Faces (1968)
Director: John Cassavetes
Screenwriter: John Cassavetes
Historical context
John Cassavetes was a successful Hollywood actor, having appeared in numerous television dramas and such noted feature films as The Dirty Dozen and Rosemary’s Baby. Like many actors, he was also interested in directing, but he was not interested in turning out typical Hollywood product. Instead, he preferred to make more intimate, less commercially viable films. The only realistic way of accomplishing this goal was to finance the films himself from his earnings as an actor, which meant that the films would inevitably be technically rough-edged. He recruited actor friends to appear in the films, including his wife, Gena Rowlands. The resulting body of work is unique in world cinema in seeming to capture on film the dynamic of live performance. Although fully scripted, the films have an improvisational feel, together with a voyeuristic sense of glimpsing episodes from the real lives of real people.
Narrative context
Does this film have a traditional narrative structure? In what way(s) does it differ from the structure of a typical drama? How does Cassavetes structure individual scenes? How does this approach to scene structure differ from that of most Hollywood film?
What are some instances of parallels within the narrative? What function do these parallels serve?
Which characters do you feel are the main focus of the narrative? Which characters undergo a process of change during the course of the narrative, and which do not?
Given that the story is a generally melancholy one, why do you think so many scenes prominently feature extended laughter?
What are the primary needs, ambitions, fears driving each of the film’s characters? How does the film disclose this to us?
Aesthetic context
How does Cassavetes’s camera style influence your perception of the story and its characters?
What is/are the meaning(s) of the title, Faces?
How would you describe the acting style(s) featured in this film?
How would your perception of the film be altered if the film had been shot in color?
What stylistic influences, if any, do you perceive in the way this film was shot and assembled?
Rhetorical context
In what way(s) does the film comment on upper-middle-class marriages of the mid-1960s?
In what way(s) does the film comment on gender relations?
In what way(s) does the film comment on generational relations?
In what way(s) does the film comment on social status and its relationship to personal fulfillment?
