Husbands

Husbands

source: Husbands

I don't enjoy John Cassavetes movies that much, but I've watched quite a few of them because of his importance to the development of independent American cinema and because of their uniqueness. I think "Husbands" will be my last Cassavetes film. I've seen it, "A Woman Under the Influence," "Faces," and "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie," and I feel like I can put him to rest with a thorough knowledge of his style and preoccupations. What I do like about Cassavetes is that he explored in a way few writers/directors at the time did the complexities of male emotions. His male characters don't fall into easy categories and neither do their interior lives. In what he has his characters say and do, it's like he wanted to present the male id on screen visually, in all its obnoxious glory. But the flip side is that it makes his characters unpleasant and exhausting to be with. I went out with a bunch of guys for a bachelor party once, and one of them was talking loudly about how ugly and fat a girl was sitting at a nearby table in a bar. He clearly wanted her to hear, and it's like he was performing for the rest of us. The other guys, because they didn't want to be accused of ruining the evening I guess, or because they genuinely found it funny, played along and encouraged him. The whole experience was so uncomfortable and toxic that I left shortly after and didn't go on to do the rest of the things planned for the evening. Watching "Husbands" is like two hours of that experience. It's watching three guys hang out and desperately try to avoid the emotions stirred up by the recent death of a fourth buddy. This means they fight, get maudlin, get drunk, get abusive, treat women like crap. We don't get to know these guys. We're just dumped into the middle of their circle of friendship and sent off with them into the night to hang out for a couple of hours. I can't relate to Cassavetes movies. I'm the same age as the guys in this movie, maybe even a little older than they're supposed to be, with a wife and kids. I don't understand the contempt and anger they show for the world, for their wives, for each other. They don't live in a world that resembles anything I've directly experienced. And since Cassavetes just observes rather than explains, I don't learn anything about it that might help me understand more. I just get claustrophobic and want to leave the party early. Like every other Cassavetes movie I've seen, this one felt more than anything else like an endurance test. Grade: B

Let me start by saying that Cassavetes is a brilliant director. Only sometimes, brilliance coupled with a bold desire to take risks can end up landing on its derriere, especially if it happens after a success such as 'Faces'. And that is exactly what 'Husbands' does. The story is quite weak, the resolution is obscure, and all we're left with is watching three guys get drunk and being nasty. Who cares? I certainly don't. There's nothing to root for here, nobody to sympathize with. Some will argue that this is simply Cassavetes' style and a pseudo-sequel to 'Faces'. But the lower budget 'Faces', as stretched out and not plot driven as it was, was considerably more effective in how it put across interesting characters and showed a slice of life. 'Husbands' by comparison shows a bunch of aimless characters with dialog that stretches the realms of how most people talk and act. That's not to say that Husbands doesn't have some interesting moments. For students of Cassavetes technique there are a few good scenes worth attention on their own (one of my favorite is when Cassavetes orders room service). But individual scenes, no matter how well executed, do not a film make. It's very unfortunate because this film had everything going for it: a phenomenal cast, a talented director, great cinematography, and even a suitable dramatic premise. But the desire to get cute with dialog and getting overly absorbed in character psychology comes at cost to saying something substantive. What a shame, this could have been such a great film.

