It’s taken me a few viewings to come to terms with the orgy sequence, which is audaciously silly, and the most decisive break from Schnitzler’s novella. With the help of his old friend the pianist, Bill infiltrates a Long Island estate where the rich and powerful, hidden behind cloaks and masks, convene for a ritualistic sex party. Bill doesn’t belong there—and is told that he’s in danger, too—because he isn’t a member of the elite, and as an imposter, he’s punished by being unmasked and exposed before everyone...
The important part is that Bill doesn’t have access to the party; the whys aren’t that relevant. Critics pilloried the anti-erotic ridiculousness of the orgy, with its funereal organ music and self-sacrificing hookers and mass-like rituals involving cloaked high priests and great plumes of incense. But the orgy is more about power than sex; in that respect, it’s the opposite of some free-love hippie bacchanal, where the fucking is more democratic. Here, the rituals are about affirming the elite, and Bill doesn’t belong to this exclusionary country club, whose members are intent on subjugating their inferiors. For Bill, it’s the peak of a humiliating journey, and Kubrick accomplishes the remarkable feat of making Cruise, the brashly confident movie star, look small and scared behind that mask.
The year 1999 was an incredible year for movies, with the best of them centered around a common theme: characters that are delusional, psychotic, or the walking dead. Say what you want about Hollywood, the power of art transcends the corruption, and for that moment at least, shined a brilliant light on America at the end of the Clinton administration as it sleepwalked into the Bush years.
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