RyothChatty ridiculous rating

Myron Clemons A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Celia A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Wyatt There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Anthony Iessi The sanctity of Marriage just got a shock thorough it's veins. John Casssavates's film "Faces" is a heartbreaking, urgent, real journey through the darkest realms of adultery. Cassavetes must be a traditionalist when it comes to marriage, because he makes this seem like a cautionary tale. A sense of how depression, lust and exploration outside of marriage could lead to vile, uncertain consequences. This movie is absolutely beautiful, and it's earned a spot on my list of the best films that I have ever seen. As grim as this movie is, it captures absolute desperation like few movies have ever did. The characters, Richard and Maria Frost are seen dipping their toes into the lustful life of mistresses and swinging. Not only do they want to mess around between the sheets with a dirty concubine, but they want to experience the love that they never found in each other, and rekindle the times of their youth. In both sections of their escapades, they dance and sing with their mistresses, and just laugh the night away with the swinging cohorts. Each scene lasts about 20 minutes a piece, and examine the surreal experience closely, almost like a stage play would have it. These scenes exist to also make note of the fantastic performances between every character on screen, and they shine brightly. Gena Rowlands's character of the mistress is seen as capitulating to the every fantasy of the men she fools around with, while at the same time losing her dignity and self-respect with every time the men fight for her attention. The character of Maria's concubine, Chet, on the other hand, is a commanding and brooding performance. We see him as a man who wants to take control of multiple women, and seemingly unprepared when his lust almost kills Maria after he lets her overdose on sleeping pills. That scene in particular is the greatest in the entire movie, as it beautifully shows the lowest point in Maria's life. How did she go from a lovely housewife to being unconscious in her own home, and a creepy man slaps her silly and chokes her violently in order to bring her back to life? Cassavetes plays up the ridiculousness of the situation, in order to shock us and make us think. The feeling of the entire picture was disorienting and just plain wrong in every aspect. The couple seemed way over their heads the entire time, and it what also seemed like a life or death situation. Every person in the rooms seemed to be on the verge of screaming, or crying or dying. The tension here is so fierce, you could cut it with a butter knife. Again, I focus on the acting, because that is where the film shines the brightest. It is pitch perfect. The cinematography is world's better here than it was in "Shadows", and it gives us the opportunity to explore the spaces that they live in. For example, the scene in which Richard comes home and eats dinner is filmed tensely, with shots that carefully and seamlessly follow his every move through the house and around his own wife. I know that there were clear cuts, but I simply didn't notice them. Everything seemed to be going in real time, and the performances helped make that time seem genuine. Each situation and scene had a build up period that was so frighteningly real. Emotions just build throughout all of the scenes. John Cassavetes proves here more than ever that he is the master and true father of the independent cinema movement, by making a film so profound in nature, without having any big money and sets to work around. In fact, here, he captures much more than any Hollywood film is willing to capture. Cassavetes was always a Hollywood golden boy, but I think that he should've just walked entirely away, and kept making incredible films. I am now reminded of how amazing it was to meet his son, Nick, at the Syracuse International Film Festival. I know now how important it was for us to see him, and how the Cassavetes name helps us as filmmakers in the end.

evanston_dad A slice of life from Cassavetes that captures the breaking point of a couple's marriage.I feel like watching a Cassavetes movie about once every ten years. That's about how long it takes me to recover from the last one. His films are exhausting, and I find myself admiring them more than I ever love them. I certainly felt that way during "Faces." There's no denying the skill of the actors or Cassavetes' merciless brand of filmmaking (I can't even begin to imagine what audiences at the time made of this film, which came out in a year when "Oliver!" won the Best Picture Academy Award), but I grew pretty tired of it before it was over.John Marley plays the male half of the married couple and probably gives the film's most memorable performance. Gena Rowlands, Cassavetes' long-time wife, plays one of his mistresses and isn't given a chance to display the acting chops she would use several years later to such devastating effect in "A Woman Under the Influence." Lynn Carlin (Oscar nominee for Best Supporting Actress) plays the cheated-on wife who does some cheating of her own with Seymour Cassell (Oscar nominee for Best Supporting Actor). And Cassavetes himself filled out the film's triumvirate of Oscar nominations with a nod for Best Original Story and Screenplay.While I can't say I necessarily enjoyed "Faces," I will say it did a marvelous job of capturing that sense of middle-age malaise that hits men and women when they start to think of their lives as half over rather than half begun and a desperate need to feel needed begins to take hold.Grade: B+

