Like SHADOWS before it, FACES was hailed at the time as a great accomplishment of American independent cinema. John Cassavetes, his friends, and family took several years to shoot and edit the film on very grainy 16mm black-and-white stock. As would become usual for Cassavetes, it's about
marriages and the war between men and women. He would do better in the 1970s with films like HUSBANDS, made with a little more money, but FACES remains a landmark cultural document of the late 60s.
FACES is a rudimentary study of a husband and wife, disenchanted after 14 years of marriage, who drift apart. Richard Forst (Marley), the husband, spends an evening with a prostitute, Jennie Rapp (Rowlands), while his wife, Maria (Carlin), and her girlfriends go out to a disco looking for a little
excitement. She finds it in the form of Chet (Cassel), a handsome hippie whom she takes home to bed. The illusions of the night before look very different the next morning for both husband and wife.
The original cut ran nearly six hours, making it an inevitable victim of severe editing. (The original version exists only in the form of a published screenplay.) In a sense, FACES can be seen as a reaction to Cassavetes's previous directorial outing, A CHILD IS WAITING, which he disowned after it
was recut by producer Stanley Kramer. Cassavetes became wary of the major companies and turned independent. Upon its release, FACES was hailed by most critics but tepidly received by the moviegoers. Though it is sometimes a tedious viewing experience, its improvisational and documentary techniques
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