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I watched HUSBANDS not that long ago, so it's kind of surprising to me that I watched another John Cassavetes movie so soon - A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE. ) I watched HUSBANDS not that long ago, so it's kind of surprising to me that I watched another John Cassavetes movie so soon - A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE. Boy oh boy is this a film that would never be made today. Or if it was made, it wouldn't get distributed.
Cassavetes' thing was realism. Now - how real was it? That's an interesting question. When I watched HUSBANDS, some of it was real enough to be embarrassing. But - looking at it now, some other stuff doesn't seem so real. For example, Cassavetes used a sort of personal stock company, and two of the major players were Ben Gazarra and Peter Falk. Both are highly idiosyncratic actors, have a unique charisma, worked on TV and in movies (Falk was doing COLOMBO at the SAME TIME A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE CAME OUT) - and neither one of them seems anything near the "everyman" you might expect if you're going for realism. I guess that's why CONFESSIONS OF A CHINESE BOOKIE, a film that didn't get distributed properly, and which stars Gazarra, is my favorite Cassavetes film. The character there is marginal enough to allow Gazarra to play it to the hilt without seeming out of synch.
Gena Rowlands, Cassavetes' wife and a player in 10 of his films, is the Woman Under the Influence. Influence of what? Several things - mental illness, her own sweet and sympathetic inner core, the occassional brutishness and abuse of her husband, her enduring love for her kids, her just-plain-mean mother-in-law, and impulsive behaviors associated with her illness, including flirtatiousness and seeking attachments through her sexuality, that threaten to lead to ultimate doom.
Falk plays a blue collar character - some sort of supervisor who works with heavy equipment and dirt. Here's another thing that seemed off kilter. Although we do hear one "**** off" directed at Falk when he spurns the sympathy of one of his workers, these blue collar guys seem artifically nice, genteel, and one of them is even prone to busting out in opera arias. I've been around these kinds of guys, and there's none of the constant ball busting they engage in depicted here. By the way, this movie was rated R in '74, but I think it could get a PG now.
This is about a 2 1/2 hour movie and it wears you out. The disease the wife has is never given a label, although it looks to me like what we would now call Borderline Personality Disorder. The treatment she gets includes art therapy and SHOCK THERAPY! which is appropriate for depression, but no indication is given that she has depression -she suffers from overwhelming anxiety, acting out, and impulsiveness.
I don't know what to tell you. It was painful to watch when it came out, and now it's even more painful to watch when you realize how priimitive treatment was back then and how people's lives were ruined out of sheer ignorance. And - I'm not even sure the thing rings true for me. I'd be willing to bet that a woman like this would have been prescribed tranquillizers - but she always seems hot to trot, even though maybe a little faded from the shock therapy when we see her at the end.
There were some Oscar nominations on this one but no way was it going to win (Cassavetes never won an Academy Award). it was the feel-bad movie of a very feel-bad year in general.Boy oh boy is this a film that would never be made today. Or if it was made, it wouldn't get distributed.
Cassavetes' thing was realism. Now - how real was it? That's an interesting question. When I watched HUSBANDS, some of it was real enough to be embarrassing. But - looking at it now, some other stuff doesn't seem so real. For example, Cassavetes used a sort of personal stock company, and two of the major players were Ben Gazarra and Peter Falk. Both are highly idiosyncratic actors, have a unique charisma, worked on TV and in movies (Falk was doing COLOMBO at the SAME TIME A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE CAME OUT) - and neither one of them seems anything near the "everyman" you might expect if you're going for realism. I guess that's why CONFESSIONS OF A CHINESE BOOKIE, a film that didn't get distributed properly, and which stars Gazarra, is my favorite Cassavetes film. The character there is marginal enough to allow Gazarra to play it to the hilt without seeming out of synch.
Gena Rowlands, Cassavetes' wife and a player in 10 of his films, is the Woman Under the Influence. Influence of what? Several things - mental illness, her own sweet and sympathetic inner core, the occassional brutishness and abuse of her husband, her enduring love for her kids, her just-plain-mean mother-in-law, and impulsive behaviors associated with her illness, including flirtatiousness and seeking attachments through her sexuality, that threaten to lead to ultimate doom.
Falk plays a blue collar character - some sort of supervisor who works with heavy equipment and dirt. Here's another thing that seemed off kilter. Although we do hear one "**** off" directed at Falk when he spurns the sympathy of one of his workers, these blue collar guys seem artifically nice, genteel, and one of them is even prone to busting out in opera arias. I've been around these kinds of guys, and there's none of the constant ball busting they engage in depicted here. By the way, this movie was rated R in '74, but I think it could get a PG now.
This is about a 2 1/2 hour movie and it wears you out. The disease the wife has is never given a label, although it looks to me like what we would now call Borderline Personality Disorder. The treatment she gets includes art therapy and SHOCK THERAPY! which is appropriate for depression, but no indication is given that she has depression -she suffers from overwhelming anxiety, acting out, and impulsiveness.
I don't know what to tell you. It was painful to watch when it came out, and now it's even more painful to watch when you realize how priimitive treatment was back then and how people's lives were ruined out of sheer ignorance. And - I'm not even sure the thing rings true for me. I'd be willing to bet that a woman like this would have been prescribed tranquillizers - but she always seems hot to trot, even though maybe a little faded from the shock therapy when we see her at the end.
There were some Oscar nominations on this one but no way was it going to win (Cassavetes never won an Academy Award). it was the feel-bad movie of a very feel-bad year in general.Boy oh boy is this a film that would never be made today. Or if it was made, it wouldn't get distributed.
