Home | Movies By Year | Movies from 1968
Faces (1968 film)
Buy Faces (1968 film) now from AmazonFirst, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the movie. And once you've experienced the movie, tell everyone what you thought about it.
Wikipedia article
'Faces' is a 1968 American drama film written and directed by John Cassavetes.[https://www.criterionchannel.com/close-to-home-1/season:1/videos/faces Faces - Close to Home - The Criterion Channel] It stars John Marley, Gena Rowlands, Lynn Carlin (in her acting debut), Seymour Cassel, Fred Draper and Val Avery.[https://www.criterion.com/films/915-faces The Criterion Collection]
The film won two awards at the 29th Venice International Film Festival and received three nominations at the 41st Academy Awards. In 2011, it was added to the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
Plot
The film, shot in 'cinma vrit'-style, depicts the final stages of the disintegrating marriage of a couple (John Marley and Lynn Carlin). We are introduced to various groups and individuals the couple interacts with after the husband's sudden statement of his desire for a divorce. 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've picked up at a bar. The night proceeds as a series of tense conversations and confrontations occur.
Cast
* 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
Production
The film was shot in high-contrast 16 mm black and white film stock. Steven Spielberg worked as an unpaid runner.[https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/john-gena-dynamite-screen John + Gena: dynamite on screen and off|BFI]
Versions
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 Toronto 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
'Faces' holds an 85% approval rating on review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 26 reviews with an average rating of 7.3/10. 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".
Pauline Kael, however, was negative to this film, criticizing the "badly performed" acting and "crudely conceived" scenes.[https://www.flavorwire.com/617287/10-memorable-pauline-kael-quotes-about-movies 10 Memorable Pauline Kael Quotes About Movies|Flavorwire]
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". 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".
'Faces', and other Cassavetes projects, had significant creative impact on Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, and Robert Altman.[https://rehabreviews.com/tribute-26-years-ago-john-cassavetes-died/ Tribute: 26 Years Ago, John Cassavetes DiedAfter Party Magazine]
Awards and nominations
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders"
|-
! Award
! Category
! Nominee(s)
! Result
|-
| rowspan="3"| Academy Awards
| Best Supporting Actor
| Seymour Cassel
|
|-
| Best Supporting Actress
| Lynn Carlin
|
|-
| Best Story and Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen
| John Cassavetes
|
|-
| National Film Preservation Board
| colspan="2"| National Film Registry
|
|-
| rowspan="4"| National Society of Film Critics Awards
| colspan="2"| Best Film
|
|-
| Best Actress
| Lynn Carlin
|
|-
| Best Supporting Actor
| Seymour Cassel
|
|-
| Best Screenplay
| John Cassavetes
|
|-
| rowspan="2"| New York Film Critics Circle Awards
| colspan="2"| Best Film
|
|-
| Best Director
| rowspan="3"| John Cassavetes
|
|-
| rowspan="3"| Venice International Film Festival
| Golden Lion
|
|-
| Pasinetti Award
|
|-
| Best Actor
| John Marley
|
|-
| Writers Guild of America Awards
| Best Written American Original Screenplay
| John Cassavetes
|
|}
See also
* List of American films of 1968
* New Hollywood
References
Further reading
*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).
Buy Faces (1968 film) now from Amazon
<-- Return to movies from 1968