Faces

Director: John Cassavetes
Year: 1968
Country: USA
Language(s): English
Length: 124 mins
Format: PAL
Colour: Black & White
Aspect Ratio: 1.66: 1
Alternate Title: The Dynosaurs

Synopsis

An incisive exploration of the disintegration of a bourgeois marriage, Faces traces the shifting character dynamics as Richard (John Markey) and Maria’s (Lynn Carlin) fourteen-year marriage implodes. Maria joins her friends looking for romantic satisfaction elsewhere and has an unfulfilling fling with a young swinger (Seymour Cassel). Richard meanwhile secures the services of a prostitute (Gena Rowlands) for a night. Both find their liaisons to be no more satisfying than their dead-end marriage.

Shot in high-contrast, black and white 16mm film and consisting almost entirely of tight, uncomfortable close-ups, Faces confronts suburban alienation and emotional detachment with unflinching honesty. An acting tour de force founded upon an improvisational approach to the material, and Cassavetes’ first independent production after the two compromised studio productions, Faces received no less than five awards at the Venice Film Festival. Cassel, Carlin and Cassavetes’ script also garnered Academy Award nominations.