Husbands (1970)
Directed by: John Cassavetes.
It isn’t often that I wish I could see a cut of the
film not approved by its director – especially when that director is a genius
like John Cassavetes. But with Husbands, I would love to see the first cut of
the film – the one he wasn’t involved with. Apparently, after shooting a
mountain of film for Husbands, Cassavetes left all of it in the hands of his
editors, who went through the footage, along with Cassavetes script, and
constructed a film that audiences apparently found hilarious, and pleased the
studio executives a great deal. But Cassavetes had final cut, and didn’t like
what he saw, and so he retreated into the editing bay himself for a year, and
came up with the film we now have. That film is a masterpiece – a dark tale of
a trio of middle-aged, middle-class white guys, reeling from the death of their
friend, who spin out of control. The film is difficult to watch, as its scene
after scene of excoriating, selfish, obnoxious behavior – the three men often
berate, and humiliate women. They are apparently best friends, and say so a
lot, talking about how much they love each other – how, apart from sex, they
prefer each other to their wives. Yet, take many scenes out of context, and
you’d think these guys hate each other. It’s a film about these three men, at
first cutting loose, letting off steam, and then going further and further –
too far, for one of them anyway, to come back from. It is one of the most
painful films I have ever seen. So to think there was a cut of this movie that
audiences and studio executives not only loved but found hilarious is
practically unthinkable.
Cassavetes has always been somewhat different from most other directors. Yes, he is considered the father of the American Indie Cinema – something that he didn’t get credited for while alive – and many (too many) directors have followed the example he set with his debut film Shadows (1959) and its indie follow-up Faces (1968), which unexpectedly became an Oscar nominated hit. Those two films are small scale and intimate – and really good. But they aren’t quite what he would go on to do later in films like Husbands, A Woman Under the Influence, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, Opening Night or Love Streams. Those films are unique to him. The emotions in them are often volcanic – almost operatic – while the films somehow remain grounded in some sort of realism. Few directors have followed that lead – perhaps most notably Paul Thomas Anderson in Magnolia, which is often compared to Altman, but is really more like an Altman film directed by Cassavetes. Success mainly eluded Cassavetes when he was alive – even when he tried to make a mainstream film like Gloria (1980), the result is almost schizophrenic – a mainstream story, walking to its own weird beat in a way that detracts from both.
Husbands begins with a montage of photographs of four middle-aged, middle-class suburban New York men. They’re all married, all have kids, and the goof around in those photo. One of them, Stuart, has just died – and it sends the other three – Harry (Ben Gazzara), Archie (Peter Falk) and Gus (Cassavetes) reeling. They put on a good show at the funeral – do what is expected of them. Then they hit the town to get drunk. Then they stay drunk, and get drunker. When the real world starts to intrude – when it feels like they have to go back to their lives, they reject that, and instead board a plane to London to keep the party going.
When you look it like that, it kind of sounds like
Husbands is one of those overgrown man-child comedies that dominated American comedy
films in the mid to late 2000s. It’s no surprise then that apparently the
patron saint of those films, Judd Apatow, is apparently a Cassavetes fan. But
in Apatow’s films, the women “save” the men – make them grow up, embrace
adulthood, being husbands and fathers. The most lost of all of Apatow’s protagonists
in Adam Sandler in Funny People – the one who isn’t married, which I don’t
think is an accident. Apatow is so in love with this formula, then even when he
had a woman protagonist – in Trainwreck – he simply gender flipped rolls.
But that isn’t the case with Husbands. The wives are not a presence in the movie at all – we can see Gena Rowlands, Cassavetes own wife, in that opening montage of photos, but she doesn’t appear in the film otherwise. Here, the men are running away from their responsibilities, not embracing them.
The New York scenes are long, drawn out, painful. The trio get drunk and end up berating the singers at a bar – many of them women. They seem to be hoping to get a rise out of someone, but they never do. If they are looking for release, for catharsis, it isn’t to be found. In the New York scenes, the trio do appear to somewhat interchangeable – a mass of insecurities, masked behind false bravado. But when they go to London, they become different people – their own personalities start to seep back in. Harry, their leader, becomes even more entrenched in that bravado – pushing aside anyone in his way, including his friends, as Ben Gazzara owns the screen. Peter Falk’s hangdog expression starts to become more pathetic, sadder. He drains the life out of his one-night stand – which ends with her storming off into the rain, a torrent of untranslated Chinese being hurled at him – she just wants to escape. Gus becomes more charming – but it’s a false charm, one built to get what he wants, with nothing behind it.
As the film ends, two of the men return to New York, tails between their legs. Perhaps they were miserable before, but it was a misery they find some comfort in. One is gone – at least for now – and isn’t coming back. The title of the movie becomes telling in those closing scenes – there is something in the film about being husbands specifically – not men, not fathers, but husbands.
This film is one of the most painful experiences you will have watching it. It’s not something you’d want to dive back into too often. But there is so much ugly honesty in it that you cannot look away. It’s a film only Cassavetes could have made.
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