Faces. The ones we put on for loved ones, for business associates, for friends, to impress, to hide
ourselves behind, the ugly ones, maybe the real ones.

John Cassavetes' films are personal explorations. They don't ignore conventions of film or theater
but instead refuse to adhere to them.

This was Cassavetes second independent film. His first, Shadows, didn't make the impact this one did, perhaps because it was viewed as an experiment and didn't represent a new direction or style or trend in film-making. Faces, however was embraced by many critics and wound up being Cassavetes' biggest commercial success. It was released in 1968 and earned Oscar nominations for actors Seymour Cassel and Lynn Carlin. John Marley and Gena Rowlands were equally deserving of nominations as well.

John Cassavetes' films are personal explorations. They don't ignore conventions of film or theater
but instead refuse to adhere to them. Scenes meander and are allowed to continue past their
dramatic high-point. We aren't introduced or told very much about the characters we watch in terms of background details.

The actors in Faces are exploring their characters from the inside out using improvised type methods (but writer/director Cassavetes created and adhered to real scripts prior to filming).
There's a rawness and vitality to the film that had almost never been captured on film before. At
times the actors are trying too hard to dance on the edge of what an audience would be able to
watch and accept. They are being characters, not presenting them to us, and they are not trying to be likeable or clever. We are seeing ugly faces, not just physically, but emotional.

Raw.

Uncompromising.

Cassavetes is forcing his audience to see the part of themselves they usually hide from others and try to deny exists at all. Yet here they are – exposed. It makes you uncomfortable, it's hard to watch.

It's hard to watch when it works as Cassavetes intended, and sometimes it doesn't work as well as it should. So Cassavetes films are are usually un-even. You could in-correctly say they border on psycho-drama. They have scenes which often try too hard and wind up being phony, flat, in-effective.

At times, Faces, sets up what is supposed to be an authentic and 'real' moment and then insists on selling it so hard as a real moment it becomes difficult and almost embarrassing to watch because it's missed it mark. The truly awful Bennett Cerf style riddles and jokes husband (John Marley) tells his wife and then cackles on and on about as if they are truly funny is a truly annoying scene to watch. Were they meant to comment on how phony attempting to find and film a real moment truly is? I doubt it. They simply seemed like an idea that might work, had some universal appeal, and forced some reactions and moments people usually don't see exposed on the screen.

All of the ideas which challenge what a film and acting is, are good ones. They don't always work, but through the frame work where supposedly an American Marriage, and American Attitudes are examined we are exposed to some characters' inner turmoils and self doubt.

The film opens with people gathering in a room, about to watch a screening of what we think at first is a commercial. John Marley says it better not be as boring as the last one.

Then the film begins. Faces.

Cassavetes starts the film (but doesn't end it the same way) with this obvious device to tell the audience, this is not like other films you are going to see. This is not a conventional movie. We
are exploring things in a unique way with this film and I hope you'll be patient enough, and give me a little bit of respect to watch what I'm trying to do.


There's the long first scene of the film where two married business men Richard Forst (John Marley) and Freddie ( Fred Draper) are with Jeannie Rapp (Gena Rowlands) a high class prostitute. You probably won't like being stuck in the room with these characters. One of the actors (Fred Draper) doesn't quite have the skill to shift tones convincingly. He's trying too hard to play drunk. Eventually he settles down though. The idea of the scene is a great one though. If you watch the film, and find yourself more and more turned off to the lengthy scene, keep watching. The film wants you uncomfortable and latter scenes in the film work much better I assure you.

Richard Forst (Marley) goes home to his wife, Maria Forst ( Lynn Carlin) and wants to go to bed with her. She's not in the mood and would rather go out to a movie. The rejection is the last straw for Richard. He announces he wants a divorce and he's leaving. He calls up the prostitute, Jeannie, who's busy, and insists on seeing her anyway. She'll try to meet him in a bar in a few hours. Wife, Maria goes out with some of her girlfriends to a hot nightspot. The girls pick up a beatnik/hippie named Chet (Seymour Cassell) and they take him home with them. Eventually the wife and the beatnik are left alone with each other. Maria, however has taken some pills and now Chet must deal with making sure Maria hasn't taken enough pills to kill herself.

Meanwhile, Richard gets tired of waiting for Jeannie to meet him at the bar and shows up at her house. Jeannie and another prostitute are entertaining two men and an awkward situation develops. Eventually the other men leave and Richard and Jeannie are left alone . Yet even after
Richard gets what he desires, he isn't satisfied and feels even more lost and empty.

Richard returns home to Maria and almost catches Chet as he climbs out a window and runs down the street. Richard has seen him though and believes he's been to bed with his wife.

Don't expect a tidy resolution, a tragedy, or a feel good ending. You won't get one. The thin framework of a scenario is there only to give the actors a framework from which to express themselves.

Audiences in 1968 had for the most part seen nothing like this before. It showed a whole generation of budding film-makers that it was time to re-invent American Film. That it was possible to make personal independent films and get them in front of an audience.

Faces is a raw film, --experimental perhaps because the actors are allowed to be both natural and well. . . method actors. Some moments work so well, you wonder why these heights aren't regularly strived for... but then other moments don't work at all and you realize, this is film-making without a net. It's risky, it's not pretty, and it's messy - - For the performers particularly.

Often it's claimed the film was improvised. Most of it was not, however. Cassavetes learned his lesson with Shadows. A film which was originally improvised, had a disastrous screening and Cassavetes re-shot more than half of the film before releasing it.

No, most of Faces isn't improvised. It feels that way, as most Cassavetes films do however. During rehearsals for the film, a lot of things were certainly improvised. The best of the improvisations were written down and re-written by Cassavetes and the actors pretty much followed the script.

I believe Faces was a looser script and more improvisation was allowed during shooting than in his later films, but most of the time, the actors weren't freely improvising when the camera was filming them.

Cassavetes' films are indulgent works, but they are not driven by a film-maker who's trying to show off and dazzle the audience with his intellect or technique.( The filming here is mostly done with a hand-held camera.) His films are not driven by an ego that craves attention, but by an artist who's after something which is elusive and nearly impossible to capture. His films strip away conventional narrative and story-telling and exposes emotions. Situations exist to allow actors a frame-work to expose inner turmoils. The stuff you can never quite find the right words to express to anyone. That's what the best scenes in a Cassavetes' films reveals to us –inner turmoil and raw emotions. He's not going to suggest answers, or moralizes, he want to capture this rawness on film. And in attempting to show us this , sometimes scenes and performers themselves fall flat on their faces.

Its uncomfortable to watch because the failed attempts are in his films along with the scenes which work. And the scenes that work shows us things we often would prefer to deny are a part of us, anyway.

Faces is a work of genius –even if it is not itself a masterpiece. Like many of Cassavetess films it is difficult to watch. It's a study of communication between characters. Between the film-maker his actors and the audience. And mis-communication is a part of that. You might be annoyed, bored, bothered, and/or disgusted by the film. You might be expecting there to be a message, a moral –and Cassavetes isn't commenting on what that might be. So in the end you might wonder what the heck you just watched and what is was supposed to mean. You might just shake your head and say, I don't know what to think about what I just watched.

But, you'll remember it.

Christopher J. Jarmick Author of The Glass Cocoon with Serena F. Holder Available February 2001.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age