面孔1968

Title: Faces

Year: 1968

Country: USA

Language: English

Genre: Drama

Director/Writer: John Cassavetes

Music: Jack Ackerman

Cinematography: Al Ruban

Cast:

John Marley

Gena Rowlands

Lynn Carlin

Seymour Cassel

Fred Draper

Val Avery

Elizabeth Deering

Gene Darfler

Dorothy Gulliver

Joanne Moore Jordan

Darlene Conley

Rating: 8.0/10

It takes an acquired taste to be comfortably and thoroughly engaged in Cassavetes’ intensely disheartening dramaturgy of bourgeois ennui, FACES isirrefutably a feather in his cup, not in the least for its unsparing cinéma-vérité bravura, one could only imagine watching it in front of a celluloid with those intrusive, sidling über-closeups underlined by that grainy monochrome, how different would it be from anything else in the year of 1968?

Watching in on a TV screen might be a less dizzying experience and it may even lend a helping hand for the audience to become more appreciated of Cassavetes’ scalpel-like dissection of an internecine relationship tangle where no one comes off as unscathed.

The film takes the course roughly within one day, we are peering into the disintegration of a 12-year-old marriage betweenRichard Frost (Marley, who physically resembles an elder version of Cassavetes), a well-off movie financier and his younger wife Maria (Carlin), plus its immediate aftermath. What tickles the idea of divorce into Richard’s mind is another woman, Jeannie Rapp (Rowlands), a classy fille de joie who is tentative by the courtship from one of her patron, whom she might also fall for.Whilst Richard visits Jeannie in her apartment with the presence of her other clients, Maria, pent-up after receiving the bolt from the blue, hangs out with her gal pals in a club and they bring back a young go-go dancer Chet (Cassel) to find some cheap solace, but the problem is always the morning after, does she have the courage to face a new day? What else can a domesticated woman do when she is going to a cast-off?

The story pans out intimately in its interior-exclusive episodes, burnished by what dynamo of a cast, the film galvanizes our attention from A to Z, it is hard to tell whether the dialogue and play-off is semi-improvised or strictly script-based, but Cassavetes relentlessly presses home a brisk tension of fickleness and turns of moods through the lengthy procedures, two friends banter, jape, dance until one of them finds himself becomes an inconvenient third wheel and he snaps; the same coup-de-théâtre occurs almost repetitively in each episode, whether it is between Richard and Maria’s abruptly disconnected duologue, or the tangible disquiet/agitation between Jeanine and her client Jim McCarthy (Avery, a wonderful chameleon), or later the macho confrontation/reconciliation between Jim and Richard. But it is the chapter where Maria and co. facing off a woman-pleasing Chef leaves the most indelible mark, for its utterly frank expose of a lonely woman’s delusion and desperation under the influence of alcohol, the unsung hero here is Dorothy Gulliver's importunate Florence, you cannot help but feeling pity for her, but the pity is concomitant with a whiff of involuntary disgust.

The cast is pure gold, John Marley upstages the rest with hissilver fox allure so damning pungent in every line delivery and gesticulation, deceptively papers over Richard’s dark streak with a winning/poignant combo of open-facedness and bluntness, only belies his shallowness and misery in the morning after as an exasperating cuckold. Ms.Cassavetes, the unparalleled Gena Rowlands drums nuances into every pore of her body and every glance she casts (also thanks to the majestically in-your-face shots to create that stunning effect). However it is two newbies who are given some legitimate Oscar love,Lynn Carlin is stripped down to her raw emotion in her film debut, which powerfully elicits Maria’s clogged mental state and counterpoises its life-threatening after-effect; on the other hand, a blond and youthful Seymour Cassel beautifully oozes sex appeal and wide-eyed sophistication as an unexpectedly selfless symbol of savior to all those wrenched and dissatisfied housewives, his Chet is the diagonal counterpart of Rowland’s Jeanine, only in exeunt omnes, he has to rashly flee from a window whereas she might eventually get what she wants, if one wanna write about sex politics, FACES is a gold mine.

