Sunset Gun

NYC Kitchen Sink Noir: Something Wild

I'll be presenting film noir pictures (including, one of my favorites, the under-seen "Wicked Woman" -- a post on that delicious poverty row masterpiece will follow) and taking part on a panel at the New Schol's Noir Fest this coming April 1  with Molly Haskell, Susie Linfield and Laura Frost all about the Femme Fatale in cinema (that discussion will take place April 5). The Festival runs April 1-8. More information can be found here.

With that, and hearing about festival organizer and esteemed Jim Thomson biographer (read "Savage Art: A Biography of Jim Thompson"  now)  Robert Polito's disappointment that one of my beloved finds  -- Something Wild (starring Carroll Baker and Ralph Meeker and directed by Jack Garfein), a movie he had recently seen and loved,  would not play at the festival. Too bad. Though not strictly a film noir and really, like a cross between a British Kitchen Sink drama (only in a grimy NYC, which is perfect for me since I just landed here), Polanski's Repulsion, and in one telling scene, Franju's Eyes Without a Face, if we broaden the term, it could be considered as such. But Wicked Woman won out.

Nevertheless, here's a repost of my original piece, And who knows, maybe we can stage an emergency screening.

It’s not wild, necessarily. But it's unforgettable.

I never understood the title of Jack Garfein’s beautiful, sad, confusingly romantic and richly empathetic Something Wild. If the title refers to the movie’s brutal rape, a wild animalistic act, it’s certainly nothing wild for the tragic protagonist, Mary Ann (played by a powerfully touching and brave Carroll Baker). Something dreadful is more apt, as she suffers the rough hands of a faceless brute, emerging from the trees like a demon spirit.

And her demise, repulsion, sickness, panic, alienation and finally, near-life-ending depression, isn’t worthy of wild either. Something despondent. She’s desperate to fling herself from her inner demons. She cannot discuss nor process the rape. She can’t even tell her parents. In a classic panic-stricken fight or flight scenario -- she flees from a crowded subway car, gasping for breath as commuters rub against every inch of her violated body. More and more, lovely Mary Ann turns into a withdrawn, clinically depressed, misunderstood woman -- a woman filled with terror and shame -- a woman who hates herself even if she did nothing wrong. A woman who was raped. This is how rape victims feel.

And rape is not something her potential savior/captor Mike (Ralph Meeker, who should have played more roles like this -- his range is extraordinary) can understand -- though in his own wordless way – he tries. He’s nothing wild either. A sad sack with a working class job, a dumpy demeanor (this is not smart alec Kiss Me Deadly Meeker) and a drinking problem, he’s not a healthy man, and not healthy towards women, but then…weirdly sympathetic. He wants this woman. He needs this woman. He needs her to save him.

The picture starts with the innocence of Mary Ann's name. Mary Ann exits off the subway and makes her way home, at night. This appears a usual walk for the woman, but something gives her a start. A rustle of trees, a paper cup blowing on the ground, a general feeling of unease. Her fear is well founded, as a large man, almost appearing like a monster, emerges from the trees, grabs the woman, and rapes her. And he appears to rape her for a long time – even tearing off the cross she wears on her neck. God is not on her side. This rape is not titillating. This rape is just sad and draining, and you feel like Mary Ann walked into a monstrous tree satyr.

The film continues for a good twenty minutes (or more, which seems unprecented for American movies at that time) without any dialogue, and we watch Mary Ann silently trudge her way home, where she bathes, scrubs, looks at the cuts on her body with horror, take all of her clothes and cut them into tiny pieces. She flushes the tattered garments down the toilet. And then she sleeps.

Since the rape has made it impossible for her to conduct herself in normal life, Mary Ann abandons home, unannounced, leaving her mother in a panic to find her. She gets a job where a bunch of judgmental/jealous women make fun of her, she takes a tiny, dumpy little NYC flat, where a bare light bulb offers her only illumination and a loud floozy (Jean Stapleton) cackles nearby. It seems Mary Ann can’t escape the depraved and the diseased – or perhaps, she’s throwing herself right into it – the belly of the best, so to speak. Repulsion meets The Tenant meets The Collector. And yet, Garfeien’s picture was made before any of these.

But that beast and that belly are not what she expected. After becoming so despondent, that she decides the best choice is to take her own life, she nearly jumps off the Manhattan Bridge. She would have accomplished her act of self-destruction if not for another beast (Meeker), who saves her from leaping.

