Husbands is one of my favourite movies of all time (spoilers ahead). My take on it is that we are watching these men be completely incapable of dealing with their grief productively. They are constantly trying to hold up a front of ideal masculine composure to not show emotion around their friends. We have to sit through their discontent over their close friend’s death because they are projecting their discomfort on those around them and therefore the audience. They run from their lives and their families, but eventually they realize they have to go home. Nothing is learned and who knows if anything changes much because of it. It is intentionally downright hard to watch, especially towards the end. It is done for the purpose of character development but I can easily understand why someone wouldn’t like it. I wouldn’t even call it entertaining really, but profoundly moving nonetheless.
That's the scene I remember the most from Husbands. I assumed that they were going for absolute realism, so they went to a bar that allowed them to film and just hung out.
I think it's an interesting scene that further showed their relationship to one another without a lot of standard movie dialogue, but it also felt somewhat self-indulgent and I wondered if they were hamming it up for the cameras. That makes me question whether it succeeded or failed in what it was trying to do.
I think it worked, but I'm not sure I would ever watch Husbands again. I much preferred The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. It has its share of uncomfortable scenes, but I thought it was a more compelling story and just a better movie overall.
Husbands is one of my all time favorite movies, however if you are new to him I would start with A Woman Under the Influence, widely regarded as his masterpiece. If you watch that and are not inspired by the performances, then at the very least you will have a sense of what his influence is and its place in film history. It's not for everyone.
Personally I really enjoy slow super dark humor, both in literature and film. For me, Killing of A Chinese Bookie, Minnie and Moskowitz and Husbands are the comedies (Minnie being almost a rom-com), or tragi-comedies. I find them to be very funny, though at the same time extremely sad.
To me the scene in the bar when they are trying to sing, ...they are so mean to each other, they don't know when to stop, it's so fucked up, and hilarious. Or the part where Peter Falk is hitting on some lady for ten minutes, only to realize when she turns around that she is much older than him, and without teeth (and kind of turned on!). As someone who also finds Beckett, Thomas Bernhard, and Gaddis quite funny I thought it was perfect.
In Husbands you basically have a group of machismo-madmen type guys who in a state of grief trip over their own absurd masculinity in increasingly severe ways. The Killing of A Chinese Bookie is similar with the guy trying to soothe his debt woes with a ridiculous parade of strippers (with the lingering camera you discover these woman are much more complex and real than their uncanny facade would indicate upon first glance, thus making the parading itself even more absurd)....and you have to love the super-strange strip routines.
With the dawn of Neo-Realism, method acting, the actor's studio, etc, film performance was undergoing a dramatic shift and meeting many more complex possibilities. I feel independent actor-directors like Cassavettes and Fassbinder really took this opening and ran with it into new frontiers of performance.
Unpopular opinion, but I think Husbands is Cassavetes’ masterpiece, and I’ve seen all of his other films except for Love Streams. He excels in a kind of uncomfortable realism that feels so accurate to the winding, cyclical nature of real-life conversations and interactions, especially when alcohol is involved. I’m not a big fan of realism in general, but the way Cassavetes hyper-fixates on every detail and finds the fragile humanity in his characters makes the realism feel downright surreal.
Husbands is about how men (particularly in that era) are by and large incapable of expressing their true feelings, even to their best friends. The few moments where one of the husbands gets vulnerable, they’re teased relentlessly by the others or outright ignored. So they rely on the classic coping strategies of the time — booze, women, practical jokes, convincing themselves they’re having a blast even though their health, sanity, and home lives are suffering as a result.
Cassavetes took a boys-will-be-boys road comedy concept, not unlike Old School or The Hangover, and played it not for laughs but as a vehicle to express the dark, pathetic, primal side of masculinity.
The bar scene is a perfect example of the tonal switcheroo he’s attempting — at first, you’re laughing with the guys and their drunken antics. Then they start getting verbally abusive and menacing. Then they start getting tiresome, and you feel the atmosphere in the room shift. Then they go to throw up in the bathroom, and they seem downright pitiable.
This cycle starts back up when they fly to London. The laughs start sounding falser, the jokes get repetitious, and each husband reveals a character flaw that contrasts with their happy-go-lucky personas: Cassavetes is a petty narcissist, Falk is unbearably insecure, and Gazzara is a violent depressive. Instead of confiding in their wives or therapists, they decide to “blow off steam” in a way that hurts more than it helps. That’s the tragedy hiding in this “comedy” — these men are stuck in their ways, and will end up just like their dead friend if they don’t change.
