In any case, after sharing that review I wrote of Fandango, I haven't shared one since.
But I was proud enough of what I wrote earlier today about John Cassavetes' A Woman Under the Influence, which I watched yesterday, that I decided to break the drought and share it. Without any further ado, here is that piece, with names redacted to protect the innocent:
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The thing that’s frustrating on some level about watching A
Woman Under the Influence (1974), which I got from [REDACTED]’s chart, is the thing that
made John Cassavetes such a unique and vital voice in independent cinema. Those
of us weaned on traditional movie narratives know that you are almost always
going to get the “why” that explains a character’s behavior. In this case that would
be the lead character, Mabel Longhetti, played by force of nature Gena
Rowlands. A traditional treatment of the subject matter about a housewife
cracking up would give a clear antecedent in the narrative about why she no
longer has possession of her faculties.
Cassavetes is not interested in that. He gives us this
mental breakdown already in full swing, and allows us to live with it for two
and a third hours. We can glean, along the way, that perhaps Mabel’s shitty
husband, played by Peter Falk, has left her unable to properly cope with her
three young children, who are typical examples of the sorts of underdeveloped
brains that lead them to run around in circles and remove their clothes. But
then again, it’s not like this doesn’t describe half the children out there.
The truth is, we don’t really know why Mabel needs a spell
in a mental institution, though there can be no doubting that she does need one.
And that is the clean-film-narrative-defying nature of mental illness. There is
not always a “reason” that a person is mentally ill, other than that their
brain does not work properly, taking their low self-esteem, their past
failures, their irrational fears of impending disaster, and elevating them to
dangerous levels.
What I’ve written so far may indicate that this movie was a
struggle for me at times, and it was. However, I like it infinitely more than what
I consider to be the lesser versions of Cassavetes’ craft. One film of his that
particularly gives me the shits, to use the Australian phrase, is Faces, which
I dismissively refer to as people just yelling at each other for two hours.
Though to be clear on the way Cassavetes can work for me, The Killing of a
Chinese Bookie is my #249.
A Woman Under the Influence does not rise to that level, but
it gets a lot closer to it than you might think based on what I’ve written so
far. In truth, all you really need in this movie is Gena Rowlands, who commits
to celluloid what is often considered one of the greatest acting performances
of all time. The only thing – and I mean the only thing – that makes me
hesitate to give the performance that level of praise is what I said earlier,
that there is a nagging part of me that wonders WHY she is like this. But the
actual technical brilliance of the performance has nothing to do with the
screenplay decision not to explicate Mabel’s illness.
How to describe Rowlands’ performance in this movie? I’d say
it’s like the famous subway station scene by Isabelle Adjani in Possession stretched
out over a whole movie, except that this undersells the moments of quiet in
Rowlands’ performance, where you just see her confusion, her alienation, wash
over her face in a blank look propped up by an artificial smile that she thinks
is a real smile. This almost seems like a method performance of mental illness,
and I would not be surprised to learn that Rowlands spent time in an institution
to research her role.
As for the script itself, I do find that there is a little something,
I don’t know, arbitrary? about the scenes Cassavetes shows us and the scenes he
does not show us. For example, I like the strange breakfast scene where Mabel
feeds her husband and his 11 (!) coworkers a spaghetti meal after working an
all-nighter fixing a burst water main. But I guess I just don’t know why this
scene is the scene that’s best designed to dramatize her mental health issues.
It’s almost like an inciting incident scene in the narrative, though if anything
I think she just has an improperly modulated sense of gregariousness. The fact
that this scene is supposed to be the dividing line between what was supposed
to be a romantic, child-free evening with her husband, which was cancelled by
the water main break, and multiple characters being severely concerned about
her mental health, just feels like a scene was missing. But then again, I think
this is the nature of Cassavetes’ filmmaking, and if you don’t go for it then
maybe you are trying to make Cassavetes something he was not.
Obviously I’m very glad to have seen this film and I’m
genuinely curious to see where it will land. And this will be my first film ranked
for this series on v. 2, though I think I can still list the duels the way I
normally would.
A Woman Under the Influence > The White Crow
A Woman Under the Influence < Magic in the Moonlight
A Woman Under the Influence > The Old Oak
A Woman Under the Influence > Professor Marston and the Wonder Women
A Woman Under the Influence > Easy A
A Woman Under the Influence < Bottoms
A Woman Under the Influence > Hatching
A Woman Under the Influence > The Hangover
A Woman Under the Influence > My Girl
A Woman Under the Influence > The Measure of a Man
A Woman Under the Influence > Willow
A Woman Under the Influence > 12 Years a Slave
1793/6720 (73%)
Thanks [REDACTED]!
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Okay, back to me. Or, back to the post, I should say, since it's all me.
Oh, that mention of Flickhart v.2? Stayed tuned, I'm going to write a long piece about that in the near future.
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