Title: Faces

Year: 1968

Country: USA

Language: English

Genre: Drama

Director/Writer: John Cassavetes

Music: Jack Ackerman

Cinematography: Al Ruban

Cast:

John Marley

Gena Rowlands

Lynn Carlin

Seymour Cassel

Fred Draper

Val Avery

Elizabeth Deering

Gene Darfler

Dorothy Gulliver

Joanne Moore Jordan

Darlene Conley

Rating: 8.0/10

It takes an acquired taste to be comfortably and thoroughly engaged in Cassavetes’ intensely disheartening dramaturgy of bourgeois ennui, FACES isirrefutably a feather in his cup, not in the least for its unsparing cinéma-vérité bravura, one could only imagine watching it in front of a celluloid with those intrusive, sidling über-closeups underlined by that grainy monochrome, how different would it be from anything else in the year of 1968?

Watching in on a TV screen might be a less dizzying experience and it may even lend a helping hand for the audience to become more appreciated of Cassavetes’ scalpel-like dissection of an internecine relationship tangle where no one comes off as unscathed.

The film takes the course roughly within one day, we are peering into the disintegration of a 12-year-old marriage betweenRichard Frost (Marley, who physically resembles an elder version of Cassavetes), a well-off movie financier and his younger wife Maria (Carlin), plus its immediate aftermath. What tickles the idea of divorce into Richard’s mind is another woman, Jeannie Rapp (Rowlands), a classy fille de joie who is tentative by the courtship from one of her patron, whom she might also fall for.Whilst Richard visits Jeannie in her apartment with the presence of her other clients, Maria, pent-up after receiving the bolt from the blue, hangs out with her gal pals in a club and they bring back a young go-go dancer Chet (Cassel) to find some cheap solace, but the problem is always the morning after, does she have the courage to face a new day? What else can a domesticated woman do when she is going to a cast-off?

The story pans out intimately in its interior-exclusive episodes, burnished by what dynamo of a cast, the film galvanizes our attention from A to Z, it is hard to tell whether the dialogue and play-off is semi-improvised or strictly script-based, but Cassavetes relentlessly presses home a brisk tension of fickleness and turns of moods through the lengthy procedures, two friends banter, jape, dance until one of them finds himself becomes an inconvenient third wheel and he snaps; the same coup-de-théatre occurs almost repetitively in each episode, whether it is between Richard and Maria’s abruptly disconnected duologue, or the tangible disquiet/agitation between Jeanine and her client Jim McCarthy (Avery, a wonderful chameleon), or later the macho confrontation/reconciliation between Jim and Richard. But it is the chapter where Maria and co. facing off a woman-pleasing Chef leaves the most indelible mark, for its utterly frank expose of a lonely woman’s delusion and desperation under the influence of alcohol, the unsung hero here is Dorothy Gulliver's importunate Florence, you cannot help but feeling pity for her, but the pity is concomitant with a whiff of involuntary disgust.

The cast is pure gold, John Marley upstages the rest with hissilver fox allure so damning pungent in every line delivery and gesticulation, deceptively papers over Richard’s dark streak with a winning/poignant combo of open-facedness and bluntness, only belies his shallowness and misery in the morning after as an exasperating cuckold. Ms.Cassavetes, the unparalleled Gena Rowlands drums nuances into every pore of her body and every glance she casts (also thanks to the majestically in-your-face shots to create that stunning effect). However it is two newbies who are given some legitimate Oscar love,Lynn Carlin is stripped down to her raw emotion in her film debut, which powerfully elicits Maria’s clogged mental state and counterpoises its life-threatening after-effect; on the other hand, a blond and youthful Seymour Cassel beautifully oozes sex appeal and wide-eyed sophistication as an unexpectedly selfless symbol of savior to all those wrenched and dissatisfied housewives, his Chet is the diagonal counterpart of Rowland’s Jeanine, only in exeunt omnes, he has to rashly flee from a window whereas she might eventually get what she wants, if one wanna write about sex politics, FACES is a gold mine.

