Product: Faces [VHS] (1968)
Rating: 5.0
Can't Face It
I had heard about the independent films of actor/director John Cassavetes when I was a teenager. I remember his acting in "The Dirty Dozen" and various other movies but I don't think I had the chance to see his work as a director until I watched "Faces" last night. After a sceptical start, I came away impressed with this movie."Faces" as I saw it, is a movie about the emptiness of life in some people. The film opens with a very particular movie producer going in for a screening of a new film. Afterwards, I came to understand that Cassavetes was "putting on" the film industry by suggesting that they were the very people he was trying to portray in "Faces". The first half hour or so of the movie I found to be rather awkward and difficult to follow. We see three inebriated people joking around. I guess I felt it was a pointless look at pointless lives. I thought the movie picked up when some wives went out on the town. They were looking for a good time although they didn't seem to have a common definition of what that would be. They stumble across a good-looking young guy who is full of fun and energy and they take him home. Despite the general drunkeness of the parties involved, the young guy, named Chet, manages to reach out to each of the four ladies and try to turn them on to his upbeat look on life. Each of them gets drawn in initially and then rebels their way back into their own deadend outlook on life; the last one in a most extreme way. Chet, the little blue bird of happiness, seems to be a contrast to the depressing reality everyone else finds themselves comfortable in. A switch to a different scene with John Marley and Gena Rowlands weakened the flow of the movie but served to give us a message that happiness is always temporary in an unhappy mind. The movie ends with two of the main characters drifting back into the boredom they have accustomed themselves to.There were a lot of innovative angles to "Faces" that film junkies might enjoy. The wandering hand-held camera (held steadier than mine) gives an intimate sense of being a part of the party. The title, I thought, came from the near-constant close-ups of all of the characters involved. Some of the acting, particularly that of Lynn Carlin and Seymour Cassel, is very good. I mentioned that the beginning was a bit tedious. I was wondering if it was going to be worth the "effort" to watch the whole movie. However, the second half left me impressed with a look at a world where the only enjoyment seems to come out of a bottle. Heaven forbid we should have to deal with one another face to face. I did not enjoy the life "Faces" showed me but I certainly came away enjoying the life I live.