An Impressionistic Drama in Unflinching Close-Ups
For John Cassavetes, the early 1960s were marked by a fleeting romance with Hollywood, which ended in mutual dissatisfaction. As a result, nine years after “Shadows” – a watershed moment in American independent cinema – the director returned to the idea of complete personal control over filmmaking.
John Cassavetes allowed Steven Spielberg to be an assistant director on the set of this film for one whole day.
However, Cassavetes parted ways not only with the old Hollywood but, as would soon become clear, also with the “new” Hollywood, which was already rearing its unkempt head by the time “Faces” was released in November 1968. The groundbreaking “Easy Rider” would premiere in theaters the following season. But unlike Dennis Hopper, Cassavetes’s frame wasn’t filled with the heroes of the moment – stoned bikers and hippies – but with a timeless crowd: well-groomed, pomaded, neatly trimmed, and slightly tipsy. Cassavetes would remain faithful to them until the end of his career.
Seymour Cassel and Lynn Carlin were nominated for an Oscar for this film.
The unhappy, frustrated middle class, slightly older than middle age, with varying degrees of external and internal wear and tear and dependence on alcohol.
The film was shot in 1965. Its editing took three years.
The Faces Themselves
Faces: jagged, porous, with smeared mascara. Unshaven, asymmetrical, with a missing crown. Aging, despite the external gloss. These faces are like a dream within a dream: hypnotizing and repulsive at the same time, sometimes dissolving into the black-and-white grain of 16mm film in rare long shots, sometimes looming in impossible close-ups. And there are many of them in this film, as in life: a good test of endurance for those who are used to keeping their distance and looking away during a personal conversation.
In this sense, the love that faces are constantly seeking and the cinema that depicts this process are, according to Cassavetes, identical concepts: both are well-honed arts of looking away.