Most suitably, FACES should be ensconced as a smoldering pendant of Mike Nichols’ WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?, both are hell-bent in tearing down smoke and mirrors to debunk lethargy, inaction and mythomania (among many other maladies) abound in all relationships, dare you to watch them cheek by jowl!

referential points: Cassavetes’ A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE (1974, 7.3/10), OPENING NIGHT (1977, 8.1/10); Mike Nichols’ WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? (1966, 8.2/10)

從倫敦Prince Charles電影院的放映廳走出來時，我下意識地順著眼前的路，推開眼前的門，卻沒想到這扇門將我?guī)Щ亓朔庞硰d。走上樓梯的時候我甚至差點(diǎn)摔倒。這部電影，連同著它所傳遞的悲傷，絕望，和無法逃離的困境，捆綁著我的情緒，就好像昨天那間難以逃離的放映廳。從放映廳走出來，我和朋友徑直走向了離電影院最近的酒吧，一人點(diǎn)了一杯威士忌蘇打，坐在那里彼此誰也說不出話。

《面孔》是導(dǎo)演與演員的天才之作。當(dāng)我們將鏡頭推進(jìn)到每一張面龐前的時候，才發(fā)現(xiàn)原來一個人顫抖的下巴，抿起的嘴唇，迷離的眼神，和心碎的狂笑中，能夠隱藏深切的渴望，久久的隱忍，擺脫不了的迷惘和靈魂最深的痛楚。 原來其實(shí)人的情緒確實(shí)都寫在臉上，只是看你敢不敢湊近。

大部分人與人之間的關(guān)系總是傳遞出一種悲傷。無論我們?nèi)绾斡昧⒛樫N在一起，你也無法成為我的一部分，無論此時我們?nèi)绾蜗鄲?，都注定會在某個瞬間憎恨彼此，無論此時此刻如何地永恒，我們終將分離。如何在絕望與愛中，和另一個靈魂共處，是我們與人性的斗爭。

每顆靈魂都有其獨(dú)特的質(zhì)地，在這部作品里，卡索維茨給予每一顆靈魂呈現(xiàn)其獨(dú)一無二面貌的機(jī)會，并完整、徹底的釋放每一顆靈魂被生活囚困下的欲望和孤獨(dú)！ 電影有挺多無意識的戲，正中我口味，其實(shí)這也是卡索維茨一脈相承的電影特色。在我的理解里，約翰卡索維茨的創(chuàng)作以情感為紐帶，聚焦人內(nèi)心深處的柔軟與堅(jiān)強(qiáng)(某種程度上甚至挖掘其瘋狂)，所以這種自由創(chuàng)作經(jīng)常會陷入一種群體無意識狀態(tài)，這種狀態(tài)下，演員對自身存在的覺知和控制力降至最低，然而他們內(nèi)心驅(qū)動的欲望和表達(dá)在此次刺激和群體氛圍內(nèi)又回歸到最真的狀態(tài)，這是我特別享受他電影的原因。 看這樣的作品我會透過熒幕被拉入一個奇妙電影世界，我便在其中不斷發(fā)現(xiàn)并直面演員自身內(nèi)在的一些東西，而不再膚淺的去判斷表演和故事，更有意思的是，卡索維茨電影鏡頭的運(yùn)用非常精巧、準(zhǔn)確，它的捕捉也極為精細(xì)，總是觸及到電影環(huán)境、群體、個體最真實(shí)的狀態(tài)，這個狀態(tài)下，每個演員的內(nèi)核是富有魅力，并且超越單純的表演所觸達(dá)的表演深度！ 更有意思的是他的戲是連貫的，幾乎不存在斷離，這非常特別的，與戈達(dá)爾的自由創(chuàng)作幾乎截然相反?？ㄋ骶S茨和戈達(dá)爾很大程度上具備相似性(即興、自由)，但二者各有千秋，戈達(dá)爾的作品政治性、跳躍性，和剪輯是特色，卡索維茨的自由創(chuàng)作實(shí)際上更完全，他的即興和自由更徹底更完全，在演員的運(yùn)用上，卡索維茨幾乎是順著演員的質(zhì)地去導(dǎo)戲，演員也順著自己的質(zhì)地去表演，我認(rèn)為這是對演員最正確的運(yùn)用方式之一！

影像90分

劇本95分

導(dǎo)演90分

表演95分

創(chuàng)新90分

作品分92分

內(nèi)容系數(shù)0.9

影史分83分

Mille Plateaux: YEAR ZERO: FACIALITY

Faces are not basically individual; they define zones of

frequency or probability, delimit a field that neutralizes in advance any

expressions or connections unamenable to the appropriate significations.

Similarly, the form of subjectivity, whether consciousness or passion,

would remain absolutely empty if faces did not form loci of resonance that

select the sensed or mental reality and make it conform in advance to a

dominant reality. The face itself is redundancy. It is itself in redundancy

with the redundancies of signifiance or frequency, and those of resonance

or subjectivity. The face constructs the wall that the signifier needs in order

to bounce off of; it constitutes the wall of the signifier, the frame or screen.

The face digs the hole that subjectification needs in order to break through;

it constitutes the black hole of subjectivity as consciousness or passion, the

camera, the third eye.