035 - Opening Night, 1977, United States. Dir. John Cassavetes.

Saturday, February 4, 2017

035 - Opening Night, 1977, United States. Dir. John Cassavetes.

With Opening Night we have another movie about a play, or life in the theatre.  This is a special type of film.  Watch these films and enjoy them.

With blog entry number 016, we discussed The Last Metro (1980) by Francois Truffaut.  Take a moment to go back and read it.  It is an excellent movie.

In that blog we mentioned other films about plays, or life in the theatre, including All About Eve (1950), Noises Off (1992), Being Julia (2004), and Birdman (2014).

Now we have Opening Night (1977) by John Cassavetes.

John Cassavetes must have really loved his wife Gena Rowlands, considering the way he continued to create opportunities for her as an actress.

It is lovely to see.

Here she is Myrtle Gordon, the star of a play, and a star.  The public loves her.  She has fans.  One fan, a young woman, comes to see her and presses in to touch her in the crowd.  The girl gets Myrtle's attention, and Myrtle is touched by her.

When they leave the theatre, they witness a car crash behind them.  The same girl was crossing the street and was hit by the car.

She dies.

Myrtle is troubled by the incident.  Greatly troubled.  Her troubled thoughts seep into her work as an actress and into her life.  She drinks.  She obsesses about her age.  She sees spiritualists.  She grows erratic in rehearsals.  She tries to rewrite the play.

People are patient with her.  They love her.  Do they enable her?  Or are they simply doing the best they know how under difficult circumstances?

The show must go on.

Her scene partner is supposed to slap her.  During rehearsal he fakes it.  He misses by several feet.  You could ride a horse between his hand and her face.  Yet she falls to the floor as if mortally wounded.  And stays there.  The others--her co-star, the director, the writer, and the producer--deal with it the best they can, but she has effectively ruined the rehearsal.

Her co-star is played by her husband, John Cassavetes.  How great to see our fearless director, himself a Hollywood actor, stepping in to act in his own film.  He had done it before in his 1970 film Husbands, and he would do it again in his 1984 film Love Streams, but this is the only time he does it in the five films we are watching.  It adds to the film.  He is a good actor and he has a special chemistry with his own wife.

The play's director is played by Ben Gazzara, and we are grateful for it.  We have just seen Ben Gazzara as the star of our previous film, strip club owner Cosmo Vittelli in the crime drama The Killing of a Chinese Bookie.  Now we see him as a theatre director.  I like it when writer-directors return to the same actors.  They create a company.  They explore the ranges of their talent.  They flesh out the nuances of similar but different characters.

Meanwhile, the writer of the play, Sarah Goode, is played by Hollywood veteran Joan Blondell.

This is important.

Joan Blondell worked prolifically in the 1930s and 1940s, and she continued to work steadily until her death in 1979.  She was a star.

She was a star in the star system, a member of the dream factory at Warner Bros., a staple in the stable of talent.  Something that actors today, who must work freelance, can only imagine in their dreams.

In 1931 alone she starred in ten movies.  Ten!  Three of them were for legendary director William Wellman, including gangster classic The Public Enemy with Jimmy Cagney and Jean Harlow, and Night Nurse starring Barbara Stanwyck and Clark Gable.  Two were with Roy Del Ruth, one with Archie Mayo and one with Michael Curtiz.  These are major directors.

She played in gangster pictures, musicals, dramas, films noir, and romantic comedies throughout her career.  Here are just a few: Blonde Crazy (1931), The Crowd Roars (1932), Three On a Match (1932), Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933), Footlight Parade (1933), Dames (1934), Broadway Gondolier (1935), We're in the Money (1935), Bullets or Ballots (1936), Gold Diggers of 1937 (1936), Topper Returns (1941), A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945), Nightmare Alley (1947), The Blue Veil (1951), and Desk Set with Spencer Tracey and Katharine Hepburn (1957).

But here in the 1970s she is continuing to work steadily, in films such as Support Your Local Gunfighter with James Garner and The Champ with Jon Voight, Faye Dunaway, and Ricky Schroder.

But what you know her for?

You know her for playing Vi in Grease.

Grease featured three older stars coming back to play strong characters: Joan Blondell as Vi, Eve Arden as Principal McGee, and the one-and-only Sid Caesar as Coach Calhoun.

Make it a point to follow the careers of actors as they get into their older years.  They still have life in them, and they do great work.  If you are a filmmaker, look for opportunities to cast them.  Consider what Quentin Tarantino has done for the careers of actors who had been big years ago, and he brought them back to attention.  This is a good thing.  In the case of Joan Blondell, there were not any gaps.  She kept working.  But her presence in this film helps to anchor it.  And she plays it with vitality and wisdom.

Now consider this.

Gena Rowlands was born in 1930.  She turned 47 the year this film was released.  Joan Blondell was born in 1906.  She was 24 years older than Rowlands.  She turned 71 the year this film was released.

With that in mind, imagine the conversations the characters are having.  The actress Myrtle Gordon is obsessed with her own aging.  She goes to the writer Sarah Goode to complain about ways that her character is portrayed, and she jockeys for changes in the script that will make her look younger, fresher, and more alive.

The 47-year old is complaining to the 71-year old about aging!

On the one hand, there is some truth in it.  The older woman is writing out of her own experience, and she is imbuing the character with her vision of the world, even if she is trying to write the character younger.  On the other hand, the younger woman is the one undergoing the existential crisis while the older woman is comfortable in her own skin.  The older woman is full of life and energy and untroubled by her age.  The younger woman allows her thoughts to paralyze her and stifle her art, while the older woman uses her thoughts to empower her and continues to create art that is new and vital.

Is there a lesson here?

Rowlands plays states well--mental states, emotional states, physical states, physiological states.  Her breakdown here is not the same as her breakdown in A Woman Under the Influence.  In this film, she is troubled by the death of her fan, by her own aging, and by her steadily increasing drinking.  These things are present in her mind and in her body in varying and increasing ways as the film progresses.

The scenes with the spiritualists are classic Cassavetes.

The scenes with Rowlands and Cassavetes together are a gift.

The scenes that solve the central problem are clever and entertaining.

It is now opening night.

It is time for the show to begin.

Our actress is absent.  Late.  Drunk.  She can hardly stand up.  She cannot remember her lines.  She has been changing them on purpose anyway.  She does not follow the blocking.  She is erratic and unpredictable.  She is making it up as she goes.  The audience is in on it.

What are we going to do?

The Show. Must. Go. On.

It does.

Enjoy the show.