Culture Slut: The Best Parties in Cinematic History

Make it stand out

For the first time in seven years, I’m going out for New Year’s Eve. This may come as a shock to many of you who know me as a creature of the night, someone who only exists in sparkling nightclubs and on dark street corners, but for nearly the last decade, I’ve always been working on New Year’s Eve. Not working in a fun way like performing or putting on a night or dancing on a stage, but working at my boring hotel job, sitting in an office watching the seconds tick away on the computer’s little clock interface.

My tradition has always been to get my chores done as quickly as possible, cook the fanciest pizza I could find at the supermarket in the restaurant kitchen, and then sit in the office and watch the camp odyssey known as Showgirls (1995). It’s worked well for me, but this year I’m ready for a change. No more seeing friends at the very beginning of their pre drinks and then following their night via Instagram stories, no more serving the worst people at the hotel bar, no more pretending to enjoy drunk phone calls from my friends in a club smoking area telling me they wished I was out with them.

One past, memorable year I had some drinks with friends before heading into work for my shift, suffered through the night, and then when I got back to town in the morning I bumped into those same friends on their way to the third after-party of the night - it was great. I asked if I should buy drink on the way but was assured there was lots at the house. Of course there wasn’t, and I drank gin mixed with room temperature Diet Pepsi for a few hours before everyone else passed out where they sat and I could go home.
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“I live my life in night clubs, but New Year’s Eve has a different energy. Someone always turns into a horrendous hog, whether that’s with boys, drugs, music or just vibes. Someone always has a melt down. Someone always cries, or runs away, or storms off.”

Another time I went straight to a friend’s house party after my shift, arriving at 9 in the morning to what had been a boujie cocktail night but was now descending into a rampant chemsex session; the last female guest fully passed out in a spare bedroom whilst the boys did unspeakable things in the living room and hallways, stopping only once an hour to go to the kitchen at G o’clock for top ups. I’m excited to experience the whole night for once, not just the dregs. I live my life in night clubs, but New Year’s Eve has a different energy. Someone always turns into a horrendous hog, whether that’s with boys, drugs, music or just vibes. Someone always has a melt down. Someone always cries, or runs away, or storms off. I’m going to a club night in a giant theatre venue, the Dome in Brighton, where I used to go see ballet performances with my grandmother; Philip Glass and his ensemble perform a six hour concert of shining minimalism with my father; La Roux in 2009 when I was 18. 

In preparation for this coming night out, I’ve put together a list of my favourite parties from cinematic history and whether or not I’d have enjoyed them…

Margo Channing’s party for Bill’s birthday in All About Eve (1950)

This is 100% my kind of party. Of course I see myself as the grande dame Margo Channing played expertly by Bette Davis, broiling with unspoken tension and downing martinis with steely determination. Her friends, seeing she is in a foul mood, ask if whatever has or is about to happen is over or just beginning, to which she replies with the iconic line “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night.” Margo, under the impression that her boyfriend is in the process of replacing her with a younger woman, drinks more and more, sitting with the pianist, only allowing him to play the very tragic Liebestod (Love Death) from Tristan und Isolde, despite protestations from her guests. This is me, I am she. All I want is to do is drink, listen to sad music and feel sorry for myself. Four stars.

Harold’s birthday party in The Boys in The Band (1970/2020)

I’ve been to this party. I’ve lived through this party. I’ve hosted this party. I’ve cried after this party. Written in the 1960s, pre-Stonewall, it shows a group of gay friends celebrating a birthday together. I’ve been every single one of these men. I’ve been the image obsessed near-alcoholic who stabs blindly with his words when he feels attacked, I’ve been the humorous sissy who punches down just to feel like I’m not the lowest rung on the gay male food chain, I’ve been the couple arguing about whether or not to open the relationship and if we still even love each other any more, I’ve been the directionless aesthete who has slept with one of the other guests in a sauna but can’t bring it up because it will make things awkward, I’ve been the vile queen who eviscerates any one who speaks to her just to feel something. I’ve danced to Martha and the Vandellas. I’ve been punched in the face by a self-hating homophobe. I’ve played horrible games where no one wins. Top marks for this party. Five stars. Ten out of ten. Would always love to go again.

