Opening Night Details

you'll love it or hate it!

cassavettes is a director who polarises like few others.

for those looking for conventional hollywood product it can only disappoint. 'opening night', like most of cassavettes' other films, is a lengthy snub to pat story lines and easy characterisations.

the story of an actress who is almost un-hinged by the pressures of her work, difficult relationships and an accident that occurs early on in the film, 'opening night' is a fascinating and awkward jazz-riff on life in the theatre.

at times it is maddeningly self-indulgent in the way it refuses to take the customary route, partly because of the general writer/director/actor syndrome of refusing to editorialise and partly because cassavettes is happy to make his audiences work. it is this last trait in his movies that makes them so cherishable however.

Cassavettes has a unique voice in film. he loves acting which - influenced by his method roots - pursues emotional truth mercilessly and this most marked feature of his style also typifies his general approach to film making. his features are intense, sprawling and verbose and at times authenticity of fact seems lacking. what is indisputable, however, is that emotional truth never is and he paid the price for this unconventional approach quite literally. his films rarely made money and he repeatedly mortgaged his house in order to get each one made.

as one would expect, the acting here is excellent, especially from gena rowlands - cassavettes' wife in real life. and there are fun appearances too by the wonderful joan blondell, who's role had initially been offered to bette davis, and the real-life mothers of both cassavettes and rowlands as the spiritualists rowlands consults.

this is real independent movie-making and i for one love this and many of his other unique films.