Carousing is one word I’d used to describe the events in Faces (1968), a key John Cassavetes film I’d always be meaning to see (ever since Scorsese referenced it in his Personal Journey Through American Cinema docu-series). Self-financed from acting jobs for other movies, and shot around his own house, Cassavetes explores marriages, love and human communication mostly through scenes of carousing. Most of the film are about situations AFTER going out to bars, hanging out at someone’s pad, playing games, throwing out one liners and struggling to keep the good times rolling; underneath it all is loneliness and desire, usually in the hope that two people might be left alone and everyone else will get the hell out of there. But these are middle aged people circling around the youth, the post-war business Mad Men types flirting with an emerging counter-culture and youthful independence. The film basically follows one couple – the husband is a Chairman of an insurance company, Richard (John Marley – it only dawned on me he played the guy who wakes up with the horse’s head in The Godfather) and his wife Maria (Lynn Carlin). They have their own raucous vibe in their post-work dinner time gossip, yet Richard is already caught in a flirtation with a young woman, Jeanne (Gena Rowlands). Later on, Maria tries to find her own solace in the arms of a young hippie type, Chet (Seymour Cassel). Shot in black and white on 16mm by Al Ruban, the camera is freewheeling following the action in a room but often zeroing in on moments of compositional beauty. The audio mix is sometimes rough but it adds to the chaos; it establishes the tone of later Cassavetes movies, where actors need to yell, perform, be abrasive, as a means of trying to capture true human mis-communication. The performances all great, particularly the main quartet of Cassel, Carlin, Rowlands (sublime) and Marley (who often seems to mirror Cassavetes himself in his own mannerisms). There were real gut-punch moments and I couldn’t help but get very emotional during one moment of comfort after a heavy sequence (the morning after scenes between Carlin and Cassel). Watched the BFI Blu-ray. Recommended.
VHS Tracking 