''Faces'' is a 1968 American

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been ...

film written and directed by John Cassavetes. It stars John Marley,

Gena Rowlands Virginia Cathryn "Gena" Rowlands (born June 19, 1930) is an American retired actress, whose career in film, stage, and television has spanned seven decades. A four-time Emmy and two-time Golden Globe winner, she is known for her collaborations ...

Lynn Carlin Mary Lynn Carlin (née Reynolds) is an American former actress. She is best known for her debut role in the film ''Faces'' (1968), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award. Life and career She was born in Los Angeles, the daughter of so ...

(in her acting debut),

Seymour Cassel Seymour Joseph Cassel (January 22, 1935 – April 7, 2019) was an American actor who appeared in over 200 movies and television shows, and had a career that spanned over 50 years. Cassel first came to prominence in the 1960s in the pioneering in ...

Fred Draper Frederick Paul Draper II (September 2, 1923 – December 26, 1999) was an American film and television actor. He was roommates in New York City with Harry Mastrogeorge and John Cassavetes while attending The American Academy of Dramatic A ...

and Val Avery. The film won two awards at the

29th Venice International Film Festival The 29th annual Venice International Film Festival was held from 25 August to 7 September 1968. The May 1968 events in France had serious repercussions on this festival. Five days before the festival was to be held, directors of the Italian filmm ...

and received three nominations at the

41st Academy Awards The 41st Academy Awards were presented on April 14, 1969, the first to be staged at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles. For the first time since the 11th Academy Awards, there was no host. ''Oliver!'' is the only Best Picture winner ...

. In 2011, it was added to the

National Film Registry The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation, each selected for its historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions since the NFPB’s inception i ...

for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

Plot

The film, shot in '' cinéma vérité''-style, depicts the final stages of the disintegrating marriage of a couple ( John Marley and

). We are introduced to various groups and individuals the couple interacts with after the husband's sudden statement of his desire for a divorce. Afterwards, he spends the night in the company of brash businessmen and prostitutes, while the wife spends it with her middle-aged female friends and an aging, free-associating playboy they've picked up at a bar. The night proceeds as a series of tense conversations and confrontations occur.

Cast

* John Marley as Richard Forst *

as Jeannie Rapp *

as Maria Forst *

as Freddie *

as Chet * Val Avery as Jim McCarthy *

Dorothy Gulliver Dorothy Kathleen Gulliver (September 6, 1908 – May 23, 1997) was an American silent film actress, and one of the few to make a successful transition when films began using sound. Biography The daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Fred Gulliver, she wa ...

as Florence * Joanne Moore Jordan as Louise * Darlene Conley as Billy Mae * Gene Darfler as Joe Jackson * Elizabeth Deering as Stella

Production

The film was shot in high-contrast

16 mm 16 mm film is a historically popular and economical gauge of film. 16 mm refers to the width of the film (about inch); other common film gauges include 8 and 35 mm. It is generally used for non-theatrical (e.g., industrial, edu ...

black and white film stock.

Steven Spielberg Steven Allan Spielberg (; born December 18, 1946) is an American director, writer, and producer. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, he is the most commercially successful director of all time. Spie ...

worked as an unpaid runner.

Versions

As is the case with several of Cassavetes' films, several different versions of ''Faces'' are known to exist (though it was generally assumed that, after creating the general release print, Cassavetes destroyed the alternative versions). It was initially premiered in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

with a running time of 183 minutes, before Cassavetes cut it down to 130 minutes. Though the 130-minute version is the general release version, a print of a longer version with a running time of 147 minutes was accidentally found by

Ray Carney Raymond Carney (born February 28, 1947) is an American scholar and critic, primarily known for his work as a film theorist, although he writes extensively on American art and literature as well. He is known for his study of the works of actor and ...

, and was deposited at the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

. 17 minutes of this print were included in the

Criterion Criterion, or its plural form criteria, may refer to: General * Criterion, Oregon, a historic unincorporated community in the United States * Criterion Place, a proposed skyscraper in West Yorkshire, England * Criterion Restaurant, in London, Eng ...

box set ''John Cassavetes: Five Films'', though Carney has said that there are numerous differences between the two films.

Reception

''Faces'' holds an 85% approval rating on review aggregation website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, based on 26 reviews with an average rating of 7.3/10. Roger Ebert gave the film 4 out of 4 stars and wrote that the film "tenderly, honestly, and uncompromisingly examines the way we really live". Pauline Kael, however, was negative to this film, criticizing the "badly performed" acting and "crudely conceived" scenes. In 2011, ''Faces'' was selected for preservation in the United States

by the

as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The Registry called the film "an example of cinematic excess" whose extended confrontations revealed "emotions and relations of power between men and women that rarely emerge in more conventionally structured films". ''Faces'', and other Cassavetes projects, had significant creative impact on

Martin Scorsese Martin Charles Scorsese ( , ; born November 17, 1942) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter and actor. Scorsese emerged as one of the major figures of the New Hollywood era. He is the recipient of List of awards and nominatio ...

Woody Allen Heywood "Woody" Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg; November 30, 1935) is an American film director, writer, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades and multiple Academy Award-winning films. He began his career writing ...

, and

Robert Altman Robert Bernard Altman ( ; February 20, 1925 – November 20, 2006) was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. He was a five-time nominee of the Academy Award for Best Director and is considered an enduring figure from the New H ...

.Tribute: 26 Years Ago, John Cassavetes Died—After Party Magazine
/ref>

Awards and nominations

References

External links

* Faces essay by Ray Carney at

br>
* * *
''Masks and Faces''
an essay by

Stuart Klawans Stuart Klawans has been the film critic for ''The Nation'' since 1988. He also writes a column on the visual arts for ''The New York Daily News''. Education He obtained his degree from Yale University. Awards and honors He won the 2007 National M ...

at the

Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cinep ...

''Faces'' review by Richard Brody at The New Yorker
{{John Cassavetes 1968 films 1968 drama films American drama films American independent films American black-and-white films 1960s English-language films Films directed by John Cassavetes Films shot in Los Angeles United States National Film Registry films Films about prostitution in the United States Adultery in films 1968 independent films 1960s American films