Woman Under the Influence, A (1974)
Review #1,373 |
THE SCOOP
Director: John Cassavetes
Cast: Gena Rowlands, Peter Falk
Plot: A blue-collar man tries to deal with his wife's mental instability. He fights to keep a semblance of normality in the face of her bizarre behavior, but when her actions affect their children, he has her committed.
Genre: Drama
Awards: Nom. for 2 Oscars - Best Director, Best Leading Actress
Runtime: 147min
Rating: PG13 (passed clean) for some coarse language
Source: Jumer Productions
IN RETROSPECT (Spoilers: NO)
“Dad...
will you stand up for me?”
John Cassavetes was a misunderstood and
polarising figure in his time. Most of
his signature works defy narrative conventions, both in structure and characterisation,
often to the dismay of critics who couldn’t pigeonhole these films. Like Robert Bresson, he had infamously
proclaimed that his films were the truth and his methods true. But like Bresson, Cassavetes was also an
immaculate filmmaker, a visionary as he sought to transform American
independent filmmaking into an artistic triumph no matter the struggle.
His passing in 1989 has since opened the doors
to a re-appreciation of this master filmmaker, and his words, hollowed back
then now ring with a resounding truth. A Woman Under the Influence, arguably
his finest film, is a superlative testament to the legacy of this remarkable
man.
Here’s a film about marital problems and
domestic strife, so brutal in its depiction of a middle-class family on the
brink of self-destruction that it is at once fascinating and harrowing to
experience. It is certainly essential viewing,
starring Peter Falk as Nick, a blue-collar worker who has to deal with his psychologically
unstable wife Mabel, played by Cassavetes' real-life wife Gena Rowlands.
The duo gives two of the rawest performances
I’ve seen in ‘70s American cinema, dovetailing along tortured emotions of tolerance,
bewilderment and fury, yet their characters are deeply—madly—in love with each
other, and care for their three children.
Cassavetes' incisive and scathing script
outlines how insanity affects relationships inside and outside of the family, but
sheer irony begets the inquiry: the film is not so much about why Mabel is
behaving as such, but how the people surrounding her has made her as such.
Despite largely set within the confines of a
house and its private spaces, Cassavetes' camera is always searching for signals
from the actors, be it a shrug, a blink, a sigh, a gesture, any gesture. And it is with this ‘inquisitive’ spirit that
so embodies the Cassavetes modus operandi, that gives A Woman Under the Influence a kind of impetus for forward narrative
momentum.
Instead of relying on traditional ways of
editing for dramatic emphasis, this cinematographic ‘inquisition’ pushes the
film to pursue a kind of realism seldom created by the apparatus that is traditional
(or staged) cinema. Through long takes,
blocking and selective focus that magnify in their minutiae the physical
performances and improvisations of Falk and Rowlands, Cassavetes has carved out
a new kind of cinema even at the heart of the New Hollywood Cinema of the late
‘60s and ‘70s.
Verdict: One of Cassavetes’ greatest triumphs, this is
a harrowing drama of the highest order with astonishing performances, and
scathing and incisive screenwriting.
GRADE: A
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