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 Husbands
Before I forget, I want to talk about the opening sequence. In terms of style it was different from anything I had seen Cassavetes do, or even thought he might do. The most obvious difference between the opening of Husbands and his earlier films is that it is in color. It raised the question of whether this would enhance Cassevete’s sense of realism or hinder it. As the scene played out, the answer seemed to be the latter. The soundtrack of laughter and pool splashing plays normally, contrasting with the still frame progression of the images. The formal result of this seems to be the statement: You are watching a movie; it is an artificial construct being controlled by sources outside of itself. As it leads into the following funeral scene, though, I took it as a different meaning. Surely the open recognition that the film has been made, edited, and manipulated remains, but the still frames now become snapshots, each one a bit of the trio’s collective memory of their now deceased friend. This makes the title sequence much more straightforward and justifiable from a character/narrative perspective. For other filmmakers, the self-conscious statement might be the most important aspect of the sequence but for Cassavetes it is an unintended result of giving the viewer a glimpse into the relationship the four men had.
From this starting point, Cassvetes created a sort of a hole by which he had to re-earn that “Cassavetes feel.” The funeral scene also felt different from his earlier films. After that though, the style returns to his own. I think part of the reason that the title sequence and the funeral feel so different from the rest of the film is that they are exposition. They give more of a background, a more traditional narrative drive, than usual. Rather than being thrown into these lives en medias res, we are given the chance to understand where they are coming from. It better answers the question of why the men go off and do what they do. What sets them off?
After the funeral though, the back-story is pretty much forgotten, at least compared to how a more traditional film would deal with it. Once the proper bad thoughts are mixed with enough alcohol and male togetherness, debauchery and mayhem are the only possible results. I think the outside factors that influence the inside feelings are among the most important aspects of the film. One of these is the settings in the film. There are more location changes in Husbands than in the previous movies. Sometimes the settings serves as a counterpoint to the character actions, played out for comic effect, but generally they are conscious choices of the characters to facilitate their behavior. Bars are the most direct example of this. They are dark and full of alcohol, a place for secrets and forgiveness. In the long bar scene, the men first try to capture a sense of happiness and spontaneity, lively interactions to stop the pain from the death that brought them together. Singing around the table can create a sense of community and for a while it does. Ultimately, though, the pain inside is too much for them. The frustration that the singing didn’t work leads to resentment. The tool by which they hoped to escape their problems, now a failure, becomes the enemy and by way of association, so do the other people at the table.
The following setting, a bathroom, is also intended to facilitate the actions of the characters. If the sadness and frustration can’t be beaten down by alcohol and singing then it must be purged from the body. Cassavetes puts it more bluntly in an interview, “they got drunk so they could vomit – vomit for their dead friend.” While this is true, there is more going on in the scene than just that. While their sadness for their friend certainly plays into their actions, the death was also a catalyst for the men to examine their own lives. It created a time where they could ask themselves big questions. Peter Falk’s character repeatedly asks, “You know what really bothers me?” We never find the answer to that question, but we are continuously shown that a lot of things must bother him.
As in the other Cassavetes films, there is a lot of dialogue in the film. One of the hallmarks of all the talking is that it is the result of people trying to find something to say. There are problems deep inside that they want to define and solve, but they never really can. I think this is why there is so much physical expression in the film. If the characters can’t find the right words, they have to find another way to share their problems (or hide them). One of the problems that death brings up is that time is running out. Instead of talking about this, the men try to return to a point in life when time wasn’t a consideration. At the gym, which may as well be in an elementary school, they play basketball and go swimming. Later they go to England because it is a place for starting over, it is far from their family problems, and many people fear dying before they’ve had a chance to travel.
Whereas the characters in Faces were struggling to meet up with all the rules of being middle-aged, the men in Husbands try to break them. this is one of the reasons they become so juvenile. At the same time, it also recreates a dynamic from Shadows that had a different form in Faces. The sense of improvisation is so great because these men are unmoored for realistic constraints. They are free to follow any split-second impulse, as shown by their decision to fly to England. Cassavetes makes the important distinction between ad-libbing and improvisation within acting by saying his preferred approach remains faithful to the written script, but has a certain flexibility.
Below the three leads are on The Dick Cavett Show. If you skip to halfway through part 3, they actually start answering questions.