Most suitably, FACES should be ensconced as a smoldering pendant of Mike Nichols’ WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?, both are hell-bent in tearing down smoke and mirrors to debunk lethargy, inaction and mythomania (among many other maladies) abound in all relationships, dare you to watch them cheek by jowl!

referential points: Cassavetes’ A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE (1974, 7.3/10), OPENING NIGHT (1977, 8.1/10); Mike Nichols’ WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? (1966, 8.2/10)

Cassavetes on Cassavetes by Cassavetes, John Carney

Page 165

As in Shadows, and as would be the case in all of his subsequent films, Faces’ actors were encouraged to draw on the deepest aspects of their personalities and attitudes in their playing. Cassavetes’ secret to making this work was to operate in such a deep way that the actors didn’t realize what was going on. Their performances became explorations of parts of themselves they didn’t know were there, and which would only be discovered later, if ever. The characters Cassavetes created were sufficiently different from the actors in superficial respects that the actors didn’t recognize the similarity to themselves, which meant that they played their roles unselfconsciously and unguardedly. But, at the same time, the roles tapped into deep structures of feeling and personality that enriched their performances and made them profoundly revealing.

As Cassavetes mentioned above, Seymour Cassel did follow women home and make love to them (and had gotten into a lot of trouble because of it). He was a kind of ‘beach boy’, and aspects of Cassel’s personality and attitudes deeply informed the character of Chettie. Lynn Carlin played a housewife with problems and, at the point she made Faces, she herself had ‘some severe personal problems’ (in Al Ruban’s words). Her marriage was falling apart; she had lost her job; and she had a lot of mixed feelings (both positive and negative) about her life and the men she knew, even as she still maintained a degree of innocence that contrasted with the externals of her situation. Cassavetes got her to draw on her pains, confusions and vulnerability in her portrayal of Maria. Similarly, Cassavetes drew on parts of Val Avery that Avery himself didn’t understand to deepen his performance of McCarthy. Avery’s characteristic bluster and swagger – and the vulnerability that the big talk covered up – became his character. (Avery the person is the very definition of a lamb in wolf’s clothing – hiding his genuine gentleness under a gruff exterior.) As a comic illustration of the overlap of life and art, at one point in the shoot Avery invited Cassavetes to ‘go outside and fight when he got upset with him, exactly the same way his character does with Richard Forst. Cassavetes similarly drew on aspects of John Marley’s personality. As a seasoned ‘pro’, Marley did have a high opinion of himself and felt superior to the less experienced actors – particularly the beginner, Carlin. He intimidated her, patronized her and criticized her acting. He was occasionally testy when Cassavetes asked for another take (feeling that his performance had been good enough). Cassavetes knew not to ignore this dynamic but to use it to enhance Marley’s performance as a high-powered businessman and to energize his acted relationship with Carlin. (By way of contrast, Marley’s very different feelings towards Gena Rowlands, his respect for her as an actress and a person, are drawn on in the altogether more responsive performance he gives when he is playing with her.

Mille Plateaux: YEAR ZERO: FACIALITY

Faces are not basically individual; they define zones of

frequency or probability, delimit a field that neutralizes in advance any

expressions or connections unamenable to the appropriate significations.

Similarly, the form of subjectivity, whether consciousness or passion,

would remain absolutely empty if faces did not form loci of resonance that

select the sensed or mental reality and make it conform in advance to a

dominant reality. The face itself is redundancy. It is itself in redundancy

with the redundancies of signifiance or frequency, and those of resonance

or subjectivity. The face constructs the wall that the signifier needs in order

to bounce off of; it constitutes the wall of the signifier, the frame or screen.

The face digs the hole that subjectification needs in order to break through;

it constitutes the black hole of subjectivity as consciousness or passion, the

camera, the third eye.