And then, he keeps her. At first, one thinks, she needs to stay. After all, he’s looking out for her – she can’t attempt suicide again. But the movie veers into far more complex areas after he locks her in – for good. Since confinement, the act of being held down and forced to submit has plagued this poor woman for months; she reacts with anger and panic. And for good reason – he won’t ever let her leave. Like The Collector, he’s keeping his sad little butterfly – a butterfly without wings.

But why? These are questions the picture never easily answers. You understand that he is also a cheerless, lonely person, an alcoholic, and a man who needs this woman near him. In his own twisted way he loves her. When he stumbles home drunk and attempts to molest Mary Ann, she reacts violently and with self-preservation, poking out one of his eyes. Suddenly the film merges Beauty and the Beast with Greek Tragedy --  Mary Ann turns Mike into a Cyclops. The next morning, he claims to barely remember the evening, and seems nonchalant about the eye patch he now must wear. He reckons he may have gotten into some kind of fight. Or maybe he does remember. Maybe he respects Mary Ann for fighting back. We just don’t know. And then again, we oddly can’t hate him.

And so there they continue living in his basement hovel of an apartment, biding their days with his “romantic” meals and need to be near Mary Ann. Mary Ann remains adamant to leave, but she will soon soften. Is this a positive step? Is this a romantic reaction to her savior? Is this indeed, the only man she can now trust? Is this Stockholm syndrome? In any case, it’s all very sad.

The movie, released in 1961, an expressionistic/naturalistic work of art that also recalls Roman Polanski’s Repulsion, before Polanski’s film was made, and Bergman, was far ahead of its time in its European sensibilties (and yet, with its actors and setting, it feels wholly American). Garfein (then Baker’s husband), who survived the Holocaust, well understood the idea of entrapment and subjugation. I have seen few films that not only deal with rape in a sympathetic light (that’s not so hard), but deal with it as a kind of submersion into a subterranean world of dirty rooms and dreams – dreams, in one terrifying moment, where girls have no faces (Lars Von Trier would love this movie) – a world where trauma is expressed through the sounds of vulgar good-time girls, the oppressiveness of the subway, the simultaneous attraction and repulsion to men, work, the city, and sex. If anyone finds Mary Ann’s feelings and actions unrealistic, they have no concept of the odd co-mingling of unreality and harshness that an act of rape can make a woman feel. For anyone wanting to forget the memory -- repression and submersion is natural.

And it’s all very much like a movie you were likely to have never seen in 1961, or now, for that matter. Garfein based his movie on the novel Mary Ann (a better title I think), and enlisted some superior talents to give the movie an expressionistic, gritty, dream-like appeal.

The great Aaron Copland provided the potent music; the legendary Saul Bass created the title sequence, and brilliant cinematographer Eugen Schüfftan worked as DP. Since Schüfftan lensed Lang's Metropolis, Carné's Port of Shadows, Gance's Napoléon and Franju's Eyes Without a Face (among many other accomplishments), the look of the picture is both grubby and dreamlike. It feels like trauma, it feels Jungian, dreamy, hyper real (with such wonderful location shooting). He seems to understand, visually, the horror and fairy tale nature of a victim floating above pain. Mary Ann wants to rid herself of anguish, she wants to float, and yet, she’s stuck in a basement.

Through his lens, Schüfftan both raises Mary Ann from her trauma, while keeping her firmly on the ground  -- like Thomas Hardy’s Tess of Tess the D’Urbervilles removing herself from rape by becoming diaphanous and floating above molester Alex huffing on top of her, Mary Ann keeps herself whisper light, and yet, stuck in the dirt.  She stays in that basement. It’s tragic, gorgeous, poetic, even mythic, how she lives in two realities, which makes the ending incredibly complex. Mary Ann stays with Mike. How should one feel about this? She’s damaged, she’s now pregnant, she’s in love and yet, she still looks heartbroken. The ending creates a false kind of happiness (intentional, I think) that sits in your soul with such sadness and complication that the movie will not leave you – after all these years, it’s never left me.

Rape is never easy to come to terms with, we know that. But rape isn’t always met with counselors and discussions and getting in touch with your feelings. Perhaps Mary Ann got in touch with Mike. Perhaps she did not. Whatever the case, poor Mary Ann. I hate her entrapment, and I hate that she feels she has nowhere to go, and yet, I pray Mike treats her sensitively. I feel wrong for this, but I want them to work out. This is a dream. Or a nightmare. I can only hope she’s truly happy one day. Not wild, but, happy?

