Cinema 1544: The As-Official-As-It-Gets Site

It’s been a long, long time – both since my last live-review (perhaps a few years to be honest) and since I first (and last) saw this movie at movie night  (over 14 1/2 years!). The film?  John Cassavetes‘ Faces, from 1968, selected by old friend Alireza Javan. 

I have to admit, I don’t recall liking this film much the first time around. Now, since I have to stream it on the same device I’m typing on, the live review is going to be based on a tiny little image. But that’s OK, I don’t recall the cinematography being much to write home about.

Are you hyped for this?  I wonder why not.  Well, let me watch this thing anyway!

Come on baby, light my fire

We open the film with Mr. Forst, a crag-faced and crag-souled human (questionable, actually) running a film screener. Mr. Forst has his secretary put his cigarette into his mouth, light it, and then take his cigarette out of his mouth.  Maybe he’s a big shot.  Maybe he’s just an ass.

We don’t get to actually see the screener, which is sad.  Instead we jump to a bar, where one of the screening dudes (Freddie Draper) is goosing women, and then driving drunk away from the bar, with Forst and a woman (Jeannie, relationship as yet unclear) all in the front seat, Stickshifts And Safety Belts style.  They successfully arrive home (Jeannie’s home, it turns out) completely drunk and dance around singing Christmas carols.

There’s a prolonged shot coming from beneath Jeannie’s armpit, so that’s something.

Ten minutes in, and I need a drink.  Badly.  Be right back.  Not that it much matters, but I found a sad three-week-old lime that pushed me into making a G&T before it became a sad four-week-old lime.

She dreams about the house and romance/He promised but won’t deliver

Some arguing, and more dancing.  I think Jeannie was just a girl picked up at the bar. Turns out Forst and Draper are married, but not to Jeannie.  Not to each other, either, if that’s what you were thinking. They’re collectively having their little mid-life crisis. Together. You know, if you have to have a mid-life crisis, do it with a buddy. And do it singing “I dream of Jeannie with the light brown hair” for like three minutes of screen time. I mean, you makes your royalty payment, you may as well get your money’s worth. Then, Draper kinda blows up their threesome (because he’s a bit jealous that Jeannie pays more attention to Forst) by asking Jeannie how much she charges. So much for that one.

Forst returns home to his wife Maria, and interrupts her phone call, hanging up on…Louise Draper. More drinks. Some dinner out of the oven. And Maria says she doesn’t like Draper le homme anymore because he is sleeping around – as evidenced from his sleeptalking. Now a cunnilingus joke. Finally they argue and go to sleep.

This is a movie, I guess. I have to give it credit, in the sense that it is unrelentingly doing the whole “Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles” thing.  Stick a camera in a room and watch somebody’s life.

Next scene: Forst blurts out that he wants a divorce. Maria laughs. And laughs some more. He demands an answer and she goes silent. He calls Jeannie, and tells Maria he’ll send for his clothes in the morning. If we cared about these characters, it might be touching. As it is, I just want another G&T. And I’m almost to that point. But to be honest, I’ll have to suck on the ice cubes at the bottom of the glass if I hope to get to the end of this film without passing out from drink. There’s still an hour and a half left!

Forst goes to a Jazz club, and then a comedy club. Meanwhile, Draper and another dude are going for the whole foursome thing at Jeannie’s. Maybe it’s not Draper, just a guy who vaguely looks like Draper. I don’t know. Finally, Forst shows up. OK, it’s not Draper, it’s just that Jeannie has consistently bad taste in men. And now Forst is the fifth wheel. More prostitution accusations from the Draper look-alike. The whole thing turns into a pathetic drunken cage match between Forst and Not-Draper. So, you know, if you like that sort of thing. An hour thirteen left. Time to pour another G&T.

Now Forst says he’s in finance. I thought he was in movies. Maybe he finances movies. After a ton of useless conversation, not-Draper and the other XX/XY pair bail out to leave Forst and Jeannie alone. “I thought they’d never leave”, she says, which is either incredibly trite or the unexpected genesis of a famous line. I’m leaning towards the former, but what do I know?

Jeannie says she wants to take a bath. “No bath,” says Forst, “People drown in bathtubs.” She takes a bath anyway. She doesn’t drown. Which is expected, as the film has a full hour left and it’s not called “Anna Karenina”.

Forst apparently doesn’t care about most social problems except eating meat. Eating meat disturbs him. OK. There’s not really any evidence he’s a vegetarian. Then he tells Jeannie she talks too much, even though she’s had like 12 lines in the movie. But we do recall that he’s a jerk. He pours himself a drink and informs her that he’s spending the night. They hug, and she calls him a son of a bitch. “Kill me; let’s have some music” he says, which makes no sense at all, but the music is forthcoming. It’s a piano piece, played one key at a time, like Alan Hovhaness before he learned to write music.

Aaaaaand we’re suddenly at a club with Maria and some girlfriends. A margarita, with SALT. By the way, why do people want salt with margaritas? Margaritas taste just great without salt. Who needs salt? Is this the same reason that people insist on putting olives in a martini? I gotta admit, martinis are pretty lousy, but I can’t imagine they get better with an olive, or even worse, “dirty”. Take a not-so-great drink, and pour brine in it.  Sure, that…can’t possibly make it better. People at the club are still dancing. There’s not much going on. I’m really just filling time here. MST3K once said that “only love pads the film” but Cassavetes is proving here that it’s really dancing.

