

You know, you can make this choice.

And I think Stanley was a master-- in his whole life, to have that.

It made him particularly lovable, I thought,

and both a much more serious person, and a much funnier person,

and discerning in all areas.

Because Traumnovelle so painfully goes into all the areas

we never want to talk about, because they really hurt...

If you find yourself objectionable in any way whatsoever, or making mistakes,

and they don't have to be huge betrayals,

or enormous, flagrant, sins of any kind, they can be very small.

And I know that--

Because Stanley's been dead now for 13 years--

That I keep thinking like a sort of evil catalog of all the things

where I thought, "I could have done that better."

I wish I could tell him, "if I could do this again, I would do such and such."

I'm sure he has the same list, because we were both pretty strict

with each other and with ourselves.

And that is so much in that film and in that book,

that I was surprised it was not praised much more,

because we're not the only people who take themselves seriously.

We made a poster where the two people are shown as masks,

because it's about our masks, what we show and what we hide.

And they were done with a sort of cracked, marbled effect,

but it was Nicole's and Tom's face.

We were very proud of this.

Also, it's something Stanley wanted.

[Kubrick] He thought it was his most important film.

He thought it was the film--

He really felt was important, telling--

And so did the actors, by the way.

Nicole was just totally into that film.

And when you think about the things she says, she's fantastic.

And Tom also--

You know, they both are people who are very serious in their intent.

And, yeah, they valued it greatly.

So maybe one day people will think it's a very good film.

♪♪ [elegant jazz music]

Do you know anyone here?

Not a soul.

Why do you think Ziegler invites us to these things every year?

This is what you get for making house calls.