Lovely article here on the late actor/director's linchpin performance in Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut," written by David Schwartz for the Museum of the Moving Image's Moving Image Source website.
From the article: "The power of Kubrick's direction?and Pollack's performance?in the billiard scene comes from the contrast between Cruise's understated (and underrated) performance as Bill, and Pollack's blustery, mannered style. Cruise, the biggest box office star of his time, is brilliant in an uncharacteristic role; his character is passive, naïve, insecure, introverted, and unhinged. Ziegler is the opposite. Everything with him is show and surface; his power is derived from his understanding and command of how the world works. This is a man with no need for introspection.
"Yet if we were to come away believing that Ziegler has all the answers, the scene?and the film?would lose its remarkable ambiguity. For the scene to work?as it does?it must pretend to be explanatory while raising more questions than it answers. What Pollack does so commandingly is create the impression that every hesitation, every smile, every gesture by Ziegler is calculated and artificial, while at the same time making him so charming and convincing that everything also feels genuine. Ziegler seems to be lying and telling the truth at the same time, and Kubrick has no interest in resolving this tension."
"Eyes Wide Shut" has always had its quixotic defenders, but Schwartz is the first writer to make me want to actually see the film again.