Three men (Falk, Cassavettes, and Gazzara) mourn the death of a friend by going on a long-weekend bender, during which they talk about life, experience masculine pleasures, and try to understand the meaning of it all. This was the first Cassavettes movie I've ever seen. I liked it, which was surprising because this is not the sort of movie I'm generally interested in. There's almost no plot to speak of, most of the movie feels improvised (although improvised along certain set themes -- one does feel the heavy hand of the director here and there). It's a slice of life movie that still feels pretty rough and daring; I imagine in 1970, when this came out, people couldn't make hide nor hare of it. Like most movies of this type, the big flaw is structure. The movie takes forever to get going, and doesn't really seem to know when to quit: the last reel, in particular, felt a little long to me. Plus, as I said, there is here and there a sense of a structure being imposed from without: the guys don't just do anything, they do certain set things for "character revelation" sake. The acting, which is the crucial thing in a movie like this, of course, doesn't disappoint. All three men are very believable: they delineate their macho world quite well, with it's romanticism, bathos, insecurities and obnoxiousness. They're similar types of guys, which bothered me a lot at first but upon reflection made a lot of sense, since in real life we tend to be friends with people like us. Still, there are gradations and variations: Falk is inarticulate and sensitive, Gazzara despairing, Cassavettes is fumbling toward some kind of self-recognition. The cinematography is absolutely stunning -- I might have seen a particularly nice print but this took me by surprise. Most of the movie is shot in warm, earthy, romantic tones, which sets the mood of nostalgia and dreams well, I think. Every now and then, though, we get a cold, full-on daytime shot where everyone looks naked and blinking under a frigid sun; it's a good counterpoint. This is an important film by an important director. He'll never be a favorite of mine, but I'll definitely check out other work of his. You'll be doing yourself a favor if you do the same.

The very first bit of dialogue is the kind of introductory exposition you get and gradually learn the rhythm of from a movie that is testing you. Being a film by John Cassavetes, it shall be one of those films that leaves you unsure of what to think of it at all, except that you were strangely engrossed in many scenes, only not quite like other examples of this sort of movie experience. His sense of pace is epic, but the subjects that fascinate him are granular in scale. Husbands is a Cassavetes film that even experienced Cassavetes film watchers aren't quite prepared for. It is a formalistically rebellious, gravely intimate reflection of the bareness of suburban life, magnified 500%, unpatronizing to and violatingly honest about its anxious, inarticulate sticks in the mud who have no idea what they're feeling while they're undergoing their feelings. The dialogue is comprised of unfinished thoughts, of knee-jerk shouts, not to mention three actors with egos more massive than the movie's gaps of seeming inertia. The camera just rolls and the microphone just hears. That we're seeing and hearing anything in particular is not as central as the fact that we are indeed looking and listening. Cassavetes tries so hard to seize and squeeze every possibility of any moments that catch what we all know happens between concept and execution. Moments that don't seem scriptable, that hardly seem describable. When we're with somebody but before anyone's thought of anything to say, or when we are distracted into an unthinking transition, anything impulsive or seemingly without thought. I might even go so far as to say the whole film seems involuntary. And what's more, it is predominantly comprised of Cassavetes' trademark scenes of agonizing discomfort. The most emboldened stand-out in this film's succession of scenes of that nature is an inordinately long one in which Cassavetes, Gazzara and Falk sit with a table of friends and family in a bar, not a tissue of their body left dry of alcohol, taking random turns singing traditional folk songs, and after awhile---and I mean awhile---one person begins singing, and the three jeer them into silence, then tell her to try again. They jeer her quiet again, and again and again and again until finally, after anyone in her position would still be cooperating, they praise her for finally getting it right. This to me represents what has to be the creative process for actors in a Cassavetes film, especially the Cassavetes film Husbands. There seems to be no frontal lobe left in any actor. Husbands is described sometimes as a comedy. Well, I don't know if it's a comedy, but is a drama with sporadic moments of strange, seemingly incidental humor. There is an unusually brief scene where Gazzara visits his office and is greeted by an outlandishly goofy colleague. When the three friends are electrified with excitement about going to London, we cut to London, where it's dreary and pouring rain. There doesn't seem to be a way to pinpoint the nature of the movie's tone, or its structure at all. Like I said, it puts you to the test, and the test is to accept the film on its terms. If you do, you can be moved by the nature of its point of view and be open to the nature of your own reactions to it.

This would be the ultimate Donald Trump film. Complete utter sexual, misogynistic, revolting garbage. Though Gazzara, Falk, and Cassevetes have been in many great films and have great screen credits to their names, this is a tremendous black mark on all of their output. It's entirely clear that a real script and decent editor possibly would have helped this film. Watching a 30+ minute drunken bar scene that did not either advance the plot or story only severed to make me feel bad for the one female trying to do her best. Peter Falk line: "I'm an American, I'm from New York." Come on. It's very clear that the actors were asked to improvise way to much and that they're not very good at it. At least by 2016 standards. Blecck.

