Editing Eyes Wide Shut (section)

===Debate over the film's state of completion===
Though Warner Bros. insisted that Kubrick had turned in his final cut before his death, the film was still in the final stages of post-production, which was therefore completed by the studio in collaboration with Kubrick's estate. Some have argued that the work that remained was minor and exclusively technical in nature, allowing the estate to faithfully complete the film based on the director's notes. However, decisions regarding sound mixing, scoring and color-correction would have necessarily been made without Kubrick's input. Furthermore, Kubrick had a history of continuing to edit his films up until the last minute, and in some cases even after initial public screenings, as had been the case with ''2001: A Space Odyssey'' and ''The Shining''.<ref>{{cite web|last=Allman|first=Marshall|title=Kubrick's Final Film Reimagined|url=https://www.eyeswidecut.com/inspiration/|access-date=August 24, 2018|archive-date=August 25, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180825041252/https://www.eyeswidecut.com/inspiration/|url-status=live}}</ref>

Writing for ''Vanity Fair'', Kubrick collaborator [[Michael Herr]] recalled a phone call from the director regarding the cut that would be screened for the Warner Bros. executives four days before his death:

{{blockquote|text=... there was looping to be done and the music wasn't finished, lots of small technical fixes on color and sound; would I show work that wasn't finished? He had to show it to Tom and Nicole because they had to sign nudity releases, and to Terry Semel and Bob Daly of Warner Bros., but he hated it that he had to, and I could hear it in his voice that he did.<ref name=vf/>}}

[[Garrett Brown]], inventor of the [[Steadicam]], has expressed that he considers ''Eyes Wide Shut'' to be an unfinished film:

{{blockquote|text=I think ''Eyes Wide Shut'' was snatched up by the studio when Stanley died and they just grabbed the highest number [[Media Composer|Avid]] edit and ran off as if that was the movie. But it was three months before the movie was due to be released. I don't think there's a chance that was the movie he had in mind, or the music track and a lot of other things. It's a great shame because you know it's out there, but it doesn't feel to me as it's really his film.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.moviegeeksunited.net/kubrick.htm |title=Movie Geeks United! - The Kubrick Series |publisher=Movie Geeks United! |access-date=2017-01-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170107170417/http://www.moviegeeksunited.net/kubrick.htm |archive-date=2017-01-07 |url-status=dead}}</ref>}}

Nicole Kidman, one of the stars of the film, briefly wrote about the completion of the film and the release of the film being at the same time as [[John F. Kennedy Jr.]]'s death from her perspective:

{{blockquote|text=There was a lot of interest in ''Eyes Wide Shut'' before it was released. But the weekend it came out, July 16, 1999, was the death of JFK Jr., his wife and her sister – a black, black weekend. And for Stanley to have died [on March 7, 1999, at age 70] before the film opened... Well, it all felt so dark and strange. Stanley had sent over the cut he considered done to us, Tom and I watched it in New York – and then he died.<ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Ginsburg|first1=Merle|title=Nicole Kidman on Life with Tom Cruise Through Stanley Kubrick's Lens|url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/nicole-kidman-stanley-kubricks-lens-382186|date=October 24, 2012|magazine=The Hollywood Reporter|access-date=24 November 2012|archive-date=February 19, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180219031242/https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/nicole-kidman-stanley-kubricks-lens-382186|url-status=live}}</ref>}}