2nd May 2008

A Woman Under the Influence

John Cassavetes 1974

After Gloria, this film seemed to operate in much more familiar Cassavetes territory. We’ve talked a lot about whether you can tell if it’s a Cassavetes film (I think Neil & I agree that its usually unmistakable), and I think this was especially true in this case, not just because of returning cast members or particular lighting, etc… there is a quality to the films that shouts out beyond any methodology or recognizable style – I’m not sure what it is of course… perhaps a combination of all those elements and something else I can’t put my finger on. Cassavetes again focuses on the minutiae of married life, and the complex intra-relationships going on at all levels of such an institution (so to speak) – whether it be on or across the level of individuals, couples, children, the wider circles of extended families and friends, and so on, all of whom spiral and press in on each other to create a situation that is, more often than not, on the verge of going out of control. As with many of his other films, an uncomfortable realism is extracted from the interaction of the characters – rhythms and patterns of interaction that are not often seen in mainstream movies, and where the slow-build tensions and cathartic releases the characters experience can convey genuine emotion and power. There is often the feeling that Cassavetes films are on the verge of collapse – perhaps something about the seemingly impromptu exchanges (which we know are carefully written/structured) allow the film to work on the borders of doubt and uncertainty. It seems the characters themselves don’t know what coming next, or what might come out of their mouths the next time they speak – especially in A Woman Under the Influence.

The central pairing of Peter Falk (who plays construction foreman Nick Longhetti) and Gena Rowlands (his “unusual” wife Mabel) dominate the film, and one of the most interesting aspects was the manner in which these characters shadowed, contradicted and infiltrated each other. Ostensibly the film focuses on Mabel’s instability, and how her eccentricities draw ever nearer to a mental breakdown and her committal, yet both characters are equally implicated by their actions – certain elements of which are only exposed in the other’s absence (& this is not to mention the demanding put upon them by the extended cast of characters that circle the couple – creepy doctors, interfering mothers, gangs of friends, etc.) Both Nick and Mabel seem to be riddled with doubt, desperation, and a relentless need for love and attention – but it takes Mabel’s absence from the film for Nick’s frailties and his incapacities to be visible to the same extent. It takes the removal of Mabel’s unrepressed weirdness to expose Nick’s own erratic actions. He would appear to be equally unhinged, and perhaps even more dangerous – the kids drinking alcohol in the back of the truck and the accident at work, for example. The implication that Nick is just as crazy as she is, perhaps more so, but on another kind of register, perhaps exposes 70s attitudes to mental illness, or certain attitudes to women – considering how the man can shield his own peculiar behaviour through machismo, loud shouting, or having a wife who is opined to be loopier than he is in the eyes of society. In any case, it seems clear that Nick is incapable of functioning without having Mabel’s madness against which he can formulate his and contextualise his own behaviour.

As in other Cassavetes films, much of the dysfunction here seems to focus on excess (a Cassavetes/Bataille sandwich sounds interesting…) – characters either trying to hard to fit into a given situation, or attempting to enforce a way of behaving onto others. Following the sequence where Nick’s work colleagues turn up at the house after a long shift and cook spaghetti, Mabel’s attempts at adjusting to the situation inevitably cross the line. Embarrassing one of the workers with an invitation to dance, Nick clears the room with an explosion of impatience and anger that had been building since he enforced a pretty unreasonable situation on his wife the morning after having ‘stood her up’. The desire to alter others (and Mabel even has that chestnut line: “who do you want me to be (…) I can be anybody…”), as well as instances of enforced happiness (i.e. children’s trip to the beach with their father – we will have a good time; or Mabel’s over-the-top affection – the hammy desperation of the unconvinced) is perhaps tempered by the reassurance and fascination that another person’s character and unpredictability can provide – perhaps the recognition of this incommensurability, and the fact that you can’t force others to change, is a main part of the film.

This is connected to the (perhaps unconscious) goading of Mabel – the family, desperate for her to ‘calm down’ or ‘not get too excited’, succeed only in setting the very conditions in which Mabel can perform the that role of the crazy woman. In fact, claiming that role back, but with another kind of authority (perhaps one that means that no one has to do anything or take any responsibility), might be what is required of her on some level. Using the same combination of plea and demand with which he assures her that he loves her, Nick implores Mabel, initially taciturn from electroshock, to “be yourself,” throwing her into confusion once again (much like the way that a violent handclap near her face seemed to put her in a trance – am I imagining this? I keep thinking of this, as if, rather than hitting her, he wanted to wake her up). It is an impossible demand – a riddle that she can have no answer to, as her unfiltered behaviour, her own self, is what inevitably strays beyond acceptable levels of dysfunction in the eyes of those around her. Her self is what caused her to be taken away from her home on the first place.

I think there could be something interesting to say about the treatment of private and public space in the film. The lack of privacy seems crucial to the whole situation. Characters are rarely seen alone – there is one sequence at the beginning, just after the kids have left with the mother, where Mabel is alone in the house – she plays opera [which relates well to the great sequence at the spaghetti breakfast when one of Nick’s coworkers begins to sing operatic tunes and Mabel stares at him, right down his throat, in amazement], she smokes and drinks, and generally jitters about the house like a teenager left alone, falling into restlessness and boredom in just the same way. In addition to this, Nick and Mabel sleep on a sofa bed in the dining room, where batty mothers and enthusiastic kids easily disturb them. Tellingly, the bathroom at the back of their room has a ‘PRIVATE’ sign on it, the letters incongruously large. Given that the majority of the social situations in the film take place in this violated private space we might have sympathy for Mabel’s awkward request at the party that everyone leave so she can go to bed with her husband. The ending of the film, which suggests no real resolution to the difficulties of these characters’ lives, also suggests a return to privacy – the camera views the couple through glass windows as they prepare for bed. Stepping back from them comes as something of a relief, as if it were only through the influence of others that the delicate and tender imbalances of their relationship (in their quieter moments, they are a sweet couple) come undone and turn toward madness and violence. Nick and Mabel, amid the distractions of switching the room from social to private space, begin to bring some level of order and control to their fractured lives, alone at last with one another, with some solace but with no solution.

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Quotes from Ray Carney’s Cassavetes on Cassavetes

“The idea of taking a laborer and having him married to a wife who he can’t capture is really exciting. I don’t know how you work on that. So I write – I’ll do it any way [I can]. I’ll hammer it out, I’ll kick it out, I’ll beat it to death, any way you can get it.”

“I knew hard-hat workers like Nick, and Gena knew women like Mabel, and although I wrote everything myself, we would discuss lines and situations with Peter Falk, to get his opinion, to see if he thought they were really true, really honest.”

“Usually we put film in such simple terms while being endlessly involved in talking about our personal experience. We admit how complex it is. But it’s as though we never look into a mirror and see what we are. So the films I make really are trying to mirror that emotion, so we can understand what our impulses are why we do things that get us into trouble, when to worry about it, when to let them go. And maybe we can find something in ourselves that is worthwhile.”

“Films today show only a dream world and have lost touch with the way people really are. For me [this is] the first real family I’ve ever seen on screen. Idealized screen families generally don’t interest me because they have nothing to say to me about my own life.”