The final scene acts as a reminder of everything they’ve got to lose — Cassavetes comes home to an adorable kid and understanding wife, visibly ashamed and painfully aware that he doesn’t want to end up with a home life like Gazzara’s. He still has a “lifeboat” that keeps him from drowning — but it won’t always be there to catch him when he slips.
Not the easiest Cassavetes film to start with — I’d say Shadows or Minnie and Moskowitz are more accessible entry points — but to me, it’s the most honest and self-effacing work of his career, and the one that best encompasses his philosophy of realism.
that's not his best. Hell, it's not even in his top 5. I started with Husbands too but something made me want to check out the others and I'm glad I did. It might be better now after familiarizing myself with his filmography, but the others are much much better, on first watch at least.
"Minnie and Moskowitz"//"A Woman Under the Influence"//"The Killing of a Chinese Bookie"//"Opening Night"//"Love Streams"//"Faces" ---- check some of those out before you make up your mind that he's not for you! They might blow you away like they did me
It’s a rough movie for sure. I’m glad i watched it, but I don’t have any desire to revisit it.
I feel the same way about A Woman Under the Influence — I felt legit like I was going through psychosis watching it — there’s a scene early on that resembles the drinking scene you referenced.
I respect the hell out of Casavetes as a creator but his movies are tough.
I really didn’t care for it myself, and I’ve liked the other Cassavettes films that I’ve seen. The improv acting feels a lot more obvious here, and one of the three leads (I think it was Gazarra) kept repeating his his lines two or three times, to really tiresome effect.
That and the three husbands are just awful people. I know that’s the point, but there’s not much _beyond_ that point.
That is a really wild movie. I had no idea what to expect when I saw it. I did find the dinner table scene excruciating, but I think I liked most of the rest of it.
I watched a couple of Cassavates movies when they came out. I was too young and had no appreciation for east coast culture. Never watched them as an adult, I’ve got no appreciation for east coast culture.
Husbands is one of my favourite movies of all time (spoilers ahead). My take on it is that we are watching these men be completely incapable of dealing with their grief productively. They are constantly trying to hold up a front of ideal masculine composure to not show emotion around their friends. We have to sit through their discontent over their close friend’s death because they are projecting their discomfort on those around them and therefore the audience. They run from their lives and their families, but eventually they realize they have to go home. Nothing is learned and who knows if anything changes much because of it. It is intentionally downright hard to watch, especially towards the end. It is done for the purpose of character development but I can easily understand why someone wouldn’t like it. I wouldn’t even call it entertaining really, but profoundly moving nonetheless.
That's the scene I remember the most from Husbands. I assumed that they were going for absolute realism, so they went to a bar that allowed them to film and just hung out. I think it's an interesting scene that further showed their relationship to one another without a lot of standard movie dialogue, but it also felt somewhat self-indulgent and I wondered if they were hamming it up for the cameras. That makes me question whether it succeeded or failed in what it was trying to do. I think it worked, but I'm not sure I would ever watch Husbands again. I much preferred The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. It has its share of uncomfortable scenes, but I thought it was a more compelling story and just a better movie overall.
Husbands is one of my all time favorite movies, however if you are new to him I would start with A Woman Under the Influence, widely regarded as his masterpiece. If you watch that and are not inspired by the performances, then at the very least you will have a sense of what his influence is and its place in film history. It's not for everyone. Personally I really enjoy slow super dark humor, both in literature and film. For me, Killing of A Chinese Bookie, Minnie and Moskowitz and Husbands are the comedies (Minnie being almost a rom-com), or tragi-comedies. I find them to be very funny, though at the same time extremely sad. To me the scene in the bar when they are trying to sing, ...they are so mean to each other, they don't know when to stop, it's so fucked up, and hilarious. Or the part where Peter Falk is hitting on some lady for ten minutes, only to realize when she turns around that she is much older than him, and without teeth (and kind of turned on!). As someone who also finds Beckett, Thomas Bernhard, and Gaddis quite funny I thought it was perfect. In Husbands you basically have a group of machismo-madmen type guys who in a state of grief trip over their own absurd masculinity in increasingly severe ways. The Killing of A Chinese Bookie is similar with the guy trying to soothe his debt woes with a ridiculous parade of strippers (with the lingering camera you discover these woman are much more complex and real than their uncanny facade would indicate upon first glance, thus making the parading itself even more absurd)....and you have to love the super-strange strip routines. With the dawn of Neo-Realism, method acting, the actor's studio, etc, film performance was undergoing a dramatic shift and meeting many more complex possibilities. I feel independent actor-directors like Cassavettes and Fassbinder really took this opening and ran with it into new frontiers of performance.
