Here is another installment from my journal during the John Cassavetes portion of the “Capra, Cassavetes, and Brakhage” class I took in college. This time I wrote on the film Faces.
Given the title of this film and that my last entry ended by talking about the importance of faces in Cassavetes, I think the topic is a good starting point for tonight’s entry. This was the second time I had seen the film and it allowed me to better understand some things that I had only been able to hint at on the previous viewing. For large stretches of time, the geography of the film world is confusing or completely lost. After the first viewing, I took this to be one of the shortcomings in an otherwise remarkable film. Now, however, I feel this is a byproduct of its greatest strength. The layout of the world in Faces is a minor detail compared to the importance of faces within the movie; all that matters is that characters are in very close proximity to each other. As such, there is really nowhere to hide their feelings. The geography of the film is mapped on the face.
As a result of this approach, many of the most arresting characters in the film are the most pathetic or mean-spirited. Fred, for example has a face like a walrus. It has been weathered over the years by turmoil and disappointments that we the viewer can only guess at. In other words, the creases on his face tell us things that the storyline can’t even begin to approach. While there is a bit more of a narrative arc in Faces than in Shadows, some of the side characters still exist in a world void of the normal requirements for a story. In other films, this would be a shortcoming, but here it is the essence of the style. There is something very interesting about being able to learn so much about a character like Fred, to feel all these problems and frustrations bubbling near the surface, but to never learn enough details to put his puzzle together.
Looking back, there is more than a little Jean Renoir in this movie. In the famous Rules of the Game (starts at 6:17 in the link) scene where Renoir’s character pretends to conduct a symphony on the house steps, we see a person acting out his dream. Or rather, taking an indirect route to deal with his deepest regrets. Most of the characters in Faces also use some sort of fantasy to get a taste of what they believe is missing from their lives. Returning to Fred, we get both a confession and a cover-up in single sequence. In Jeannie’s room we hear about his family, specifically about how much he loves his kid. It is nearly a poignant moment, but is counterbalanced to reveal something deeper about him since he is weeping so hard. In the transitional scene he pretends this little breakdown hasn’t happened and that rather he just fooled around with Jeannie. For me, at least, this created two very strong and very different sets of feelings for him. On the one hand, he became a manipulative asshole who doesn’t view Jeannie as anything other than a cheap whore, someone undeserving of tender consideration. At the same time, though, this terrible act is the result of the terrible sadness that he expressed in the other room. Is he a good guy who just got lost somewhere during his life and is now struggling to keep his head above water? Or is he simply a selfish, manipulative person? In other films, the answer would most likely lie somewhere in between. Neither version of him would be the “true” version. In Faces, though, both versions are the real. He is a composite of facets. I’m not sure if I’m making this point clear, so I’ll use a visual metaphor. In non-Cassavetes films, the various characteristics of are like various liquids that mix together to create a new liquid. The parts are combined to make a whole. With Fred, and most of the characters in Faces, the various characteristics are like different types of thick oil. If they are poured into a container, they will remain separate. Even though they do not mix, they still affect each other since they exist within a single container. The single container, the whole person, is all of these oils at once.
In the class discussion, somebody said that all of the characters in Faces were terrified. Perhaps this isn’t true of Chet, but I think this makes sense given what Cassavetes said, “Shadows dealt with youth, and there is no restriction in you. But Faces deals with middle age, and in middle age there are restrictions.” Another word for restrictions is requirements. For most of the characters in the film, there are a number of requirements that society, family, work, etc has for them that they can’t seem to meet. There is a protocol to being a good husband or wife that these people just can’t live up to. These are the things that are supposed to make their lives complete, but ultimately create a sense that something is missing. It is a sort of paradoxical existence; you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t. In trying to live up to the protocol, by following the rules, they are sacrificing the freedoms that they feel they need. At the same time, they know that if they abandon the status quo, they will lose all sense of grounding, they will be floating astronauts untethered to the spaceship. Middle age brings sense that even if you do the “right” thing, it is somehow wrong and that is recipe for a terrified life. For Chet, these realities, or at least these rules, have not set in. Without the constraints imposed on the other characters, he can be free and happy and the life of the party. By the end of the film, when Maria has overdosed, there is a hint that Chet has begun his journey to the same sense of being trapped that the older characters feel. In another film, according to Carney, the type of films made by Welles or Hithcock, the shot of Chet running down the street is as much him trying to escape from the promise of the terrible future of middle age as it is anything else. I like this analysis, it makes me feel like an academic, but I’m sure Cassavetes would think it was a crock of shit. Quite simply, Chet is trying to escape a jealous husband. In a film that offers so much in terms of truth of character, this simple reading of Chet’s running is good enough. In fact, putting any more value on it than that, would be a perversion of what Cassavetes spent the last two hours creating.