Beautiful, Brilliant, Ugly Talents: RIP LIZ

The passing of Elizabeth Taylor at the too-young-for-Liz age of 79 is such a loss; it's tough to describe her death without resorting to prose that mirrors her legendary eyes -- purple. So, I'll just say right here, briefly, and in all caps befitting the occasion: RIP LIZ. SAD. BOOM!  Oh, Liz! (And I haven't even discussed your brilliance in Boom! yet) What a sad day. Your cat, Maggie and your hellcat Martha, will always be alive.

Taylor was an iconic movie star, a gifted, often brilliant actress, an astonishingly beautiful woman, a trend setter, an activist, a lover, a fighter, a perpetual marrying kind and, in one of her greatest roles, one hell of a drunk. Which naturally brings me back to Martha, to Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, a movie a perceptive film professor told me I should watch every three years of my life. Why? Because I'd understand it better with each viewing.

Perhaps horrifyingly (to some, not me), but ever so poignantly, he couldn't have been more correct. Mike Nichols' debut film, the adaptation of Edward Albee's searing stage play, is a blisteringly real portrait -- a living, breathing, spitting depiction of the destructive and at times, psychotic battle between an aging alcoholic couple intent on outdoing each other. And not through pure violence (though violence does occur, and indeed, Sandy Dennis will clap her hands at the prospect: "Violence!"), but through clever, wickedly malicious verbal gymnastics that feel violent. And it's a movie that some of us, whether coming from a similar family dynamic, or venturing into our own interpersonal incorrigibility can often relate to -- at any age. But oh yes, it does dig in deeper the older you get.

A shocking picture for 1966, the film was an expletive-ridden salvo that frightened some and impressed many. So notable was Woolf that the picture that was the first to use the words "goddamn" and "bugger" went on to Oscars galore, earning Elizabeth Taylor a richly deserved second Academy Award. It also garnered Sandy Dennis a Best Supporting Actress Oscar, a win for Haskell Wexler's gorgeous cinematography (he was the last to win for a category that doesn't exist anymore -- best Black and White cinematography). On top of those accolades, the movie was nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor (Richard Burton), Best Supporting Actor (George Segal), Best Director (Mike Nichols), Best Screenplay (Ernest Lehman), Best Sound, Best Original Music Score (for Alex North's at times gentle, haunting score), and Best Film Editing. Though Oscars are no barometer of greatness, they can point out a certain zeitgeist. This one? Mr. Burton referring to Miss Dennis as "monkey nipples."

Though Bonnie and Clyde helped kick-start the emerging '70s cinema, Virginia Woolf was a formidable front runner and, in a few ways, more disturbingly violent. In it, words and deeds are doled out with a ferocious vitriol that remains unmatched -- at least in terms of eloquence. Nothing so nasty has ever been so sickly beautiful. It certainly helps when Liz is slinging the sadism. That this still beautiful, still young woman would dress herself down to mean-mouthed, muffin-topped middle age was brave enough -- but her words and actions -- funny, terrible, sad and at times, strangely sweet, showed that Taylor truly understood this woman.

And dammit if Liz's dumpy, yet oddly sexy and potently poignant drunk and Burton's broke-down "bog" aren't beautiful losers. Yes, beautiful. Never mind how toxic they make their lives. Beginning with a gorgeous title sequence during which we watch History Professor George (Burton) and his saucy and sauced wife Martha (Taylor) walking back from a function drunk and cackling, the movie immediately places us in their dark, disconsolate universe -- one of shattered hopes, nihilism, and dipsomaniacal game playing. To George's surprise, Martha is expecting guests (at such a late hour) and, after their return home where she famously utters the Bette Davis line "What a dump" while harping on George about a movie: "What's the name of the picture?" (I'm always happy I know the name of the picture. It was the misunderstood, borderline brilliant King Vidor camp-fest Beyond the Forest). She eats chicken (she really devours that drumstick -- and it's all kinds of beautiful), calls George a "cluck," and they booze it up. And booze it up. And booze it up. And then come the guests. Opening the door to a couple of young, unsuspecting colleagues, well, oh my. These two have no idea what they're in for.