Scene finally over.  We move to a scene with, I believe if my count is correct, four old biddies (including Maria) having brought home one groovy hippie dude. He must be going for the cougar action tonight, before the term “cougar” was invented. HOLY SHIT IT’S WES ANDERSON FAVORITE SEYMOUR CASSEL! You know, Bert Fischer, etc. Dusty,  the elevator operator and fake doctor in The Royal Tenenbaums. I love this dude. But man, seeing him as a twenty-something (sorry, checked his dates, thirty-something) is just bizarre. He was not a particularly handsome thirty-something. Which just goes to prove my theorem that NO old men are ugly.  Some (a very  few) old men are handsome. The rest are fascinatingly weird looking, but not ugly. There’s a dignity that comes with looking 70 – for a man – that defeats every misshapen nose and uneven eyebrow. This gives me hope. Someday I’ll look dignified…though with occasionally getting carded at 47 it might be a while. This movie is still happening. By this I mean that 16 mm film is passing by the projector (stand-in, as this is digital). But, um, nothing is happening. Seymour Cassel is singing about red meat. Would presumably disgust Forst. He’s singing about a slip-and-slide. And Fun-Yuns. And then things deteriorate, because some lady gets pissy at Seymour. It might be Louise, it might not be Louise, hell if I know. YES, IT WAS LOUISE! (Another woman called her by name.) There’s a Southern Belle complaining. She claims to be in love with her husband, which the raises the question of why she was in a four-on-one with Seymour Cassel. Then the movie takes a macabre turn, with the grayest of the foursome (now a duo because Louise and the Southern Belle have bailed) talking about death and all the like. But at least the thirty-something Seymour Cassel loves dancing with the fifty-something old biddie. Man, I gotta take a leak.

Fifty-something old biddie bails out, too, and it looks like it’s Maria and Jim Henson’s Muppet Baby Seymour Cassel.

Jump from one infidelity back to the other, with Forst and Jeannie. “You’re not fat, you’re voluptuous” Forst tells her, as I stop caring for the 447th time this movie. There’s an argument about Jeannie making lousy eggs. She steals in supermarkets. She doesn’t like dogs, not even puppies. He says she’s stupid because she’s wearing false eyelashes. WHY THE FUCK WAS THIS MOVIE EVEN MADE?!? Forst is now reciting the Peter Piper tongue-twister over and over.

Then he left her on the floor/With only the mirror to curse/”Should’ve known better”

Wait, oh, that’s bad. Apparently Maria has passed out. I don’t know why. Seymour Cassel calls the operator asking for “The Emergency Rescue Squad” but can’t give the phone number to call back, so he hangs up. He throws Maria into the shower and tries to make some instant coffee. This is probably not an accepted medical protocol. 16 minutes left in this movie and I’m pouring myself  a scotch because I simply. Cannot. Face it. Alone.  Thank you, Aberfeldy 21. “Please walk,” Seymour exhorts Maria, then tries to gag her to puke up…maybe all  the booze? I don’t know. Ask me if I care.

Did you ask?

Because I didn’t hear you ask.

Oh, you didn’t ask? OK, then.

Seymour slaps Maria to make her stay awake, which is straddling the boundary between physical abuse and folk medicine, and I’m here for this. 12 minutes left. He wraps her in a blanket and gives her a cigarette between her coughs.  Seymour calls ethics “ethnics”. Had to pause the movie because my intended act of pulling a fuzzball off of my shirt somehow turned into me pulling a foot and a half of the seam from the sleeve out. Whoops! That may end up being “it” for this shirt. But I’ve probably had it for 20+ years, so I think it has had a good run.

“I am the sexiest guy in the world” says SEYMOUR CASSEL. Somebody PLEASE make a meme of this.

My cat is yowling for no good reason. It fits the film.

Sitting on the stairs thinking/About what makes a movie

Forst comes home to find Cassel bailing out the rooftop window. He seems bizarrely dejected and then angry, as if he didn’t just leave Maria the night before. Like he’s got some right to be angry. “I don’t care,” says Maria, and that sums up my feelings entirely. Maria slaps Forst. “I hate my life,” she says, and she sums up my feelings entirely all over again. Forst grabs a Marlboro and smokes it in a product-placement dream. I mean, if anybody liked this movie, it would be a product-placement dream. Three minutes left. How long can a cigarette last?

Annnnd, roll credits.

Summary: People don’t like each other that much. They cheat on each other. The end.

This is a movie?  Seriously?

This is a bad movie. I’ve watched it twice. I regret every second of both viewings. Do yourself a favor and don’t watch this movie. The band “Faces” had one song – Stay With Me – but at least it gave us Rod Stewart. That’s a bizarre phrase, “at least it gave us Rod Stewart”. Nihilistic, really. I mean we’re talking about Rod Stewart. But when compared to this movie, Rod Stewart, with his You Wear It Well and his Forever Young and his Maggie May and his Do Ya Think I’m Sexy are looking pretty artistically competent.  OK, I gotta admit, Maggie May is actually a good song. Not gonna lie. Good song. 500,000,000,000,000,176 times better than this movie. (This number is scientifically accurate.) Faces is simply happy that Tetsuo: The Iron Man was shown at Cinema 1544, because it cannot be the worst movie ever shown. But bottom 5?  Probably.