An Audience "Under the Influence"

I've been somewhat MIA for the past two weeks (occupied with my various jobs, applying to full-time ones...), but this weekend I knew I needed to write about a particular film screening I went to yesterday.

I got my "film snob" fix last night when I caught John Cassavetes' 1974 masterpiece A Woman Under the Influence at the MoMA. Many people may read this and think, "Okay, Jose, we get it. You go see artsy films in museums and fraternize with turtleneck-wearing, uber-intellectual filmgoers," but that's not really 100% true. Yes, I go see films at the MoMA a lot, but it's more due to the fact that I have a museum pass that gets me in for free, and in this specific case, they were screening a film that truly impacted me when I first saw it in college. I had rented a cheap, grainy version and watched it one weekend during my Freshmen year (and yes, this is how I spent most of my nights my first semester in college). I'm not ashamed to say that I cried a couple of times throughout the movie, and sat transfixed at the raw emotions and affecting performances that Cassavetes presented. After that night, I Netflixed all of his movies available on DVD and soon bought and read a biography of his (Marshall Fine's Accidental Genius, which I highly reccommend). To this day, A Woman Under the Influence has continued to enthrall me every time I see it, and so, when I saw that MoMA was not only screening it, but also having Gena Rowlands in person to introduce it, I immediately jumped on the chance and bought my ticket.

I arrived semi-early, about 45 minutes before the screening started, in order to stay in line and get a good seat. However, as people started congregating outside of the theater - and the line grew longer - people began clamoring to go inside. A MoMA security guard came over and was completely unaware of how the line had been formed, and he proceeded to start an entirely new line with the people at the tail end of the main line, thereby angering every single person (myself included) that had arrived early and had been waiting for over forty minutes. The minute the guard set up the new line, people started clamoring - "Where's your manager?! I need to speak to your manager NOW!...No, you weren't here before, we're not doing that!....", even to the point that an odd-looking British man yelled "You're a FOOL!" to the guard for disregarding our protests. As the yelling died down, we all made the most of it and incorporated ourselves into the new line, while I chuckled to myself at the sheer ludicrousness of what had just happened. This was, after all, a screening of a John Cassavetes film - one of the most obscure, artsy, marginal filmmakers that ever existed - and people were behaving as if they were at a town hall health care debate.

Finally, we were let inside, and after I chatted with the person next to me - also a big Cassavetes fan - the lights dimmed and in walked Gena Rowlands, with the entire audience giving her a standing ovation. She thanked everyone present for attending and introduced the film in an affectionate way, deeming her experience shooting the film "the most beautiful" in her career.

The movie deals with the disaffected marriage between Mabel (Rowlands) and Nick (Peter Falk), and how he struggles with her troubling behavior and tumultuous mental state. Cassavetes painstakingly scrutinizes their interactions in long, sometimes taxing scenarios, with the scenes themselves delving into an array of contrasting emotions. One minute, Mabel is having a laugh with Nick and his work buddies, and in one split second, she embarasses one of them and is crudely yelled at by Nick. What's always astounded me by Cassavetes' narratives is the realism he injected into his characters' expressions and idiosyncrasies. Although the actors' behavior all seem improvised, they mostly followed Cassavetes' thematic "blueprint," which blended his ideas with those that the actors contributed to the material. The social climate presented in the film has shifted greatly since the movie's release (i.e., the gender clashes between Mabel & Nick regarding her illness), but it nevertheless amazes me how well Rowlands' and Falk's performances have held up. The movie is raw and uncomfortable, but startlingly real in evoking restrained, hidden emotions.

For those interested in catching this newly restored landmark film in American independent cinema, head on over to the MoMA (11 West 53rd Street). It'll be screened there 'till Friday, October 30th.