Nick (Segal) and Honey (Dennis) are attempting to be cordial, but since Martha's father holds weight in the university, Nick's going to sit this one out, no matter how weird, no matter how sexual, no matter how "Georgie Boy!" it gets. And the two-hour party (in movie time, the picture takes the group into the wee hours) goes beyond weird -- it enters a vortex of nasty, though sometimes wistful revelations for both parties. The two couples become increasingly sauced, and move their action to a nighttime bar where a vulgar dance breaks out between Nick and Martha (Oh how I love this dance).

Things fall apart. The center cannot hold -- just the way George and Martha like it. Nervous Honey admits she yearns for a baby. "Well built" Nick admits his wife (whom George calls "slim hipped") had a hysterical pregnancy. George recalls a tragic story of a child killing his parents that's probably about him. And Martha, well, she pulls out the big guns by bringing up the "blue-haired, blonde-eyed" kid (the game, "Bringing up Baby"). And that is quite enough -- George digs in his claws once and for all.

With such substantial, fearless performances, and Nichols' active, observing camera, the picture attains a visceral power that leaves the viewer both raw and transfixed. There is little respite from these character's actions, and even moments of humor are soon met with yet another discomforting bout of disgrace, cruelty, or sadness.

But it never becomes sickening; on the contrary, there's a sense of nobility to this movie that's unusual for its often-crass subject matter. And once we make it through this harrowing night, we learn that there's a lot of love between dueling G and M. George and Martha may be poster children for extreme dysfunction, but they are indeed meant to be. And there's something oddly romantic about that. By film end, I am firmly on their side. All these inane romantic comedies are supposed to make you feel inspired by love. Not me. I'm pro-George and Martha. I want them to never lose each other -- ever. Have another drink and stick it out with your "quietly noisy relaxed intensity." It's a shame that the real life Martha and George, Liz and Dick, could not make it work. But God bles them, they tried. They tried. Twice.

So my professor was right. Watching the movie every three years does deepen the experience. And in my perhaps, perverse case (I've been watching the thing about once a year since then), I feel a sadness, nostalgia and fondness for George and Martha. And especially today, as Liz has left the building. Again, there's something heroic about their dissipation. When Martha sticks up for George after her indiscretion with Segal ("Him can't. Him too drunk.") and the broken-down couple take to calling Segal "houseboy, well, at that point, I get it. Quite simply, I love George and Martha.

Grab yourself a perfect, healthy relationship, fine. As I'm sure Miss Taylor would say, "Good luck." But if you never discover that rare thing, and if you've found your soulmate, then, I say, get the guests, get the booze, get the blue haired child, get the monkey nipples, get the "Sunday Chapel dress" and get on with it. After all, Martha's "thirsty."

Shiny Leather in the Dark: The Wild One

"What’re you rebelling against, Johnny?" says dancing party girl Mildred to the moody, leather-clad biker boy memorably played by a young Marlon Brando. His famous answer? "Whaddya got?"

Such an insouciant toss-off may seem tame by today’s standards, but in director Laslo Benedek’s 1953 The Wild One (produced by Stanley Kramer), a movie I recently rewatched, that type of reckless rebellion (without a cause) pre-Elvis, was a big deal. A very big deal. Indeed, the entire picture had enormous impact. The movie, based on a Harper’s Magazine story that itself was loosely based on a real-life incident involving a gang of bikers invading a small California town on a Fourth of July weekend, was viewed as so incendiary that the picture was banned in Great Britain until 1968. (Think, how today's mainstream news easily discussed the murder of San Francisco chapter Hell Angels president Mark "Papa" Guardado).

Given how forced some parts of the movie feel, it seems rather silly, but I love this picture regardless -- from its slinky Leith Stevens score, to its dual versions of the alpha male black leather bad boy -- a stoic Brando and a boisterous Lee Marvin -- two cinematic geniuses stomping out the weaklings and marking their territory with inspired appetites (for destruction).

Concerned citizens were frightened not only of its unresolved message but of its reckless, glamorous appeal. Long before the 1960s made biker movies a standard and sometimes silly, sometimes superb subgenre of counterculture cinema, The Wild One -- with its wild hogs, swingin’ jazz score, "Go, Daddy-o" slang and slick black leather style (encased in the fuller body of a gorgeous, somewhat camp Brando, whose look remains timeless) -- was the biker movie. A precursor to the social upheavals that would occur a decade later in the tumultuous 1960s, The Wild One as occasionally goof-ball and somewhat preachy as it plays today, was a blast in the face to regular "square" society, revealing that the kids were not alright. Particularly the older (and boy do they look older), more experienced "kids" -- those scary, wild boys of the road roaring into your sleepy little town on two big powerful wheels. (Can you imagine that tall glass of menace Marvin plopping your little teenage daughter on the back of his hog? Jesus. Why didn't he roar into my town?)

