Faces (1968 film)

1968 film by John Cassavetes

Faces

Theatrical release poster

Directed by| John Cassavetes
Written by| John Cassavetes
Produced by| Maurice McEndree
John Cassavetes
Starring| John Marley
Gena Rowlands
Lynn Carlin
Seymour Cassel
Fred Draper
Val Avery
Cinematography| Al Ruban
Haskell Wexler[1]
Edited by| Maurice McEndree
Al Ruban
Music by| Jack Ackerman
Distributed by| Continental Distributing

Release dates

* April 5, 1968 (1968-04-05) (Montreal premiere)
* November 24, 1968 (1968-11-24) (U.S.)

Running time

| 183 minutes (premiere cut)
130 minutes (director's cut)
Country| United States
Language| English
Budget| $275,000

Faces is a 1968 American drama film written, produced, and directed by John Cassavetes. It is his fourth directorial work.[2] The film, shot in cinéma vérité-style, depicts the final stages of the disintegrating marriage of a middle-aged couple, played by John Marley and newcomer Lynn Carlin. Cassavetes regulars Gena Rowlands, Seymour Cassel, Fred Draper and Val Avery also star.[3]

Initial critical reception to the film was somewhat polarized, but it went on to gain widespread acclaim, and the film is now considered one of the most demonstrative and influential works of the New Hollywood movement.[4]

At the 29th Venice International Film Festival, the film won the Pasinetti Prize and the Best Actor Award for John Marley. At the 41st Academy Awards, it received three Oscar nominations – Best Original Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor for Cassel, and Best Supporting Actress for Carlin. In 2011, Faces was added to the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."[5][6]

## Plot

[edit]

The film, shot in cinéma vérité-style, depicts the final stages of the disintegrating marriage of a couple (John Marley and Lynn Carlin). Various groups and individuals with whom the couple interacts after the husband's sudden statement of his desire for a divorce are introduced. Afterwards, he spends the night in the company of brash businessmen and prostitutes, while the wife spends it with her middle-aged female friends and an aging, free-associating playboy they had picked up at a bar. The night proceeds as a series of tense conversations and confrontations occurs.

## Cast

[edit]

* John Marley as Richard Forst
* Gena Rowlands as Jeannie Rapp
* Lynn Carlin as Maria Forst
* Fred Draper as Freddie
* Seymour Cassel as Chet
* Val Avery as Jim McCarthy
* Dorothy Gulliver as Florence
* Joanne Moore Jordan as Louise
* Darlene Conley as Billy Mae
* Gene Darfler as Joe Jackson
* Elizabeth Deering as Stella
* George Dunn as Comedian

## Production

[edit]

Faces was Cassevetes' fourth directorial work, and was entirely self-financed by Cassavetes and his wife Gena Rowlands.[7] The cast allegedly worked for no pay, but were promised profit participation. Filming, including protracted rehearsals, took place over the course of eight months in locations throughout Los Angeles, including Cassavetes' house.[7] The film was shot in high-contrast 16 mm black and white film stock.

Lynn Carlin had no prior acting experience when she was cast as Maria Forst. She was working as a secretary for Robert Altman at the time, and Cassavetes often hired her as a script reader and casting assistant. After she was fired by Altman, Cassavetes cast her in Faces, and she earned a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her debut performance.

Steven Spielberg worked as an unpaid runner.[8]

## Versions

[edit]

As is the case with several of Cassavetes' films, several different versions of Faces are known to exist (though it was generally assumed that, after creating the general release print, Cassavetes destroyed the alternative versions). It was initially premiered in Canada with a running time of 183 minutes, before Cassavetes cut it down to 130 minutes.

Though the 130-minute version is the general release version, a print of a longer version with a running time of 147 minutes was accidentally found by Ray Carney, and was deposited at the Library of Congress. 17 minutes of this print were included in the Criterion box set John Cassavetes: Five Films, though Carney has said that there are numerous differences between the two films.

## Reception

[edit]

Faces holds an 85% approval rating on review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 26 reviews with an average rating of 7.3/10.[9] Roger Ebert gave the film 4 out of 4 stars and wrote that the film "tenderly, honestly, and uncompromisingly examines the way we really live".[10]

Manny Farber wrote of Lynn Carlin's performance, "Carlin is near perfection, playing the deepest well of unexplored emotions as the wife of a rubber-faced business wow who seems like a detestable ham walk-on until he surprisingly lodges into the film's center for good."[11] Paul Schrader, for the Los Angeles Free Press, wrote "Faces" is a film with a confused on-screen life, but with a rich cocktail party life-span."[12]

Pauline Kael, however, was negative to this film, criticizing the "badly performed" acting and "crudely conceived" scenes.[13][14]

In a retrospective review for Slant Magazine, Jeremiah Kipp wrote "Cassavetes was interested in actors and their freak-show intensities, and their performances give his films a hyper-real quality."[15]

Faces, and other Cassavetes projects, had significant creative impact on Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, and Robert Altman.[4] James Benning's Faces (2010) is a found footage remake or reconstruction of Cassavetes' film. It lasts exactly as the original, but it just consists of silent slowed-down close-ups of the characters, which are on screen for as long as they are in the original.[16]

