Possibly because he’s waking up from a dream where he just jumped off of a building several times taller than the Empire State Building?
What did Crowe say?
I thought it was established in the movie that everything up to the point where he went to the club with the mask on was what really happened, then he passed out in the street, and started his “LE suspension” shortly after. This means that Pen. Cruz did come to his party, and they did have the one night at her apartment, and then the “accident” really did happen. Starting with the point where Pen. picks him up, hungover on the street, was the beginning of the dream.
And for the OP, the movie ended with him being alive.
That’s exactly why they don’t show the face. If they answered the question without a doubt, the movie would be a lot less interesting. If there is a “true” answer (which, IMHO, there isn’t, regardless of what Crowe says in the DVD commentary), I’m glad they don’t spell it out for you at the end of the movie.
I just rented the movie on VHS, which included a commentary at the end called “Prelude to a Dream” which I’m assuming is the Crowe commentary included on the DVD. (at one point he says something like “… on this DVD.”) He said that while they were making the film, and afterward, the principals liked to argue its many implications.
I enjoyed the parallels to Eyes Wide Shut, also starring Cruise, which I have no idea if they were intentional or not. Probably not, since it is a remake of a Spanish film. Anyway, I saw Eyes Wide Shut totally as a dream, impelled by his wife’s confession of lust for the Navy officier. Similarly, in Vanilla Sky, Cruise is tortured by his shabby treatment of Cameron Diaz as well as the opportunity he let slip away with Penelope Cruz. Or something like that.
Crowe said that it’s a movie that you can examine in great detail, or simply let wash over you, which I thought was kind of neat. Nitpick it to death if you like, or view it detachedly as a dream of a tortured mind. I like that in a film.
(Isn’t it interesting that “Cruise” and “Cruz” are pronounced the same, and the movie stars Cameron Diaz, directed by Cameron Crowe. It’s like they ran out of names and had to pass around the same ones! :))