The Divorce party in La Dolce Vita (1960)

This film provides us with lots of great parties, the ghost hunting one in an old Palazzo being a good stand out, but I have to go with the final party sequence for my top pick. Our hero Marcello and a bunch of friends break into another friend’s beach house to celebrate the recent divorce of one of the women. The atmosphere of this party is so real, I’ve definitely felt this energy in real life. The divorcee is cheered by all the other guests and persuaded to give a striptease to a song of her choosing. Later on, two beautiful crossdressing boys get up to do a number and met with equal parts joy and derision. I’ve been to house parties like this, where I would give 4am poetry recitations in the living room, or violently throw myself around to Tina Turner’s Loving You Too Long. Marcello tries to unsuccessfully start an orgy that just descends into chaos, and girl, I’ve been there too. The whole energy of the night is loaded, pushing people to some kind of action, not ready to settle, but unsure of the direction things should take. This isn’t a sex party, but maybe if we try hard enough it could be? At the end of the party, all the drunk guests run out onto the beach where the fishermen and other normal working people are going about their daily lives, recreating that jarring feeling of realising your party has gone on too long. Four stars.

The Capulet Fancy Dress Ball in Romeo + Juliet (1996)

The party pinnacle of my adolescent fantasies. Baz Luhrmann’s masterpiece still holds up today as a representation of unrestrained joy in tragedy and maximalism, and as fidelity to the spirit of Shakespeare’s populist plays. Leo DiCaprio’s Romeo meets Claire Danes’ Juliet at a wild fancy dress party in the Capulet mansion and it’s all very romantic and all that, but the party itself is what stayed with me the most. We start the night with Romeo and his friends, larking around on the beach, waiting for something to happen when we finally meet Mercutio. Oh, Mercutio. So stunning, wild and free, in drag and doling out pills, his Queen Mab speech still runs through my brain. 

The boys take ecstasy and go to the party which seems like a descent into the decadence of sin. The Capulet father wears makeup and flashes the camera whilst singing opera, Mrs Capulet, dressed as Elizabeth Taylor’s Cleopatra, open mouth kisses her own nephew in devil horns, and to cap it all, Mercutio lip syncs to the fantastic Kym Mazelle version of Candi Staton’s hit song Young Hearts Run Free. 

This formed the blueprint of every party that has truly meant something to me, wild excess, lascivious behaviour, cross dressing, performance, a wide range of revellers, from hot young people to grande dames ready to risk it all, drugs, dancing, drag, poetry, all of it covering an undercurrent of desperation to just feel alive, to pursue love, to experience new things. A good party loosens your grip on reality and makes you question your loyalty to this earth. Five stars. Another ten out of ten from me.

The After Party in Climax (2018)

This is it. This is the denouement. The final party. If I had to go out one last time, it would be to this one. Ostensibly based on a true story, Gaspar Noe’s ode to the uncontrollable intoxication of dancing shows a troupe of French performers get spiked at a party in a mountain retreat, and the descent into hell they embark upon. I loved the critical reviews of this film and started keeping a note of some of the descriptions of the plot that really tickled me. “Dance-Dance-Devolution.” “A neon bacchanal.” “A dance party in an upper circle of hell.” “Busby Berkeley by way of Hieronymous Bosch.” “Fame, but directed by the Marquis de Sade with a steady cam.” That last one is probably my favourite. 

I first saw this film in a lockdown during the Covid pandemic and it almost fully satiated my compulsion to go out dancing. The first section is an elaborately choreographed and shot professional dance sequence, full of energy and excitement, whilst the rest of it shows the cast’s painful and violent unravelling, starting fights with each other, falling into abject despair, yearning for (and some attaining) death, trapped in a never ending night of pain. Souls are lost, exploited, and protected. Flesh is both a prison and aphrodisiac. As we truly descend like Dante into the belly of the beast, we see an extended shot of writhing bodies light with red neon and flames, the camera turns upside-down and we don’t know where we are any more. Are we still at the party, or have crossed over? Is this still a party, or is it just a divine punishment. Six stars. Would willingly sacrifice myself on the altar of dancing.

Words: Misha MN