In The Wild One, that town is the milquetoasty Wrightsville, in which (to refresh your memory) Johnny Strabler (Brando), gang leader of the Black Rebels Motorcycle Club (so on the nose and so great...), decides to raise some hell after his gang steals a trophy from the motorcycle competition it was kicked out of. The townspeople are terrified (and, of course, titillated -- especially pretty Kathie Bleeker, played by Mary Murphy) and even the sheriff is unable to contain the problems. The situation escalates when a rival gang (The Beatles -- reportedly, possibly, though never proven, inspiring a name for that other famous group) led by Chino (a brilliant Marvin -- who comes off as the real deal here, laughing face, live-wire energy, striped shirt, Timothy Carey as "Chino's Boy" and all) drops into town, causing a fight with Johnny and his crew. Leather, rage, animalistic sexual urges -- "shiny, shiny, boots of leather, whiplash girl child in the dark..." -- oh, if only the movie could have gone that far.

And yet, it almost does go that far -- subverted underneath its cautionary tale simmered an infectious blast of souped up romanticism and erotic sado-masochism. Face it: these filmmakers knew their picture was a turn-on. The thugged-up gang may clash with the establishment, but who really wants the boring, scared squares to win? Brando, all disaffected bad-boy sexiness, does border on the unlikable side (though he is sympathetic) but the cops aren’t anyone we’d really side with either; in fact, the town’s sheriff is given such little respect, we wonder if the picture is criticizing the watered down suburban man (where's one-armed bad ass Bad Day at Black Rock's Spencer Tracy when you need him?).

So … who’s the "hero" here? Well, obviously Brando and Marvin are stealing the show (and many a viewer’s heart), they are the heroes -- they are the brutal, beautiful manifestation of all that specific, suburban unrest so many young people felt at the time. They're also visions of grubby glamour -- compelling kids to find kicks, danger, the open road and some hot leather jackets before such gear became like today's tattoos -- boring symbols of "rebellion." (You have to know what to wear to the revolution). As the movie proclaimed: "After a while you got to have fun. And if someone gets hurt -- that's just tough!" Or rather, tuff.

Love, Sex and Death: Eyes Wide Shut

Stanely Kubrick died twelve years ago today at the age of 70, leaving behind his final film -- 1999's Eyes Wide Shut -- an interesting picture to close both a century and a life with. Since I've never forgotton that day, or the movie (or any of his movies) I'm dipping into my archives to consider one of  Kubrick's most underrated pictures --  a film that in terms of love, sex, death, fear and träume remains timeless. It's also a great Christmas movie ...

In Stanley Kubrick's cinematic universe, reality, dreams, order and insanity progress on distinct, intersecting planes. Whether he was depicting an absurd, chillingly real war room in Dr. Strangelove, the disturbing but oddly sexy ultra violence of an Orwellian future in A Clockwork Orange, the siren call of insanity in The Shining, the hyper fantastical yet authentic Vietnam War in Full Metal Jacket, or the irony and powerlessness among such transcendent opulence in Barry Lyndon, life was a surreal work in progress -- an ambiguous joke that veered from hilarious to sexy to terrifying, sometimes within seconds. Attempting to understand order, or how any system designed to make our universe more rational or safe seemed fruitless. Think Sterling Hayden approaching such a predicament at the end of Kubrick's The Killing. He watches his life literally fly away on an airport tarmac and bitterly spits one of cinema’s greatest final lines: “Eh, what’s the difference?”

Which brings me to the final line of Kubrick’s frequently misunderstood Eyes Wide Shut in which Nicole Kidman states rather flatly, “Fuck” -- as in, that’s the answer, that’s what we need to do. A movie I’ve defended since its release, it’s a picture that deserves closer inspection and a worthy finale for the enigmatic auteur.

The controversial movie (some thought it silly, some, un-erotic) Eyes Wide Shut found the director once again studying the perplexing nature of dreams and reality, this time exploring them in a more personal and private arena: sexuality. As he did with Lolita, Kubrick created more than a film about sexual desire; he created a film about bitter romance, troublesome marital bonds, societal contradictions and, significantly, the fear of death.

