Maridos

John Cassavetes' 1970 masterpiece "Husbands" is by far one of my favourite films of all time! I'm aware that this film divides a lot of fans of John Cassavetes. Some love it, and some loathe it. And to be honest, I can understand both sides. But I find it extremely dramatic, funny, touching, brutal, and thought provoking. Some have complained that it is too long, misogynistic, contrived, pretentious, and badly acted. You're intitled to your opinion, but I don't share it. John Cassavetes' cinema was never to appeal to mass aproval or for enjoyment. It's meant to slap you in the face silly, wrench emotions out, throw you into uneasy laughter, put you ill at ease with an uncomfortable situation, drag out scenarios pass the point of tediousness, get into your skin, get into your brain, and have you walking out of the theatre feeling like you just got off a rollercoaster. If you haven't felt this by the end, then I'm afraid you should ask your designer to input an emotion chip in the android brain of yours. Lots of film directors make great, fun, entertaining, and dramatic films. But few take on the emotional coach role. Cassavetes has you running around nerve ends exposed, doing laps around your own personal plights, guilts, and loves. Maybe I've painted an over the top description of his films, but when I think back on his films, this is what comes to mind. I have a very hard time criticizing his films, because his films abandon typical cinema interpetation. He does not follow cinema rules, therefore I cannot follow typical rules of criticisim. Cassavetes had inserted a heart into celluloid, that burns before the eyes on the cinema screen. The film "Husbands" begins with three middle age males attending the funeral of a fourth friend. We have John Cassavetes (Gus), Peter Falk (Archie), and Ben Gazzara (Harry) returning to the man-child role, as they escape from middle age suburbia on a European bender. The bender includes scenes of drunkeness, singing, basketball, gambling, picking up girls, picking on people, and often making complete asses of themselves. This film is just too thick on topics to have a simple review give it any justice. But I urge everyone to experience his cinema with an open mind, and commitment. John Cassavetes has given us this commitment in making it. He is truly a genius of independent films, and is obviously (in my book) up there with Orson Wells, Francois Truffaut, and Alfred Hitchcock as one of the greatest directors in cinema history. Be prepared to not like everything you see, because I don't think he wanted you to. He wanted an emotional reaction that sticks on your brain. I've read that he said "We only have 2 hours to change someones life", and for me...he did! May John Cassavetes live on forever! I give this movie a 10!

I don't enjoy John Cassavetes movies that much, but I've watched quite a few of them because of his importance to the development of independent American cinema and because of their uniqueness. I think "Husbands" will be my last Cassavetes film. I've seen it, "A Woman Under the Influence," "Faces," and "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie," and I feel like I can put him to rest with a thorough knowledge of his style and preoccupations.

What I do like about Cassavetes is that he explored in a way few writers/directors at the time did the complexities of male emotions. His male characters don't fall into easy categories and neither do their interior lives. In what he has his characters say and do, it's like he wanted to present the male id on screen visually, in all its obnoxious glory.

But the flip side is that it makes his characters unpleasant and exhausting to be with. I went out with a bunch of guys for a bachelor party once, and one of them was talking loudly about how ugly and fat a girl was sitting at a nearby table in a bar. He clearly wanted her to hear, and it's like he was performing for the rest of us. The other guys, because they didn't want to be accused of ruining the evening I guess, or because they genuinely found it funny, played along and encouraged him. The whole experience was so uncomfortable and toxic that I left shortly after and didn't go on to do the rest of the things planned for the evening.

Watching "Husbands" is like two hours of that experience. It's watching three guys hang out and desperately try to avoid the emotions stirred up by the recent death of a fourth buddy. This means they fight, get maudlin, get drunk, get abusive, treat women like crap. We don't get to know these guys. We're just dumped into the middle of their circle of friendship and sent off with them into the night to hang out for a couple of hours. I can't relate to Cassavetes movies. I'm the same age as the guys in this movie, maybe even a little older than they're supposed to be, with a wife and kids. I don't understand the contempt and anger they show for the world, for their wives, for each other. They don't live in a world that resembles anything I've directly experienced. And since Cassavetes just observes rather than explains, I don't learn anything about it that might help me understand more. I just get claustrophobic and want to leave the party early. Like every other Cassavetes movie I've seen, this one felt more than anything else like an endurance test.

