BY TODD GARBARINI
The films
of John Cassavetes are an acquired taste. Long considered to be the father of
the modern independent film movement, his unorthodox style to acting and
filmmaking notoriously drove some of his performers crazy while also receiving kudos
and accolades from others. Like most filmmakers of his ilk, his work was best seen
in independently owned movie theaters in New York City where films generally
played for weeks or even months on end to a combination of both rave reviews
and decent box office, two ingredients necessary to ensure securing funding for
future projects. His directorial debut, Shadows (1958), depicted a
romantic relationship between a white man and an African-American woman and the
tumult that their relationship brought to their families. The film was
unorthodox not only in its subject matter but in its approach to filmmaking. The
film possesses a unique style and an immediacy that audiences of the time were
not used to seeing in polished Hollywood productions. Following Too Late
Blues (1961) he made A Child is Waiting (1963), which starred Burt
Lancaster, Judy Garland, John Marley, and Mr. Cassavetes’s wife Gena Rowlands. The latter
two would go on to appear in his financially successful and acclaimed Faces
(1968) which would provide the financing for his controversial Husbands
(1970), a searing portrait of middle-aged men, their relationships with women,
with each other, and most of all, with themselves.
Gus (John Cassavetes), Harry (Ben Gazzara), Archie (Peter
Falk) and Stuart (David Rowlands) all appear to be
successful businessmen. They are in their early forties, they are married and
have children, and as the movie opens to snapshots depicting them all at family
picnics, family outings, and general overall goofiness, it becomes apparent to
the audience that these four men are best friends and are for all intents and
purposes inseparable – until Stuart suddenly dies of a heart attack and leaves
his friends behind as a solemn triumvirate questioning their lives and their
places in the world. We never see or meet Stuart outside of the still photos,
but his presence hangs over Gus, Harry, and Archie in everything they say and
do and more importantly what they do not say or do. Following Stuart’s
funeral, the men all decide not to go home, instead electing to set out on a
series of adventures: taking a subway ride; playfully fighting in the streets; playing
basketball at a local gym; swimming; encouraging a woman to sing them a song at
a local bar; getting sick in a men’s room, etc. Harry’s family is the only one we
are privy to when he returns home and has a physical fight with his wife and
her mother. They all make half-hearted efforts to return to their jobs until
the futility of life sparks a decision to travel to London. Harry intimates
that he wants no part of the middle-class life that he has built in his suburban
house.
Arriving across
the pond, they play craps and encounter varying degrees of difficulty picking
up three women (Jenny Runacre, Jenny Lee Wright and Noelle Kao). What
transpires in their hotel rooms may on the surface seem ridiculous and silly, however
something remarkable occurs as the three men are forced to reckon with Stuart’s
death and ultimately, their own mortality. The film is ultimately about
absence: Stuart is gone from their lives, and aside from Harry’s fight with his
wife, the wives are absent from Gus and Archie’s lives, except from the opening
stills. Their behavior with the women they have picked up is far more complex than
their dialog lets on, which anticipates the film’s unexpected yet deeply
poignant denouement. It may be impossible to understand the meanings of the
scenes upon one viewing of the film, but Mr. Cassavetes was a rogue filmmaker
with an originality and honesty to be reckoned with. Some accused him of being
self-indulgent. For the adventurous and curious cineaste who prefers a cerebral
cinematic experience bereft of Marvel superheroes and the requisite explosions,
the rewards in Husbands are plentiful.
Husbands opened in New York City on Wednesday, December 9, 1970, but the
film was shot in the early months of 1969. It was featured on the cover of Life
Magazine in May 1969 but by the time the film was released, the cover story
became a distant memory for readers. The
director’s unorthodox method to shooting provided challenges to those he worked
with, especially Peter Falk who struggled at first with what the director
wanted. Initial rough cuts favored different points-of-view: one favored Gus,
then another favored Archie, and yet another favored Harry. The director shot
roughly 1,300,00 feet of film, which translates to about 240 hours of raw
footage. That is almost an unconscionable amount of takes to sift through to
yield a finished film, the sheer volume taking months simply to view it prior
to attempting to cut it all together.
The new Criterion Collection Blu-ray runs 142 minutes and the film already feels
long, however Ben Gazzara preferred the 240-minute cut, which I would have
loved to have seen as an additional disc. Obviously that cut was answer-printed
and locked, so it must exist in some form, perhaps in either Gena Rowland’s or
Nick Cassavetes’s basements? If the film’s trailer touts it as a comedy, it is
due to the fact that the director took the version well-received by the
audience and recut it into the version that he wanted, to the dismay of
the suits at Columbia Pictures.
The Criterion
Collection has released Husbands on Blu-ray with the following extras:
The
film was transferred from a new 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed
monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray, and the image looks great.
There
is a feature-length audio commentary conducted by critic Marshall Fine ported
over from the Husbands DVD released in 2009, so the reference to Harvey
Weinstein predates the disclosure of his horrific sexual behavior and ultimate
incarceration.
There
are new 2020 interviews with producer Al Ruban (25:02) and actress Jenny
Runacre (17:55)
There
is a new 2020 video essay by filmmaker Daniel Raim featuring audio recordings
of actor-director John Cassavetes discussing his approach to working with
actors (13:00).
The
Story of “Husbands†- A
Tribute to John Cassavetes is a 2009 short running 29:45 featuring producer
Al Ruban, actor Ben Gazzara, and cinematographer Victor J. Kemper.
There
is an an episode of The Dick Cavett Show from September 1970, aired
three months before the release of the film, featuring John Cassavetes, Ben Gazzara,
and Peter Falk, all doing their best to drive poor Mr. Cavett from the stage –
and occasionally succeeding.
The
theatrical trailer is also included (3:44).
There
is also an excellent essay by filmmaker Andrew Bujalski about his impressions
of the film.
John
Cassavetes and the Making of Husbands,
a 28-minute documentary which features behind-the-scenes footage, is
inexplicably missing from the disc, however it can be seen here on
YouTube.
Mr.
Cassavetes is no stranger to the pantheon of titles saved from obscurity by the
Criterion Collection. Criterion originally released a five-film DVD set in 2004
and later a Blu-ray set in 2013 which consisted of Shadows, Faces,
A Woman Under the Influence (1974), both the 1976 and 1978 cuts of The
Killing of a Chinese Bookie and Opening Night (1977). These
sets glaringly lacked Husbands and Minnie and Moskovitz (1971), their
obvious omissions perhaps attributed to Criterion’s inability to secure the rights
to release the films? Fortunately, with the new release of Husbands,
perhaps a follow-up set featuring Too Late Blues, A Child is Waiting, Minnie and Moskovitz,
Gloria (1980), Love Streams (1984), and Big Trouble (1986) won’t
be too far behind?
John
Cassavetes was a maverick I would have loved to have met. He lived fast and
hard and left this world too early at the age of 59, but there is no doubt that
he lived.
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