Kubrick's masterpiece in the making

And because Kubrick is a man beset by strange obsessions, paranoias, phobias and fears - many of which involve travel and prevent him from flying - the movie has been made wholly within the UK and mostly at Pinewood Studios in London. In September last year, shooting took place briefly in the City, where Worship Street was turned into a New York thoroughfare. At Christmas.

So, this mega-movie is being made beneath our noses, and has been shooting for more than a year. Yet it remains the film industry's biggest enigma, a puzzle which becomes more intriguing each time another little nugget of information is leaked.

Some people will talk about Eyes Wide Shut, though they remain nameless. We know, therefore, that the screenplay is based on the controversial 1920s novel Traumnovelle by the Austrian writer Arthur Schnitzler, published in this country under the title Rhapsody: A Dream Novel. The book is about a Viennese doctor and his wife, their erotic dreams and daylight obsessions. Hence the film's paradoxical title.

Kubrick has updated the plot, and made New York its location. He may, indeed, have changed the book's plot so radically that the final film bears little relation to it.

It is, however, safe to say that Eyes Wide Shut is a twisted love story, featuring sexual obsession and drugs. We know about the drugs because Kubrick has hired a drugs consultant - Clive Froggatt, the disgraced former doctor who devised government health service reforms before admitting to heroin addiction. He is believed to be advising specifically on scenes which depict the results of a heroin overdose.

We also know that the screenplay was written by Frederic Raphael. The writer confessed the fact to us during a tense telephone conversation, and then said: "I really can't talk about it. Stanley has sworn me to secrecy. I'm sorry. Goodbye."

We know that the stars - Hollywood husband and wife Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman - have been forced to make London their home for more than a year. They have been here, indeed, for rather longer: London was the location for the filming of Mission: Impossible, in which Cruise starred, and so the couple moved to England for a brief spell in 1995.

Eyes Wide Shut was originally to have starred Harvey Keitel, too, but he was sacked earlier last year. Try to find out why and telephone receivers slam down in response.

Cruise and Kidman play psychologists, presumably a modern version of the Viennese doctor and his wife; Keitel was playing a stalker.

The two principals lead a low-profile life in London, though they have become semi-permanent fixtures within London's classiest social circles. They are often seen at the theatre - in particular at the Donmar Warehouse on Earlham Street. Nicole Kidman is occasionally found sharing a large table at the Greek Street club Soho House. Favoured restaurants include La Famiglia in Chelsea, Nobu in the Metropolitan Hotel and, of course, The Ivy in Covent Garden. The capital's up-market shops - Space NK Apothecary, Tobias and the Angel, The Cross, Browns - have all had cause to swipe the Cruise and Kidman platinum credit cards. The couple have settled in London and Hertfordshire with apparent ease, their two adopted children benefiting from the privacy - secrecy, indeed - which surrounds the Kubrick enterprise.

And Kubrick demands absolute loyalty to his movie. The director of A Clockwork Orange, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Full Metal Jacket is a man for whom the phrase "hands on" might have been coined. He oversees the design, production and printing of the posters in every country where the film is released. He personally works on the dubbing of French, Italian and German trailers for his films. He is known to impose his own rules: all drivers on Eyes Wide Shut, for example, must not exceed 35mph - on his orders.

Kidman and Cruise have kept their discreet side of the bargain, and have said very little about their roles, other than to confirm that the director deals with each of them separately. "When you see the film, you'll understand why," Kidman has said, intriguingly.

With the exception of Keitel's hurried departure, however, Kubrick appears to run a happy film-set. And despite his perfectionism - Tom Cruise was once required to weep on cue for 37 takes - he seems in other respects a normal sort of person. Whenever he can, he watches the soap opera Eastenders. He is a keen football fan, an Arsenal supporter.

It is also hard to find anyone who disputes his genius. For that reason, when the armed guards finally release Kubrick's new movie, most pundits expect to see a masterpiece.