Grade: B

Three men (Falk, Cassavettes, and Gazzara) mourn the death of a friend by going on a long-weekend bender, during which they talk about life, experience masculine pleasures, and try to understand the meaning of it all.

This was the first Cassavettes movie I've ever seen. I liked it, which was surprising because this is not the sort of movie I'm generally interested in. There's almost no plot to speak of, most of the movie feels improvised (although improvised along certain set themes -- one does feel the heavy hand of the director here and there). It's a slice of life movie that still feels pretty rough and daring; I imagine in 1970, when this came out, people couldn't make hide nor hare of it.

Like most movies of this type, the big flaw is structure. The movie takes forever to get going, and doesn't really seem to know when to quit: the last reel, in particular, felt a little long to me. Plus, as I said, there is here and there a sense of a structure being imposed from without: the guys don't just do anything, they do certain set things for "character revelation" sake.

The acting, which is the crucial thing in a movie like this, of course, doesn't disappoint. All three men are very believable: they delineate their macho world quite well, with it's romanticism, bathos, insecurities and obnoxiousness. They're similar types of guys, which bothered me a lot at first but upon reflection made a lot of sense, since in real life we tend to be friends with people like us. Still, there are gradations and variations: Falk is inarticulate and sensitive, Gazzara despairing, Cassavettes is fumbling toward some kind of self-recognition.

The cinematography is absolutely stunning -- I might have seen a particularly nice print but this took me by surprise. Most of the movie is shot in warm, earthy, romantic tones, which sets the mood of nostalgia and dreams well, I think. Every now and then, though, we get a cold, full-on daytime shot where everyone looks naked and blinking under a frigid sun; it's a good counterpoint.

This is an important film by an important director. He'll never be a favorite of mine, but I'll definitely check out other work of his. You'll be doing yourself a favor if you do the same.

As a reaction to the death of a close buddy, three middle-age men, all married with kids, go on a wild psychological joyride that includes, among other things, getting drunk, gambling, and hooking up with some prostitutes. Their reaction is, in fact, overreaction to a mid-life crisis, wherein marriage, children, and jobs create the social chains that bind.

The story's basic premise renders an interesting theme. Given some traumatic event, like the death of someone we know, it's natural to grieve and reflect on the choices we've made. We thus gain perspective. But these guys seem oblivious to that process. Their only interest is juvenile self-indulgence of the moment, which creates behavior that is boorish and crude. I could not get interested in them or their drama. Nor did I have any respect for them.

The film's visuals are okay. But the runtime is way too long. A ninety-minute plot would have gotten the point across. Every minute beyond that is superfluous. Some segments are painfully drawn-out, like the one wherein they sit around a table in a bar getting drunk and listening to other people sing silly songs. And the script's dialogue is very talky. Basically, the entire plot can be summarized as three guys getting drunk, vomiting, and talking endlessly about themselves.

Acting is borderline at best. Some scenes encourage improvisation in acting and dialogue. Visuals trend conventional. There are a lot of close-up shots.

"Husbands" tries to be a social commentary on the ties that bind. But the plot and characters are rather awful. Direction and performances trend pretentious and self-conscious. And the whole bloated production seems misguided.

A common friend's sudden death brings three men, married with children, to reconsider their lives and ultimately leave together. But mindless enthusiasm for regained freedom will be short-lived.

This film brings together John Cassavetes, Ben Gazzara and Peter Falk as actors on one screen. No other film has this trio, and here we have it in spades. That alone makes the film worth watching, because the way these guys interact is quite fun to watch.

Critic Jay Cocks wrote, "Husbands may be one of the best movies anyone will ever see. It is certainly the best movie anyone will ever live through." He described it as an important and great film, and as Cassavetes' finest work. Roger Ebert, on the other hand, disliked the film greatly (despite being a Cassavetes fan in general) and Pauline Kael described the movie as "infantile and offensive."