Supermallet

You're correct. She said that if the sailor had asked to have sex with her, she would have done it in that moment. That's what sets Bill off in his dream.

whoopdido

Right. She never cheated on Bill...at least actually went through with it. What got Bill so riled up is that she admitted that not only would she have cheated on him had she gotten the chance, she would have thrown away her entire life--him and their daughter just for the chance to bang the dude.

But what I don't get about the last line in the movie is that it implies that they hadn't had sex for a very long time. It's like their whole marriage is falling apart and they're losing touch with one another and don't have anything between them any more. No intimacy at all. But, can't we assume that they had sex only like 2 days previous? If I'm correct about the timeline, they went to the party at Victor's and afterwards, presumably later that night, there is a scene showing Nicole Kidman naked in front of a mirror and then Tom Cruise be bops over, naked as well and proceeds to grope her and kiss her. I think it was pretty obvious what happened next. Then the next night she tells him about the sailor, he gets all pissed and goes out and that's when he stumbles into all the weird shit. The following night he returns home to find the mask on his pillow and then tells her everything and then it presumably goes to the next day when they're walking around the store. So, say the party was Monday night. They have sex late that night or say very early Tuesday morning. Tom goes on his wild night--Tuesday night into Wednesday morning, he confesses to her Wednesday night and then they go shopping Thursday morning. By the time she says that last night and implies that if they don't have sex right away everything is going to go to shit, it's only been a little over 48 hours since they last did the deed. I don't know about you guys, but I can do 48 hours standing on my head.

majorjoe23

I'm pretty sure the person who answered this posts on DVDtalk.

rennervision

I don't think you can obtain Fear & Desire through any legitimate means. The bootleg copy I bought isn't going to win any awards for video/audio quality, plus it has an annoying watermark that frequently appears on the screen in regular intervals.

I'm not saying it's a must-see film, but it's certainly not "Ed Wood bad" like I thought it would be. If anything, it's interesting to see how the genius of Kubrick wasn't so obvious early on in his career; instead, his amazing talent had to develop over time. For me personally, I don't think his movies become very intriguing until Paths of Glory.

Supermallet

Yes, but notice what the sex is after the party. There doesn't seem to be any connection. She's got her back to him, and we're even seeing it through a mirror. To me, the last line is her saying they really need to fuck, not just go through the motions.

whoopdido

Yeah that's a good point.

Supermallet

In fact, you could say that scene sends them "through the looking glass."

Josh-da-man

I might be misremembering, but I thought that Bill didn't learn until later that she was lying about the affair.

Even so, if your wife tells that she fucked some other guy, then backtracks, you're really going to wonder...

Supermallet

Again, at no point did she claim to have an affair. What bothered him is that she would have been so willing to throw everything away if the offer had been made by the sailor.

Ash Ketchum

KILLER'S KISS was an interesting experiment for Kubrick. No, it may not be as good as his other films, but he was learning the ropes and it has enough fascinating material in it to make it worth seeing. I particularly liked the Times Square scene late in the film, with those lunatics in front of the movie theater (which advertises Disney's 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA, starring Kirk Douglas, on the marquee and which is where I first saw the first Leone westerns 15 years later). Sure, it could have used a better lead actor, but Frank Silvera, a light-skinned black actor already established in films and on stage by then, plays the jealousy-crazed villain, and he's very good. (He was in a lot of westerns, usually as Mexicans. He played an Italian in ST. VALENTINE'S DAY MASSACRE.)

Mabuse

Josh da man and woopdido just need to watch the film again.

whoopdido

Why? I just watched it and thought it was perfectly clear she never went through with the affair with the sailor dude. It was just an emotional affair, which in many ways can be just as bad as a "real" affair. What did I miss?

Solid Snake

I think in seeing his first films is a great way to see his growth as a director. I LOVE seeing how Kurosawa became a better director with each film he made, in seeing his earlier ones.

Travis McClain

When I first saw it, I was 20 and had yet to have a particularly meaningful relationship. I processed that purely in terms of jealousy, which I understood. Since then I met my wife and we have a very close, honest relationship. When I watched it with her (she hadn't seen it), it dawned on me that whether Bill was meant to simply be jealous or not, Cruise plays him as a guy who never had an inkling of doubt about Alice until her stoned confession of lust.

Once I actually had something that deep and meaningful myself, I had a much greater understanding of how that kind of declaration could completely turn a guy's world upside down. To think that she would have thrown away him and their daughter to indulge a lustful impulse, and that the only reason she didn't is that the object of her desire was oblivious...talk about making you feel small! It wasn't until that viewing of the movie (my third or fourth overall) that I really began to appreciate Cruise's performance.

For what it's worth, in Schnitzler's original story, Fredic's response goes from listlessness to outright hatred. The picture of their relationship is one in which he very likely just took his wife for granted (rather than having the kind of close relationship I enjoy and that I felt Cruise played Bill as having), so it comes off more as petty jealousy than being overwhelmed by being confronted with the fragility of their marriage. At least, that's how I read it.

Back to the film, the entire thing rests on the premise that certain things get our imagination running. Sexual curiosity is one of them. Jealousy and insecurity are others. Combine them and you've got a state of mind ripe for seeing sex and danger around every corner.

You know what would be interesting? A mashup of this with Inception where we find out that Alice's confession was planted in Bill's mind while sleeping. Mostly I kid, but I'd go for seeing Ellen Page in a movie like Eyes Wide Shut...what was I saying?

lamphorn

I've always felt some odd affinity between EWS and The Shining. Maybe it's the warm cinematography.. I did read something interesting last night in "The Stanley Kubrick Archives" suggesting that they're complimentary films, one dealing with the danger of being too cooped up with one's family and the other being the danger of straying too far from the family.

Solid Snake

....interesting thought....