Faces (1968 film)


Faces is a 1968 American drama film written and directed by John Cassavetes. It stars John Marley, Gena Rowlands, Lynn Carlin, Seymour Cassel, Fred Draper and Val Avery.
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 cinéma vérité-style, depicts the final stages of the disintegrating marriage of a middle-aged couple. 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

The film was shot in high-contrast 16 mm black and white film stock. Steven Spielberg worked as an unpaid runner.

Versions

As is the case with several of Cassavetes' films, several different versions of Faces are known to exist. 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 83% approval rating on review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 24 reviews with an average rating of 7.3/10. Roger Ebert 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.
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.

Awards and nominations

AwardCategoryNomineeResult
Academy AwardsBest Supporting ActorSeymour Cassel
Academy AwardsBest Supporting ActressLynn Carlin
Academy AwardsBest Story and Screenplay Written Directly for the ScreenJohn Cassavetes
National Film Preservation BoardNational Film RegistryFaces
National Society of Film Critics AwardsBest FilmFaces
National Society of Film Critics AwardsBest ActressLynn Carlin
National Society of Film Critics AwardsBest Supporting ActorSeymour Cassel
National Society of Film Critics AwardsBest ScreenplayJohn Cassavetes
New York Film Critics Circle AwardsBest FilmFaces
New York Film Critics Circle AwardsBest DirectorJohn Cassavetes
Venice International Film FestivalGolden LionJohn Cassavetes
Venice International Film FestivalPasinetti AwardJohn Cassavetes
Venice International Film FestivalBest ActorJohn Marley
Writers Guild of America AwardsBest Written American Original ScreenplayJohn Cassavetes