A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE by John Cassavetes
by Andre Soares
A Woman Under the Influence (1974)
Direction and screenplay: John Cassavetes. Cast: Gena Rowlands, Peter Falk, Fred Draper, Lady Rowlands, Katherine Cassavetes
IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WIFE
Steven Spielberg is a respected film director. Many will even call him an auteur. When you watch a Spielberg film, you know it’s a Spielberg film — or at least one made by his myriad imitators. John Cassavetes is a respected film director. No one will deny the fact that Cassavetes is a film auteur. When you watch a Cassavetes film, you know it’s a Cassavetes film — or at least a Henry Jaglom imitation of a Cassavetes film.
Now, apart from self-important works like Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan, it is still acceptable to dismiss Spielberg’s films and even Spielberg himself. On the other hand, if you want to be taken seriously as an intellectual film connoisseur, it is totally unacceptable to dismiss Cassavetes’ films and his talent as an artist. Why the double standard?
Well, dear reader, that’s quite simple. Spielberg is the personification of expensive, slick, mainstream Hollywood. Cassavetes, on the other hand, is the personification of cheap, raw, independent filmmaking. A true artist must a least give the impression of being poor, honest, and an outsider.
Thus, Cassavetes films such as A Woman Under the Influence are hailed as masterpieces despite their in-your-face self-indulgence, their utter superficiality, and, gasp, their blatant artificiality. For Cassavetes’ search for the truth in his films is marred by the director-writer’s passion for his own brilliance. Scenes linger on for hours (or it seems like they do), while mindless, meaningless dialogue is talked, yelled, and screamed nonstop, back and forth, for no apparent reason — except, perhaps, to hide the fact that those people don’t have anything of interest to say. The result is a series of films whose rawness feels as calculated and phony as the gooey sentimentality found in Amistad or The Color Purple.
In A Woman Under the Influence, we have a film about insanity in which every single character should be committed to a mental institution for life. Perhaps that is the point of the film — we are all totally nuts. Even so, that approach evokes little sympathy for Mabel Longhetti, the bizarre housewife interpreted by Gena Rowlands.
As her marriage flounders, we are supposed to watch poor, lonely Mabel disintegrate before our eyes, but what we see instead is a woman who is already pretty crazy to begin with — what with assorted ticks, trips to sleazy Hollywood bars, and an inexplicable marriage to the brutish, obnoxious Nick (Peter Falk).
In order to make sure we get it that Mabel is becoming ever more of a basket case, Rowlands resorts to even more ticks, grimaces, and half-smiles. (Rowlands and Cassavetes should have taken a good look at Ingmar Bergman’s Through a Glass Darkly and at Harriet Andersson’s harrowing performance of a woman on the verge.)
The rest of the cast fares no better. Peter Falk’s inarticulateness is as believable as that of an amateur actor in a school play. Only crazy Mabel could believe that the boorish, simple-minded Nick is capable of love. Katherine Cassavetes’s domineering mother-in-law is a 1970s version of Gladys Cooper’s stern mom in Now, Voyager — but on acid. The doctor (played by Eddie Shaw) who comes to diagnose Mabel’s illness looks like a capable assistant to either Dr. Frankenstein or Dr. Phibes. Mabel freaks out when he gets near her, but, hell, who wouldn’t? And such are the raw and real characters found in A Woman Under the Influence.
When someone says that Cassavetes’ films reflect reality, I wonder about the sort of reality those people live in. If it is a slice of real life you want, forget Cassavetes. Check out an Eric Rohmer film instead. Or just go out in the street.
Synopsis:
Things are not going well for Mabel Longhetti (Gena Rowlands). Her husband, Nick (Peter Falk), a construction worker, spends too many nights dealing with burst water pipes to keep her company. One such lonely night, when her two little children are staying with her mother, Mabel goes off on her own, gets drunk, and picks up a stranger at a sleazy Hollywood bar. Little by little, Mabel’s eccentricities — her chattiness, her nervous ticks, her habit of talking to herself — turn into severe mental problems.
Nick’s mother (Katherine Cassavetes), fearing for the safety of her son and her grandchildren, wants Mabel sent to a mental institution. Nick eventually acquiesces and has his wife committed to a mental institution for several months. When Mabel returns, she’s a mere shadow of the woman she used to be. Gone are her chattiness, her eccentricities — and her personality. Nick, in his own inarticulate, brutish manner, tries to get his wife to return to the way she used to be.
DVD:
See Faces review page.
Notes:
Gena Rowlands was John Cassavetes’s wife from 1954 to his death in February 1989. Rowlands’ mother, Lady Rowlands, plays her mother in A Woman Under the Influence. Cassavetes’ mother, Katherine, plays Rowlands’ mother-in-law. Cassavetes and Rowlands’ son Nick has a small role in the film.
Peter Falk, who had previously worked with John Cassavetes in Husbands, helped finance the film. Cassavetes distributed the film himself, later stating, "if anyone had interfered with my vision, I would probably have gone mad."
Gena Rowlands, whose character loses her sense of reality during the course of the film, also talked about going nuts to the press. "I knew many girls who had had breakdowns," Rowlands explained. "I drew little touches from each of them and a lot from myself. I don’t mean I’m really going mad, but I’m a little crazy — we all are — and sometimes I let things go."
Source for the Rowlands and Cassavetes quotes: Mason Wiley and Damien Bona’s Inside Oscar.
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