《面孔》是卡萨维蒂继《影子》之后的又一艺术性高峰，但是与前者给我带来的爽快观感不同，《面孔》的后半段观影过程堪称折磨，虽然其叙事和结构的确富有艺术性与新意，但是主题的单调性和高度重复化风格化的特写确实在一个小时后将我带入了疲惫的深渊。与众多影评人对这部影片给出的高分不同，笔者认为其对立结构缺乏密度和深度，并且在人物个像和群像之间并未求得较好的平衡（这个问题在弗朗西斯瓦·欧容的新作《感谢上帝》中有更加突出的体现，到时继续做更加详细的讨论），因此算不上是完全的佳作。 该电影的结构可以被宏观上剖析成一个联结的崩塌，对于婚姻不满的男方女方分别外出寻欢，并在这一夜与其他人相遇相知相“爱”。整个电影基于一个夜晚所发生的一切，这对于一个长达两小时有余的影片来说是一个过于充分的叙事空间了，然而卡萨维蒂并未像他后来如《爱的激流》或者《女煞葛洛蒂》一样安排交织的故事和空间，只是将摄像机无数次的对准演员，他们的神情动作，所有的姿态被他分解和观察，并通过两位主角与其他角色的沟通来继续投射。这个方式本身在笔者看来出现了令人困惑的非一致性，男主理查德和商人们与他的风流对象采取了过度风格化的（又名：喝了酒的卡萨维蒂）影响调度，快速切换的镜头，过度嘈杂的笑声等等（当然这个观影体验可能是上海影城在放映单声轨电影时的通病）。理查德在这个部分的表现是主动而外显的，俨然为一名参与者。而相对的在女主玛丽带酒吧男孩回家派对后，她始终未有进一步的行动，而是以一名偶尔做出费解表情的观察者去注意她姐妹们的行径。笔者只能从卡萨维蒂的固有男性视角来理解这样的身份不一致。

《面孔》可以是卡萨维蒂对于他所钟情的宏观意义上的爱情主题中婚姻和性所进行的二维探讨，理查德代表的性和玛丽代表的婚姻在一夜的混沌之后走向了沉默的统一。但是其内核的反复性配上低反差的黑白影像让笔者不断地想起伯格曼的《婚姻生活》，虽然两者确实相差甚远，但同样略显枯燥。 当然，《面孔》有着无与伦比的室内调度和特写，虽然广度尚欠，但是其对于一种外放性的视觉表达：表情 做出了深刻的探讨。卡萨维蒂不畏惧夸张的手法来彰显连绵不断的习惯性的谎言，和迅速转变的表情一起所被描写的同样是不断起伏而挣扎的内心。We are all making fool of ourselves. 结尾与楼梯上位置的互换，是一种生活态度上的切换，还是单纯位置上的扭曲。

每颗灵魂都有其独特的质地，在这部作品里，卡索维茨给予每一颗灵魂呈现其独一无二面貌的机会，并完整、彻底的释放每一颗灵魂被生活囚困下的欲望和孤独！ 电影有挺多无意识的戏，正中我口味，其实这也是卡索维茨一脉相承的电影特色。在我的理解里，约翰卡索维茨的创作以情感为纽带，聚焦人内心深处的柔软与坚强(某种程度上甚至挖掘其疯狂)，所以这种自由创作经常会陷入一种群体无意识状态，这种状态下，演员对自身存在的觉知和控制力降至最低，然而他们内心驱动的欲望和表达在此次刺激和群体氛围内又回归到最真的状态，这是我特别享受他电影的原因。 看这样的作品我会透过荧幕被拉入一个奇妙电影世界，我便在其中不断发现并直面演员自身内在的一些东西，而不再肤浅的去判断表演和故事，更有意思的是，卡索维茨电影镜头的运用非常精巧、准确，它的捕捉也极为精细，总是触及到电影环境、群体、个体最真实的状态，这个状态下，每个演员的内核是富有魅力，并且超越单纯的表演所触达的表演深度！ 更有意思的是他的戏是连贯的，几乎不存在断离，这非常特别的，与戈达尔的自由创作几乎截然相反。卡索维茨和戈达尔很大程度上具备相似性(即兴、自由)，但二者各有千秋，戈达尔的作品政治性、跳跃性，和剪辑是特色，卡索维茨的自由创作实际上更完全，他的即兴和自由更彻底更完全，在演员的运用上，卡索维茨几乎是顺着演员的质地去导戏，演员也顺着自己的质地去表演，我认为这是对演员最正确的运用方式之一！

影像90分

剧本95分

导演90分

表演95分

创新90分

作品分92分

内容系数0.9

影史分83分