An updating of the 1927 Traumnovelle (Dream Novel) by the sardonic Austrian writer Arthur Schnitzler, the picture remains an unsettling blend of antiquated garishness and modern transgression -- an alternate sexual universe haunted by ghouls of the past, present and future.

In this universe “live” the healthy, handsome walking dead -- Dr. Bill Harford (an impressive Tom Cruise) and his wife, Alice (a slinky, wonderfully creepy Nicole Kidman), a glamorous, rich couple who appear the picture of storybook perfection. But like most supposed perfection, there are cracks in that portrait, and in their case, it’s the usual: they want to screw other people (or at least they think they do). At a sumptuous party given by Bill's obscenely wealthy friend Victor (Sydney Pollack), Bill almost strays upstairs with two models while Alice flirts with a bizarre Hungarian man who looks like one of the cadaverous party-goers from The Shining. The next evening, in a fit of jealousy over Bill's near indiscretion (he ended up contending with a beautiful, naked drug overdose instead of a debauched roll in the hay -- though the way her body sits in this shot is disturbingly erotic), Alice confesses that she’s had thoughts of cheating and, even worse, reveals that if things had been different, she would have thrown her entire life away for one flight of sexual fancy.

Unmasking something that should remain one of those deep, dark secrets you never confess to your significant other, Alice deftly rattles Bill's perception of her fidelity and the strength of their marriage in a speech that makes his mind spin out of control (Kidman's performance here is superb). After this confession, Bill is abruptly called away to confirm the death of a patient and keeping in tune with the love/death/sex of the picture, the daughter of the deceased makes a pass at him. The grief stricken but, considering the circumstances, kinky gesture aids in Bill’s decision to not immediately return home. Instead, he wanders the streets of New York and embarks on a sequence of actions that, though not as outwardly comic, somewhat resemble those in the Scorsese movie After Hours: He discovers a surreal sexual underworld that he’s both attracted to and repelled by.

A prostitute, a piano player, a bizarre costume-store owner and his Lolita-esque 14-year-old daughter lead Bill to the film's infamous ritualistic orgy sequence, during which participants are cloaked and masked, and naked women are used as sacrificial sex lambs. The gothic, terrifying yet titillating feel of this sequence walks a fine line between horror and parody and true to Kubrick’s genius, manages to cross into both camps. The magnificent, exacting camera work and unrelenting music compel us to look, no matter what happens, and though I was actually a little scared the first time I saw this moment, I found myself highly amused --laughing even. If ever a person was out of place in a Bohemian Grove-like orgy, it is Tom Cruise’s Dr. Bill. And yet, I was absolutely hypnotized, watching these moments like a waking dream and investing it with multiple meanings. What the hell is going on here besides a bunch of silly old rich men getting their jollies with beautifully breasted, long legged Helmut Newton models? And further, what do all of Bill’s adventures mean? Are Bill's encounters simply nightmares that will damage his marriage beyond repair, or are they mere titillating fantasy -- fodder for a closer relationship and better sex with his spouse?

Well, I can’t answer that. Given the picture's ominous tone, however, there is something definitely rotten within its slinky, Christmas-lit loveliness. Like the impeccable environment of The Shining, the aura of Eyes Wide Shut is one of beauty ready to be defiled, sexuality ready to be slaughtered, lovely exteriors that reek of formaldehyde. The pall that hangs over this picture is fear: fear of the unknown; fear of yourself or of others; and fear that if sex can lead to freedom, it can just as easily lead to death.

In fact, the picture can be viewed as a commentary on sexual attitudes in the last few decades -- a time when meaningless indiscretions can lead to horrifying blood-test results. It is no surprise, then, that Bill is a doctor and that throughout the film, he flashes his physician's ID as a police detective would his badge. "I'm a doctor," he constantly says, for both reassurance and intimidation. In a profession that requires intimate investigation of flesh that may well be on its way to the morgue, sex is serious. These unsettling references to AIDS, necrophilia and forbidden sex (not to mention Kubrick's own death upon bringing the film to completion, une petite mort of sorts) permeate the picture like one giant prick tease. In today's world, sex is still there for the taking, but at what cost and for what gain? Kubrick's frustrating, brilliant coda neither answers nor ignores its own questions. Rather, it leaves us in a mysterious, contradictory mishmash of dream and reality, where not only are our eyes wide shut, but our legs are too.