damnedest creature

eyes wide shut (1999) // stanley kubrick's photography (1945-1950)

”Suddenly, as if he had had enough of Moscow, Tom asked:

– Is it possible to see a real Russian village?

I applied for permission to the KGB. The answer was short: “Wait two weeks.” I answered: "Thanks!"

The next morning we drove by car to the Nikolinsky Mountains, passed the dacha, crossed the Moscow River and rushed past fields, towns and villages. “I felt like James Bond running from the KGB,” Tom smiled knowingly. He seemed to enjoy breaking the rules. He turned out to be a racing driver with a garage full of racing cars, and he felt almost comfortable in Russian Zhiguli cars.

"Can we stop here?" He pointed to a wooden house behind the fence. I stopped the car. We knocked on the door. The elderly woman came out. I explained as best I could who we were and what the guest wanted.

“Come in, dear guests! Do you want some tea?" We exchanged glances and accepted the invitation. Half an hour passed very quickly in a question-and-answer conversation. Tom took a photo with the hospitable hostess. I looked around. There didn't seem to be a tail.”

— from 'Confession of a “foreign agent.”From the USSR to Russia and back: a journey of fifty years' by Igor Kokorev

Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise were wearing their first wedding rings in Eyes Wide Shut (1-4).