A Woman Under the Influence (John Cassavetes, 1974)

I never knew what to expect from Cassavetes, all I knew was that he was an independent filmmaker who made several influential films in America, outside of Hollywood. But I had never gotten any pointer towards what sort of style he used as a director, what sort of themes or issues that interested him. All I knew was that he was well recommended, and I had wanted to see some of his films for some time. I loved the two films I had previously seen by him, and was looking forward to watch maybe his most critically praised film, A Woman Under the Influence.

John Cassavetes has a remarkable directing style, and I’ve seen it develop across three films, Shadows (1959), Faces (1968), and this. His style is frenetic, bringing us up-close to characters at intense and dramatic moments. I would use the word “intense” to describe Cassavetes films, because they are true mood-swingers and show us the characters in a wonderfully truthful way. The acting and the way the camera portrays it is raw, stark and direct, catching the actors on screen like you rarely see in cinema. The directing is not stylised, but simple and effective. The way Cassavetes uses the focus to change our attention is fantastic, and greatly adds to the drama on screen. The film in scenes with social gatherings builds up tension steadily, before bursting into audiovisual violence. It is basically a character drama, but perhaps one of the deepest and most complicated I’ve seen. Cassavetes is unafraid of bringing up taboo family issues and pose questions that most wouldn’t want to answer. A marriage is about to fall apart due to the wife’s mental state. She is awkward in social situations, something her temperamental cannot take.

With this pretence Cassavetes builds several scenes and scenarios that all contain fantastic dramatic quality, drawing from the talents of the cast. You will rarely see better acting than in this film; it is good all across the board, but it is supported best by the wife and husband, who are great at portraying their characters in an almost menacing way. The children are a bit stiff, but with this style of acting you could hardly expect anything else. The audience is brought to ask several critical questions of the married couple but also about the rest of the family and friends. We ask; is the wife mentally unstable, or is it the people around here who believe so because of their own prejudice and inadequacies? There are layers of relationships lying around the film, and it is up to the audience to pick them up. We can track down the reasons for characters traits through another character, their background are subtly built into the script and the story. But at the core is Cassavetes directing style, which I am really beginning to love. It is simple, but inclines several complicated layers of depth, and he creates within even the smallest scene a lot of depth. The handheld style lets us come up-close with the characters. Then sometimes, Cassavetes takes a step back and let us take a more critical and distanced view at what is going on.

It is easily said, A Woman Under the Influence is a masterpiece. Cassavetes has taken his directing to a high that impresses me greatly. The acting is superb, but it comes from the unique way Cassavetes directs his performers. The shots are sometimes beautiful, contemplative and violent. And when the film is over you are left with something truly unique.

Faces (John Cassavetes, 1968)

I quite liked Shadows (John Cassavetes, 1959), so I continued to check out Cassavetes, by watching Faces. In many ways, in terms of style, it is very similar to Shadows, although even more refined. It stars John Marley, a guy I think most will remember as the movie producer from The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972) and I thought he really gave a memorable performance in that. I thought that Shadows was in style similar to Godard films, but in Faces it comes more to its own, and is quite unique.

Cassavetes is seen as one of the big forerunners for Indy filmmaking in the states, and much of his style shows this kind of down-stripped and rough filmmaking. He shots in black and white, uses hand held cameras and very interesting acting methods. His scenes develop almost organically, the dialog is unlike most films made in this time, and the actors seem to balance between being uncomfortable to too comfortable on screen. It is a new way of telling stories, what Cassavetes is doing here. The interaction of the actors is superb, the way they exchange glances and how they develop throughout the scenes. The core part of the film that interested me though was the style of Cassavetes, and I think it works superbly in this. It’s raw, but at the same time opens for several levels of sub-text. The different scenes interact with each other, the two main characters, a married couple, rarely share any screen time together, but both of their actions comment on each other, shows their defiance of each other. While Cassavetes style is stripped, it’s not a new form of realism or neo-realism. I’m inclined to always distance myself from the term “realism”, as I believe there is no true way in cinema to create whatever realism is. But this is a whole other discussion, what’s interesting in Cassavetes is that when the style is so stark as his, it gives us a whole new way of seeing what the actor is communicating. It feels at times as if Cassavetes captures some indefinable moment in the characters, some quick shots or reverse shots gives us a look at the characters that are unlike most films.

This is the thing with films, most stories have already been told, and filmmakers have to find new ways of telling them. This sort of conflict between a married couple have been done so many times in so many ways, and again, this film is completely relevant as it does it in a new and interesting way, the characters are unfolded and layers upon layers are revealed, the scenes themselves are well written and engaging, particularly a scene between several elderly married women is extremely good, but also the opening scene has some great shifts of mood and tension, it is very well balanced out. The film does walk on the edge of double-edged sword at times, but manages to stay focused even when it doesn’t seem focused at all. The films narrative is told in a stripped down way, but manage to give enough “hints” at what is going on that at times it seems as if it is not so stripped down. It is a film, I believe, that could easily fool or confuse the audience, but it rewards close attention to the small details it has, the characters glances and gazes. This I think, is one of the keys for really good films, being straight forward but still having quite some depth and sub-text. Sure, there are good films that use exposition to a great degree, and still are deep and good, but I really like it when filmmakers like Cassavetes does something like this, creates a very strong sense of style that is simple but still has some very good fundamentals and key ideas behind them. The film evokes, but never more than is necessary.

I really liked Shadows, and this is more of the same, but even better. Cassavetes seems to be a truly interesting director, whose techniques are simple yet manage to communicate strong ideas and narratives. The film might be going against the mainstream for some audiences, and it is not that simple to pick up all the details, but I believe this is a films that is worth watching many times, with layers that will reveal themselves with every watch.