I am a fan of Cassavetes. He's never easy. He is fascinating, trenchant, profoundly perceptive. His movies don't allow you to get too comfortable but keep you off balance as you watch the stories unfold in unexpected ways. Repeat viewings of his movies reveal subtle hidden treasures. I have liked every movie of his I have seen, until now. Husbands has some tremendous, insightful moments in powerful scenes, but these are mired in discouragingly extended sophomoric stretches and a surprising lack of heart. There's more to Cassavetes than this. As I watched this movie I couldn't help wondering if it was filmed by someone who was trying to imitate Cassavetes' style, but not quite making it.

I wouldn't say that this is my favourite Cassavetes movie. That changes almost every week. But I can very safely say that this is his most profound and the one that everyone should see. Why? Because here he explores things that almost any human being would encounter at some point in their lives. And my, my, did he do it with such painful precision and beauty or what? The questions that this movie asks are actually simple. But I don't think that many people actually take time to ask themselves these questions, let alone deal with them. The movie simply asks us questions like what would marriage entail? What will it be like 20 or 30 years down the line? Are you truly prepared to face what marriage would entail? And the movie doesn't even provide any answers to these questions. But, chances are you would be glad that you actually saw the movie. It may be appallingly difficult to take at first. The first 30 or so minutes are just as crazy as the first 20 minutes or so of Faces(another Cassavetes masterpiece). But stick around and you'll be surprised at how touching and profound the film is. You'll be forced to think about things that you would rather not think about, sure. But you'll be thankful later that you actually did think about those things. Or at the very least you'll be thankful that someone did point out those things to you, even though you still hadn't put much thought into it. It'll be one long crazy ride(the film is about 2 hours and 20 minutes long), but it's such an important enough ride that everyone should take it. Every man should see it so that they could get to know themselves better. Every woman should see it because maybe it can help them understand men better. So go see it everyone, and thank John Cassavetes later for the experience.

HUSBANDS is full of unexpected events. Some of John Cassavetes' films can be hard to watch. OPENING NIGHT is an interesting experiment, top-heavy with subplots. GLORIA was an aborted attempt at a more commercial film. Although Gena Rowlands would kick Sharon Stone's butt if both of their films were compared, the pace to Cassavetes' GLORIA is languid. Not what you'd expect from an action film. This is, however, one of the Cassavetes' traits: the element of surprise. There are alot of surprises in HUSBANDS. The film begins with a funeral, as Falk, Gazzara, and Cassavetes put their friend to rest. This event depresses these men, and they go on a drinking binge that seems to last the rest of the movie. There is drinking, carousing, horseplay, sex with female strangers, and a conspicuous tendancy to ignore the wives. These are married men, but until their conscious returns to them, they seem to forget that. HUSBANDS is what I would term as a humble classic. The main reason why I consider myself a Cassavetes fan is because his films are humble. They are always ambitious, mind you, but I love the choices that Cassavetes makes in his editing, and his casting. Cassavetes allows the actors to explore the characters as they are acting on camera, and sometimes this leaves the rough edges of improvisation showing. He knows how to draw out un-self-conscious performances, and there is sometimes gold mined from this method. Along with WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE, this is my favorite of the films in Cassavetes catalogue. While HUSBANDS is Cassavetes "man" film, I suppose...INFLUENCE could be seen as his "woman" film. But, to be fair, Cassavetes made films about both sexes, and usually quite successfully. If you have heard of Cassavetes and are not familiar with his work, this is a good place to start. HUSBANDS, in its climaxes and anti-climaxes, ends up feeling more and more like reality as you watch it. There are strange moments, and as I said before many surprises. But these are some of the kinds of moments that make up life: When a friend goes from laughter to tears in moments, when a joke is no longer funny, and becomes more serious than a heart attack. HUSBANDS is about common people, and how uncommon they can sometimes be. There is darkness, and there is light. Watch HUSBANDS to know what I'm talking about.