ElMaruecan82 "Faces" is a slap in our faces. "Faces" faces reality like a telescopic mirror. Never had desperation and starving needs of love and respect looked so poignantly authentic. Not just because of the visions our discomforted eyes witness during these 24 hours of shouting, talking, arguing and laughing, but also, thanks to Cassavettes' genius directing, using close-ups on characters, so they can never lie or play. And when all the basis of the bourgeois way of life is hypocrisy, "Faces" plays a cathartic role, allowing us to stand back and realize that these "faces" are nothing else but ours.I can't count how many times "Faces" made me think "Oh, my God! This is so real" though I don't belong to any social category represented in this film, but this is more than slices of life stories about tired businessmen and disillusioned wives, all eager to maintain their sex or love appeal. "Faces" is about human relationships and the profound effect time exercise on men and women, old and young, married or single. Every interaction with people is guided by a personal approach to life and fear of death, inspiring to each character from this masterpiece a specific attitude, magnified in these denuding and disturbing close-ups. We can't help but feel a bit voyeuristic to watch them like this, but this indecency relies less on the actions than the disturbing truths they highlight. "Faces" is what prevails behind the masks of conformity, like the truest expression of the regrets and hopes governing our lives. "Faces" as Cassavettes's tribute to humanity and its poignant vulnerability. Vulnerability doesn't come easy in our relationships with strangers. Richard Frost, the businessman, portrayed by John Marley, personifies the fragility of an old man who must know where his life is going. Life is valuable and must focus on strong principles. Then he hides his doubt and weaknesses under a ludicrous carpet made of bad jokes and a manic laugh that doesn't fool anyone. When he's drunk with his friend (and never a drunk scene has been so realistic), he still tries to keep his dignity intact, and when Jeannie, played by a beautiful and delicate Gena Rowlands, criticizes the concept of friendship, he disagrees and expresses with seriousness its value then realizes that seriousness itself, is an overrated concept. Indeed, his best friend acts like a clown, then makes harsh remarks that hurt Jeannie's feelings, reminding her she's a whore. Jeannie disarms him, saying that he just doesn't know how to behave, and use aggressiveness as a mask to hide his vulnerability, hurting not to be hurt. They're all powerful businessmen, but yet vulnerable in their incapability to admit their doubts, their dependence of this cruel need to prove their manhood. This puerile pride is illustrated in a ridiculous fight scene between Richard and Jim, another executive played by Val Avery. When they realize how childishly they acted, they started talking like regular businessmen. But the need was still there. Need is the key word of "Faces", especially in the second part featuring the disillusioned wives of those men and Chet, a young swinger hippie they just met in a nightclub and brilliantly portrayed by Seymour Cassel. One of the women, played by Lynn Carlin, is Maria, Richard's wife, who's just been told by her husband, much older than her, that they should divorce. All these women know about their men and try to forget the emptiness of their marital situation, especially after the kids grew up and left the house. Inevitably, the need of being loved, desired and respected emerges back and spoils the evening. When a woman, encouraged by Chet, overcomes her shyness and starts dancing with him, she defensively reacts to Chet's "let's not make a fool of ourselves" and replies with hostility before leaving the house unaware that she's just made the wrong point. One of the friends understands that she's just doing this to make herself look honorable to forget her marriage's failure. Women also wear masks, using their status of accomplished mothers as an alibi to keep some ounces of dignity. The only one who doesn't care for dignity sees Chet with her drunk eyes as the opposite of her ugly uninteresting husband, and begs him for a poignant, but pitiful kiss.This pity is the response for fear and desperation. The climactic scene between Chet and Maria, will haunt me forever: the desperation when he tries to make her throw up, as to exorcise all the pain she accumulated is disturbingly poignant. This is a woman that can't play anymore, she just hates her life, and is too weak to simulate happiness. During a very insightful speech, Chet summarizes the whole point of the film, everything is almost mechanical, anyone, beautiful, ugly, happy or miserable is wearing a mask, and nothing matters more than the truth, honesty and the personal quest for happiness. This looks like the happy ending of a coming-of-age film, but this is brutally interrupted by Richard's arrival. We don't know what's going to happen next, Richard wanted a divorce but realized his disenchantment cost him his ability to love again, Maria lets him sitting on the stairs, after telling him, she's disgusted by her life, will she meet leave him or meet Chet again? Will Jeannie continue to wear this beautiful mask to hide her fear of not being attractive anymore? Are all these questions really relevant? Cassavettes point is not to teach, but to reveal, to show the face of truth in its poignant fragility. These are the faces, the rest is just feces.

