In reviewing writer-director John Cassavetes' cinema verite-styled "Faces" for the New Yorker, film critic Pauline Kael was more interested in the theater audience's reaction to the picture than the picture itself. She noted that everyone in the crowd seemed to accept this "bad office party" with the utmost seriousness, as if what they were witnessing was extremely personal and important. "Faces" is probably still quite important to revolutionary filmmakers, but it doesn't feel very personal. Cassavetes views a sad, crumbling, upper-class marriage between a businessman and a housewife in Los Angeles with blank eyes. The conversation between the two is vapid and disconnected--and later, when the couple separates and he finds company with a prostitute while she brings home a gigolo, the dialogue remains flat and monotonous. Is Cassavetes trying to say that some marriages become zombie-fied to the point where no amount of conversation breaks through? The wife overdoses on pills and is rescued by the stud, but when the husband comes back and sees the bottle and the mess in the bathroom, he doesn't even ask her about it. The film is stultified by its need to be raw and uncompromising in an arty fashion (with Mount Rushmore-like close-ups of the four principals, a gambit which gets tiresome). Flickers of truth permeate the production, though it isn't very well-shot or lighted, and the editing (purposefully) allows scenes to ramble on passed their emotional peak. ** from ****

An old married man leaves his wife for a younger woman. Shortly after, his ex-wife also begins a relationship with a younger partner. The film follows their struggles to find love amongst each other.

This was one of the most influential films of the 1960s, if you consider how it inspired Robert Altman and Woody Allen, as well as employing Steven Spielberg as a production assistant while he was still making short films and had not yet broken into feature films.

How well the film has aged is debatable. While its influence is clear, the film itself is not necessarily the most fun. Some have called it "meandering", and it is hard to believe that at one point Cassavetes had a six-hour cut (allegedly).

The same year that he played the collusive husband in "Rosemary's Baby", John Cassavetes released one of his most important movies. "Faces" is an acerbic look at a marriage and its collapse. The high-contrast black and white photography combined with locations in closed spaces creates a truly surreal feeling. Like another independent black and white movie in 1968 (Night of the Living Dead),this movie makes clear that the image of the happy marriage and nuclear family was on its way out.

There are no good guys or bad guys. There's no defined moral spectrum at all. The point is that the characters are going to do want they want, see whom they want, and confrontations are inevitable. Indeed, some of the scenes last a long time to make sure that the audience is under no illusions about what's going on in these characters' lives (even if the characters try to put on a facade). Outstanding piece of work. I have no doubt that if Cassavetes were alive today he would still be making these sorts of movies.

Starring John Marley (the producer in "The Godfather" who gets an unpleasant surprise in bed one morning),Gena Rowlands (Cassavetes's wife),and an assortment of other people (including Joan Crawford's adopted daughter Christina).