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Contributors: Jul. 5, 1999

3 minute read
TIME

This week’s cover stories on Stanley Kubrick’s controversial Eyes Wide Shut were produced by movie critic RICHARD SCHICKEL and Los Angeles bureau chief CATHY BOOTH. Both saw a private screening of the film in New York City. Schickel first met Kubrick during a four-hour, late-night interview for a TIME cover story on the director’s 1975 film, Barry Lyndon. From the seeds of that conversation a friendship blossomed, and over 24 years Schickel came to know the filmmaker as anything but the “reclusive nerd” perceived by the rest of the press. The label of “weird hermit” was resented by Kubrick’s widow Christiane and daughter Anya, and both chose to give Schickel interviews about Kubrick, who died last March. “He was fun, he was smart–he was a great guy to have dinner with,” says Schickel. But a perfectionist: “Stanley would track his movies to the smallest suburban sub-run theater, make sure it was being screened and advertised right. But that was just because he saw it as part of his job. People liked being driven crazy by Stanley, because he absolutely knew everything about making a movie and putting it out.”

For her part, Booth flew to Australia to interview the movie’s stars, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, who have a home there and were making separate films in the country. Kidman was fresh from her 32nd-birthday party and a birthday cake baked by daughter Isabella, 6, with the help of the family’s new master chef–Cruise. The actor recalled being surprised when Kubrick offered to drive over and see him after Cruise contracted an ulcer during filming. Crusie had heard stories that Kubrick had a driver, wore a helmet in his car and didn’t drive faster than 35 miles an hour. “When I told Kubrick about it he laughed,” said Cruise, embarrassed by his own gullibility. “Even me! And I’m always the one to say this stuff is hogwash.”

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