Stanley Kubrick’s Secret Ritual Orgy
On March 7, 1999, just four days after delivering the final cut of Eyes Wide Shut to Warner, Stanley Kubrick died in his sleep from a myocardial infarction. His sudden death, the decade that had passed since his previous film (Full Metal Jacket, 1987), and the morbid curiosity that Hollywood’s fashionable couple, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, starred in the posthumous film, gave the premiere a certain testamentary aura that exponentially raised expectations. Critics and audiences disagreed. A stroke of genius? A blunder? Or was the message simply not understood? Be that as it may, the film has aged remarkably well, features some memorable scenes, and, above all, contains not one but two succulent parties, two distorting mirrors of the same elite.