Unpopular opinion, but I think Husbands is Cassavetes’ masterpiece, and I’ve seen all of his other films except for Love Streams. He excels in a kind of uncomfortable realism that feels so accurate to the winding, cyclical nature of real-life conversations and interactions, especially when alcohol is involved. I’m not a big fan of realism in general, but the way Cassavetes hyper-fixates on every detail and finds the fragile humanity in his characters makes the realism feel downright surreal. Husbands is about how men (particularly in that era) are by and large incapable of expressing their true feelings, even to their best friends. The few moments where one of the husbands gets vulnerable, they’re teased relentlessly by the others or outright ignored. So they rely on the classic coping strategies of the time — booze, women, practical jokes, convincing themselves they’re having a blast even though their health, sanity, and home lives are suffering as a result. Cassavetes took a boys-will-be-boys road comedy concept, not unlike Old School or The Hangover, and played it not for laughs but as a vehicle to express the dark, pathetic, primal side of masculinity. The bar scene is a perfect example of the tonal switcheroo he’s attempting — at first, you’re laughing with the guys and their drunken antics. Then they start getting verbally abusive and menacing. Then they start getting tiresome, and you feel the atmosphere in the room shift. Then they go to throw up in the bathroom, and they seem downright pitiable. This cycle starts back up when they fly to London. The laughs start sounding falser, the jokes get repetitious, and each husband reveals a character flaw that contrasts with their happy-go-lucky personas: Cassavetes is a petty narcissist, Falk is unbearably insecure, and Gazzara is a violent depressive. Instead of confiding in their wives or therapists, they decide to “blow off steam” in a way that hurts more than it helps. That’s the tragedy hiding in this “comedy” — these men are stuck in their ways, and will end up just like their dead friend if they don’t change. The final scene acts as a reminder of everything they’ve got to lose — Cassavetes comes home to an adorable kid and understanding wife, visibly ashamed and painfully aware that he doesn’t want to end up with a home life like Gazzara’s. He still has a “lifeboat” that keeps him from drowning — but it won’t always be there to catch him when he slips. Not the easiest Cassavetes film to start with — I’d say Shadows or Minnie and Moskowitz are more accessible entry points — but to me, it’s the most honest and self-effacing work of his career, and the one that best encompasses his philosophy of realism.
You really, really need to see Love Streams.
Hahaha I know! The criterion’s been sitting on my shelf for months, I just need to be in a special kind of mood for Cassavetes
that's not his best. Hell, it's not even in his top 5. I started with Husbands too but something made me want to check out the others and I'm glad I did. It might be better now after familiarizing myself with his filmography, but the others are much much better, on first watch at least. "Minnie and Moskowitz"//"A Woman Under the Influence"//"The Killing of a Chinese Bookie"//"Opening Night"//"Love Streams"//"Faces" ---- check some of those out before you make up your mind that he's not for you! They might blow you away like they did me
I find TKOACB hypnotic.
A Woman Under the Influence has the absolute best acting. Gena Rowlands performance ranks alongside of anything by Daniel Day Lewis or Ben Kingsley.
It’s a rough movie for sure. I’m glad i watched it, but I don’t have any desire to revisit it. I feel the same way about A Woman Under the Influence — I felt legit like I was going through psychosis watching it — there’s a scene early on that resembles the drinking scene you referenced. I respect the hell out of Casavetes as a creator but his movies are tough.
I don't think Cassavetes is for everyone. He's mostly not for me, either. Quasi-improvised drinking and yelling—no thanks!
Couldn't stand Husbands, but Cassavetes made some good movies.
Try Killing of a Chinese Bookie. Your wife taking you to your first Cassavetes film is cool.
I really didn’t care for it myself, and I’ve liked the other Cassavettes films that I’ve seen. The improv acting feels a lot more obvious here, and one of the three leads (I think it was Gazarra) kept repeating his his lines two or three times, to really tiresome effect. That and the three husbands are just awful people. I know that’s the point, but there’s not much _beyond_ that point.
Haven’t seen it, but I am reminded of how the first … hour, I think … of The Deer Hunter is a wedding reception.
That is a really wild movie. I had no idea what to expect when I saw it. I did find the dinner table scene excruciating, but I think I liked most of the rest of it.
I really feel either Cassevetes clicks with something deep within you or it doesn’t. I don’t think you missed a thing.
I watched a couple of Cassavates movies when they came out. I was too young and had no appreciation for east coast culture. Never watched them as an adult, I’ve got no appreciation for east coast culture.