FACES d: John Cassavetes
Faces (1968)
Direction and screenplay: John Cassavetes
Cast: John Marley, Gena Rowlands, Lynn Carlin, Fred Draper, Seymour Cassel, Val Avery
John Cassavetes reportedly threw the money he made with the 1968 horror hit Rosemary’s Baby into his finishing touches on Faces, a personal project he had begun filming in 1966. Cassavetes spent months (some sources say a couple of years) editing the film into a "manageable" six hours, and eventually into its final 130 minutes.
Silent-film maverick Erich von Stroheim would have been proud of him — at least in regard to the film’s (initial) length and to Cassavetes’ committed auteurship. Now, would the irascible Stroheim have approved of the frequently inaudible dialogue, sloppy editing, poor lighting, careless camera placement, and faux-naturalistic acting? Probably not.
Shot in 16mm (that looks like poorly developed Super 8) black and white, Faces is John Cassavetes’ home movie from hell. When its characters began boozing it up, I felt like having a soothing drink as well. When they got philosophical, my mind went numb. When they screamed out of despair, I screamed, too — out of sheer boredom.
It all begins when a group of film executives get together to watch their newest movie: Faces. (The "innovative" trick of having the main storyline be a film within a film can be seen at least as early as 1940, in Marcel L’Herbier’s La Comédie du bonheur.)
Then we see two drunk, middle-aged businessmen babbling the night away in the company of a high-class prostitute. One of the men, Freddie (Fred Draper), is an insufferable bore who has strong misogynistic tendencies; the other, Richard (John Marley), a married man, develops feelings for the prostitute, Jeannie (Gena Rowlands). Richard’s fourteen-year marriage has been suffering from chronic ennui for some time, and the cool, experienced Jeannie arises his long dormant spirit. It doesn’t take long before Richard returns to Jeannie’s home for more fun and games — plus some nasty arguments with a few of her drunk, woman-hating clients.
Meanwhile, Richard’s much younger though equally bored wife, Maria (Lynn Carlin), decides that she needs some excitement of her own. Joined by a group of female friends, she goes to a club where she meets a nice young man, Chet (Seymour Cassel). Later in the evening at Maria’s home, the women try to figure out who’s going to bed with their eager-to-please guest. Maria is the lucky one. Their night of sex and physical solace is followed by a morning of guilt and a suicide attempt. Maria is saved by Chet, who slaps her some and then hands her a cigarette. He also tells her that "nobody has the time to be vulnerable to each other."
Eventually, husband and wife are left to their still empty — though radically changed — selves.
Cassavetes was apparently too enamored of his own unHollywood brilliance to let a mere story get in the way of cute cinematic tricks. These include the use of a handheld camera that helps make the barely discernible action even murkier, and an overabundance of closeups. True, the film is called Faces, but unlike Ingmar Bergman, whose camera closeups (usually) transport us into the soul of his actors, Cassavetes only presents us with talking heads. And do those heads talk.
What they actually talk about is anyone’s guess, since much of the dialogue is inaudible, but the sections that are intelligible are best described by one line in the movie: "Blah, blah, blah." And when actors, however talented, are given loads of such blah-blah-blahs, their performances come across as one single, flat blah. That is unfortunate, for underneath all the artificially created "rawness" there is a real, tragic story about a desperately lonely married couple struggling to come to terms with their crumbling relationship. (When Faces came out, Cassavetes and leading lady Gena Rowlands, like the lead characters in the film, had been married for fourteen years. John Marley, in fact, looks like an older Cassavetes.)
Faces is a historically important motion picture because it is, at least officially, the first independently made and distributed American film to reach mainstream audiences. Be that as it may, I found it nothing more than a pretentious bore.
For a no-holds-barred look at a marriage on the rocks, check out Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
3 Academy Award Nominations
Best Supporting Actor: Seymour Cassel
Best Supporting Actress: Lynn Carlin
Best Original Screenplay: John Cassavetes
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Tags: Classic Movies, Faces, Film Reviews, Gena Rowlands, John Cassavetes, John Marley, Lynn Carlin, Oscar 1968, Oscar Movies, Seymour Cassel
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With all due respect, you didnt get it.
Faces is alive like no film I’ve ever seen.
The psychology it evinces is profound.
Witness the scene where Richard tells Jeannie she doesnt have to be “on” (or however he says it); that she can just relax and be herself with him. She is flustered, pretends not to understand him. That happy mask she wears is a cover and a wall. She leaves the room on some pretense… paces the kitchen.. then Richard appears in the hall, singing to her, reviving an inside joke they’ve been sharing — essentially saying, “okay, we dont have to hurry, this is enough,” and she is elated, and comes to him. It is beautiful for many reasons, not least of which is Richard’s understanding. But, while reassuring, the viewer also may have a sense that this is the beginning of the end; the first sign of what will be their failure to connect on other levels. Or the scene where the women are competing for Chet’s attention and the reserved younger woman is watching as the brave older woman shamelessly lives life to its fullest… At first, she thinks they are being foolish, but then, you can see, she wants to loosen up and dance with him.. after a few drinks she works up the courage and when she does, Chet practically pulls the rug out from under her by saying something like “What are we doing, we’re being ridiculous.” And she is mortified, she slaps him and storms out… This is a big theme in Cassavetes’ work: That we should TRY, we should live, and confront our fears, put ourselves out there, even if, sometimes, we will fall flat on our “faces”… Scene after scene, nuanced psychological process are shown with a master’s blend of detachment and sympathy. How could you fail to miss this?!
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a terrific film, and another one of my favorites. But do you really need it to be so in-your-face and over-the-top? It makes me wonder if you missed a lot of the more subtle gems in that film, too.
Stephen,
First of all, thanks for writing.
Can’t say I agree with your assessment of either “Faces” or John Cassavetes, but I have no qualms with people understanding/seeing films (or any other work of art) in a manner that’s different than (or even opposite to) my own.
I didn’t mean to be “in-your-face and over-the-top” in my review, though having reread it just now it may come across that way. Ironically, that’s *exactly* the problem I had with “Faces” and with the other Cassavetes films I’ve seen, as I find them “in-your-face and over-the-top” in their attempt to mirror their characters’ inner and outer realities. So much so, in fact, that to me their much-praised “rawness” feels thoroughly artificial.
But then again, I’m sure there are lots of people out there who would fully agree with you.
Once again, thanks for sharing your thoughts.