### Awards and nominations

[edit]

Alternate poster highlighting the film's cast Award  | Category  | Nominee(s)  | Result

|
|
|

Academy Awards[17] | Best Supporting Actor | Seymour Cassel | Nominated
Best Supporting Actress | Lynn Carlin | Nominated
Best Story and Screenplay – Written Directly for the Screen | John Cassavetes | Nominated
National Society of Film Critics Awards[18] | Best Film | 2nd Place
Best Actress | Lynn Carlin  | Nominated
Best Supporting Actor | Seymour Cassel  | Won
Best Screenplay | John Cassavetes  | Won
New York Film Critics Circle Awards[19] | Best Film | Nominated
Best Director | John Cassavetes  | Nominated
Venice International Film Festival | Golden Lion | Nominated
Pasinetti Prize | Won
Best Actor | John Marley | Won
Writers Guild of America Awards[20] | Best Written American Original Screenplay | John Cassavetes  | Nominated

### Recognition

[edit]

In 2011, Faces was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[21] The Registry called the film "an example of cinematic excess" whose extended confrontations revealed "emotions and relations of power between men and women that rarely emerge in more conventionally structured films".[5]

## See also

[edit]

* List of American films of 1968
* New Hollywood

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "Faces". www.themodern.org. Retrieved May 29, 2023.
2. ^ "Faces - Close to Home". The Criterion Channel. Archived from the original on April 10, 2021.
3. ^ "Faces". The Criterion Collection.
4. ^ a b "Tribute: 26 Years Ago, John Cassavetes Died". AfterParty Magazine. February 3, 2015. Archived from the original on March 23, 2015.
5. ^ a b "2011 National Film Registry More Than a Box of Chocolates". Library of Congress. December 28, 2011. Retrieved April 28, 2020.
6. ^ "Complete National Film Registry Listing". Library of Congress. Retrieved June 16, 2020.
7. ^ a b "Faces (1968)". AFI Catalog of Feature Films. American Film Institute. Retrieved May 29, 2023.
8. ^ "John + Gena: dynamite on screen and off". BFI. May 30, 2013.
9. ^ "Faces (1968)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved July 17, 2022.
10. ^ Ebert, Roger (December 19, 1968). "Faces Movie Review". RogerEbert.com.
11. ^ Farber, Manny (October 1, 1968). "The Red and the White and Faces". Artforum. Retrieved May 7, 2024.
12. ^ Shrader, Paul (December 20, 1968). "John Cassavetes' 'Faces': life as a cocktail party". Los Angeles Free Press. Vol. 5, no. 231-Part Two. p. 38.
13. ^ Brody, Richard (April 20, 2009). "The Actors of 'Faces'". The New Yorker. Retrieved August 1, 2024.
14. ^ "10 Memorable Pauline Kael Quotes About Movies". Flavorwire. June 6, 2019.
15. ^ Kipp, Jeremiah (February 14, 2009). "Review: Faces". Slant Magazine. Retrieved May 7, 2024.
16. ^ "James Benning. Making a remake: "Faces"". Centre Pompidou. September 19, 2012.
17. ^ "The 41st Academy Awards | 1969". Oscars.org. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. October 4, 2014. Retrieved October 23, 2014.
18. ^ Weiler, A. H. (January 7, 1969). "'Shame' by Bergman Wins 3 Film Awards". The New York Times. Retrieved January 3, 2018.
19. ^ "N.Y. critics pick best movies". The Montreal Gazette. January 2, 1969. Retrieved December 29, 2017 - via Google News Archive.
20. ^ "Awards Winners". wga.org. Writers Guild of America. Archived from the original on December 5, 2012. Retrieved June 6, 2010.
21. ^ "Complete National Film Registry Listing". Library of Congress. Retrieved June 16, 2020.

## Further reading

[edit]

* Carney, Raymond Francis, Junior, “American Dreaming: The Films of John Cassavetes and the American Experience,” (Berkeley and Los Angeles, California and London: University of California Press, 1985).

## External links

[edit]

* Faces essay by Ray Carney at National Film Registry [1]
* Faces at IMDb
* Faces at AllMovie
* Faces at Rotten Tomatoes
* Masks and Faces an essay by Stuart Klawans at the Criterion Collection
* Review of Faces by Richard Brody at The New Yorker

* v
* t
* e

John Cassavetes

Filmography

Films|

* Shadows (1959)
* Too Late Blues (1961)
* A Child Is Waiting (1963)
* Faces (1968)
* Husbands (1970)
* Minnie and Moskowitz (1971)
* A Woman Under the Influence (1974)
* The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976)
* Opening Night (1977)
* Gloria (1980)
* Love Streams (1984)
* Big Trouble (1986)

Television|

* Johnny Staccato (1959–60, directed five episodes)

Related|

* A Constant Forge (2000 documentary)

Family|

* Gena Rowlands (wife)
* Nick Cassavetes (son)
* Zoe Cassavetes (daughter)
* Alexandra Cassavetes (daughter)
* Katherine Cassavetes (mother)

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