Cosmoeticadotcom Faces, by John Cassavetes, is a 1968 film generally credited as being the first popular independent film in America to make an impact in the public consciousness. But, it is more than that. It is a film that totally subverted the dominant themes and forms of Hollywood cinema, at the time, showed that 'adult' films, truly adult, not a euphemism for pornography, could have mass appeal, and paved the way for the great auteur decade of American film-making that was the 1970s. That things have regressed severely, since then, only shows how much a young Cassavetes is needed these days.But, it was totally different from the European auteur films of the 1960s, in that it eschewed symbolism, framing, and Post-Modern techniques of storytelling. Faces is a raw film that is laced with searing, realistic dialogue, and gives the impression that the viewer is truly eavesdropping on the private lives of people who could be them, for there are no Hollywood goddesses nor buff Adonises to be found in any scenes. And, unlike a master like Ingmar Bergman, who also focused on the inner emotional and psychological lives of individuals, Cassavetes' characters are not philosophizing nor posing in neatly framed boxes. This is not so much a criticism of the European poetic approach to film, merely to state that Cassavetes' style was far more revolutionary, and felt like actual cinema verité. In that sense, while one can argue ceaselessly over the relative excellence of certain directors, it is impossible to deny Cassavetes' importance in the pantheon of film's first century.Nor can one deny Faces' importance, at least as a landmark, if not having lasting influence in Hollywood's Lowest Common Denominator output. The film follows the demise of the fourteen year marriage of Richard and Maria Forst (John Marley and Lynn Carlin), two LA suburban children of the post-World War Two boom, at the height of American affluence, just before Vietnam, Watergate, and the 1970s allowed the Conservative movement of the 1980s send standards of living into a spiral that has yet to stem. Why are they breaking up? We are never directly told. He's the head of a large company, and she a bored housewife, and while they still have things in common, and enjoy each other- as shown in a terrific scene of the couple in bed, laughing their heads off over lame jokes Richard tells, their marriage has just died. Neither could probably pinpoint where, much less why. But, the fact that they are still chuckling over the most inane jokes, just to please one another, says it all about most relationships- that they almost all end up as zombies. That's what makes this film so real, potent, and discomfiting. Contrast this to the Hollywood paradigm of the mid-1960s, Doris Day comedies, when the film was first started, and the difference is stark….But, the real stars of this film are the writing and acting. Cassavetes reaches Chekhovian heights of drama, admixed with Tennessee Williams' poetic realism, in his Oscar nominated Best Original Screenplay. It is truly among the greatest screenplays ever written, even if, as rumored, there was much improvisation in the dialogue. Here, for one of the few times on screen or stage, one gets to see the actor as creator, not merely collaborator. Lynn Carlin, in her first film role, is authentic as the clueless abandoned wife, and got an Oscar nod for Best Supporting Actress. Seymour Cassel, as he lover, is also fantastic, as a gigolo with a soft side, and also got a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. Gena Rowlands, as the prostitute, is neither victim nor saint, just a real person struggling with real problems, and gives her usual great performance, as one of the great actresses of all time in film. But, this film is dominated, from start to finish, by the towering performance of John Marley. How many of us have worked for a son of a bitch like him? How many women know a bastard like him? How many men reading this are a Richard Forst? The supporting actors- Fred Draper as Richard's drunken pal Freddie, Val Avery as the drunken Jim McCarthy, Dorothy Gulliver as Florence, the old lady Chet deigns to kiss, when she drunkenly pleads for affection- are uniformly terrific, as well.The title of the film is based upon the notion that we all act in ways that are mere role playing for others, mere faces, and this has never been more true than in this film. A more apt title, though, might have been Personae, but since Bergman's singular Persona had recently been released, to great acclaim, this title suffices. No scene better and more aptly depicts why it suffices than in the terrific, nearly twenty minute opening scene, after the title sequence, which hints at the fact that, as Bergman was doing in that era, this film may all be a film some of the characters are watching, as a presentation to Forst as 'the Dolce Vita of the commercial field.' That this meta-narrative aspect has not been commented on by many critics I find curious, but understandable, since no more than two or three minutes into the nearly twenty minutes that follow, we are given a bravura performance of drunkenness never before equaled, for its realism, on screen. The strengths of this film are so many and so potent that things that in other films that would be weaknesses, such as fashions and dated slang, become strengths for this film has not dated. Its characters are as fresh as they were four decades ago, even if the film, itself, serves as a time capsule of the 1960s, yet one that is timeless.