Faces ***** (1968, John Marley, Gena Rowlands, Seymour Cassel, Lynn Carlin, Fred Draper, Val Avery, Dorothy Gulliver, Darlene Conley) – Classic Movie Review 3191

Writer-director John Cassavetes’s 1968 improvised account of the failing marriage of a California wealthy middle-aged, middle-class couple, Richard and Maria Forst (John Marley and Lynn Carlin), is deservedly considered one of his finest and most admired films. Both the acting and direction are extremely eye-catching in this quintessence of actors’ and auteur’s cinema.

Faces was voted Best Film at the 1968 Venice Film Festival and there were three Oscar nominations, including Best Writing, Story and Screenplay – Written Directly for the Screen for Cassavetes.

The couple have been married for 14 years but their marriage finally disintegrates in 36 hours as one night the older married man Richard Forst leaves his wife for younger woman Jeannie Rapp (Gena Rowlands). But then his ex-wife Maria begins a relationship with a younger partner too when she is seduced by hippie swinger Chet (Seymour Cassel), a kind young man from Detroit.

Cassel and Carlin were Oscar nominated as Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress for their stupendous performances, but the other stars Marley and Rowlands have plenty of power too. Indeed, Marley was voted Best Actor at the 1968 Venice Film Festival.

Also in the cast are Fred Draper as Freddie Draper, Val Avery as Jim McCarthy, Dorothy Gulliver as Florence, Joanne Moore Jordan as Louise Draper, Darlene Conley as Billy Mae, Gene Darfler as Joe Jackson and Elizabeth Deering as Stella.

The credited cinematographer is Al Ruban, but Maurice McEndree and Haskell Wexler also worked on it, uncredited. Haskell Wexler died peacefully in his sleep on December 27 2015, aged 93. One of the ten most influential cinematographers in movie history, he won Best Cinematography Oscars for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Bound for Glory and was nominated for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Matewan (1987) and Blaze (1989).

There is no music during the end credits.

Seymour Cassel (1935–2019).

RIP talented, prolific veteran character actor Seymour Cassel, who made his movie debut in Cassavetes’s first film, Shadows (1958) and is remembered for Dick Tracy (playing Sam Catchem) (1990), In the Soup (playing Joe) (1992), Rushmore (playing Bert Fischer) (1998) and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (playing Esteban du Plantier) (2004). He died on 8 April 2019, aged 84.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 3191

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