Hi, this is Mark Kermode. Thanks for downloading this Kermode on film podcast. Or if you're watching on the YouTube channel, thanks for watching us. I am joined once again by Jack Howard.

Hello.

We are upstairs at the glamorous Sun Pub in London's busy West End. And this is episode two of our eyes-wide shut special.

In the last episode, when we've both gone back and watched the film again, we established that actually neither Jack nor I like Stanley Kubrick's last film. Yeah, it wasn't a particularly balanced

argument. We're very much on the same team in this one. But what we decided for this episode

is we're going to answer the question of, why don't we like it? So, Jack, I am relieved that

having both revisited eyes wide shut, we are on the same page. I mean, I have to say watching it again, as I said, I just found it immensely reassuring that I hadn't completely fudged it the first time around. I stand by all the criticisms I made of it the first time. I don't think I hate it quite as much as you do. I don't hate it. Okay. I don't hate it. And actually, in order to be balanced, let me tell you a few things that I think are good about it. Okay? I think that the use of music is pretty remarkable. And I think that Jocelyn Pook's work on it is astonishing. I just wrote a book surround sound of the stories of movie music, which I wrote

with Jenny Nelson. Available wherever you get your books. Wherever you get your books.

And actually, one of the films that we use as a soundtrack selection is eyes wide shut, and

specifically Justin Pook's work on it. I'll tell you a story that we repeat in that book, which I think

is kind of a way into the film.

When Jocelyn Pook got the assignment, what happened was that they were shooting the party scene, the mass scene.

And Stanley Kubrick had heard a piece that Jocelyn Pook had written and recorded called Backwards Priests,

which was the sound of Romanian Orthodox

priest service being played backwards. You're like really kind of weird and sort of, you know,

chanting. So he had got in touch with her and said, I'd like you to work on the film for me. And she said,

you know, great, you know, Stanley Kubrick. And so she did some

work on that piece. And then she wrote some other music, including the, the naval officer piece,

which is very, very important for them. And obviously, he used other music as well, as Kubrick

always does, ends up using existing pieces of classical music. But what happened was that Justin

put up told this story that she was only allowed to see the scenes that her music was being used in.

So they would send a car with a videotape as it was back then of the scene that she would be

...