Wonderful character development!

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Absolutely the worst movie.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

The sanctity of Marriage just got a shock thorough it's veins. John Casssavates's film "Faces" is a heartbreaking, urgent, real journey through the darkest realms of adultery. Cassavetes must be a traditionalist when it comes to marriage, because he makes this seem like a cautionary tale. A sense of how depression, lust and exploration outside of marriage could lead to vile, uncertain consequences. This movie is absolutely beautiful, and it's earned a spot on my list of the best films that I have ever seen. As grim as this movie is, it captures absolute desperation like few movies have ever did. The characters, Richard and Maria Frost are seen dipping their toes into the lustful life of mistresses and swinging. Not only do they want to mess around between the sheets with a dirty concubine, but they want to experience the love that they never found in each other, and rekindle the times of their youth. In both sections of their escapades, they dance and sing with their mistresses, and just laugh the night away with the swinging cohorts. Each scene lasts about 20 minutes a piece, and examine the surreal experience closely, almost like a stage play would have it. These scenes exist to also make note of the fantastic performances between every character on screen, and they shine brightly. Gena Rowlands's character of the mistress is seen as capitulating to the every fantasy of the men she fools around with, while at the same time losing her dignity and self-respect with every time the men fight for her attention. The character of Maria's concubine, Chet, on the other hand, is a commanding and brooding performance. We see him as a man who wants to take control of multiple women, and seemingly unprepared when his lust almost kills Maria after he lets her overdose on sleeping pills. That scene in particular is the greatest in the entire movie, as it beautifully shows the lowest point in Maria's life. How did she go from a lovely housewife to being unconscious in her own home, and a creepy man slaps her silly and chokes her violently in order to bring her back to life? Cassavetes plays up the ridiculousness of the situation, in order to shock us and make us think. The feeling of the entire picture was disorienting and just plain wrong in every aspect. The couple seemed way over their heads the entire time, and it what also seemed like a life or death situation. Every person in the rooms seemed to be on the verge of screaming, or crying or dying. The tension here is so fierce, you could cut it with a butter knife. Again, I focus on the acting, because that is where the film shines the brightest. It is pitch perfect. The cinematography is world's better here than it was in "Shadows", and it gives us the opportunity to explore the spaces that they live in. For example, the scene in which Richard comes home and eats dinner is filmed tensely, with shots that carefully and seamlessly follow his every move through the house and around his own wife. I know that there were clear cuts, but I simply didn't notice them. Everything seemed to be going in real time, and the performances helped make that time seem genuine. Each situation and scene had a build up period that was so frighteningly real. Emotions just build throughout all of the scenes. John Cassavetes proves here more than ever that he is the master and true father of the independent cinema movement, by making a film so profound in nature, without having any big money and sets to work around. In fact, here, he captures much more than any Hollywood film is willing to capture. Cassavetes was always a Hollywood golden boy, but I think that he should've just walked entirely away, and kept making incredible films. I am now reminded of how amazing it was to meet his son, Nick, at the Syracuse International Film Festival. I know now how important it was for us to see him, and how the Cassavetes name helps us as filmmakers in the end.

So this is the work of John Cassavetes? Pretty good, I must say. I definitely can appreciate good conversations and witty dialogue any day.This film, I would say is another one of those indie films (sort of foreign-filmmaking- esque) from how it is much ado about NOTHING. I love these films. They are like a breath of fresh air. That, and they always seem so personal. I wonder if it was actually scripted or if it was improvised like most Cassavetes projects.The only work I have seen of Mr. John Cassavetes was his depute film, Shadows, which was mainly all improve, or so he says in his interviews. I take a strong liking to these films because of how slow they are, yet SO INVITING; so UN-American, if you will. - People have said that Cassavetes brought the indie film movement to the states. So far I have not been proved wrong so far. His films, such as Faces, are all so unique and timeless. Like literally, I believe this movie will be studied until THE END OF TIME.I like seeing people celebrating. It is nice. Gives one the feeling of calmness; like nothing extreme is happening so we don't have to waste any time stressing about it. Does that make sense?Our main protagonist, Richard Forst (played by John Marley), is a (so called) businessman who has an affair with a much younger woman. Little does he know that his wife has some plans of her own.. You can really tell what kind of man Robert is when he says:"I'm just a mild success in a dull profession, and I want to start over again. And I've got a bad kidney!"This just shows what kind of person he is as he says it to the younger girl, Jeannie (played by the beautiful Gene Rowlands).I really like the acting and love the struggles and conflict that this husband and wife go through. Both are trying to find happiness in so many ways, but is only making it worse for themselves. .-- Michael Mendez

Despite the very, very positive reviews for this film, this film is NOT for everyone. I think had the film been shown to a hundred people and they reviewed and scored it, it would have been a lot lower--and with a WIDELY skewed distribution. People would either love it or hate it. However, the average person also would not just pick up a film directed by John Cassavetes. They might love him in "The Dirty Dozen" or "Rosemary's Baby"--but these are his commercial projects and ones in which he only acted. His own films are very personal and don't even attempt to be commercial but are artsy and often about topics that aren't all that marketable. The bottom line is that he did films he loved to make and didn't seem to care if the public embraced them--at least that's the perception most people 'in the know' have of his movies.When "Faces" first begins, it's VERY obvious this is not a Hollywood film (this would also be pretty clear if you just read the IMDb summary of the film). The movie is an example of 'Cinéma vérité'--a film technique that is typified by the non-professional and provocative aspects of the film. This film appears to have been shot with a cheap non-professional camera and the print is very grainy. As far and the acting and script goes, it looks like a movie made by friends after they had a few drinks--they appear to think they are quite clever. So, from the look of it, the $275,000 budget seems to be exaggerated--especially since it was, literally, a home-made film--being made in Cassevetes' apartment! As I said, it does not appear to be yet another Hollywood type of film! Now the film does have a few professional actors in it--with Cassavetes' own wife (Gena Rowlands) and John Marley starring in the movie. Most of the rest are mostly unknowns--and I have no idea if they were professional actors or just acquaintances of Cassavetes.While I like some French New Wave films, some absurdist films and and even some experimental and Dogma 95 films, I really did not enjoy this particular film. While I am not at all a typical viewer, I clearly don't fall into the very small but wildly enthusiastic crowd of Cassavetes fans. I just found it all to be cheap and pretentious...and dull. To each his or her own.

This one can be characterised as some sort of an intermediate Cassavetes film. After his vibrant Shadows, Cassavetes could gain experiences in directing studio productions with two films before he tared his certain form of improvised actor's cinema and which he brought to perfection in the 70s. The look at a small group of people, at the centre is a couple drifting apart, serves as a microcosm and makes porous spots of society visible. In long, extensive, and intensive tableaux, Cassavetes dismantles the bourgeois experience realm of a couple and leaves behind two broken characters.The director's fourth directing work is as timeless as Shadows and goes back to the essence of an acting ensemble. John Marley, Gena Rowlands, Seymour Cassel, Lynn Carlin are all equally brilliant, true, authentic, real, physical, and their performances make Faces so convincing. Cassavetes allowed all freedom and sometimes the cast looks like they're at some kind of acting workshop, but in scenes of tenderness and painful silence, especially between Marley and Rowlands, the vital sparks, their pain jump over. Cassavetes' direction of the actors seems more secure and mature than in Shadows and the wild, uncontrolled camera contributes to the psychologically deep study of the characters and to a well-balanced cinematic entity.