Here’s to Gena Rowlands

The American actress Gena Rowlands who died last week at the venerable age of 94 was perhaps the greatest performer of her era and one, who like her male counterpart Marlon Brando, helped revolutionise the art of acting on screen. She was also indelibly linked with her husband, the actor and independent filmmaker maverick John Cassavetes, whom she met in 1951 and was married to for 34 years until his death in 1989.

Over the course of their marriage, Rowlands and Cassavetes formed a powerhouse partnership that saw her take lead roles in many of the small, self-financed and memorable films that he made from the 1960s until his death. Some of these have rightly been celebrated as, New Yorker film critic Richard Brody, describes them, “the most profound movies about love that exist”.

In recognition of her immense influence on the shape of American film and screen acting here are three films from Rowlands’ large body of work that demonstrate her immeasurable talents and the creatively verdant partnership that she shared with Cassavetes which changed the way that movies were made for the benefit of filmmakers and audiences.

The Arthouse Essential

A Woman Under the Influence — YouTube

Directed by Cassavetes and starring longtime collaborator Peter Falk and Rowlands in the central roles, this is still considered the “best film,” in the director’s oeuvre. Falk and Rowlands play a lower-middle-class couple struggling to keep their mental health and family above water in the face of the claustrophobic pressures imposed by the rat race of American daily life in the suburbs of the 1970s.

Falk’s husband seems to be a pillar of reliability, a solid working- class guy who uses his work to let off steam created by home pressures. However, he soon reveals himself to be suffering almost as much as his far more visibly suffering wife who in an effort to counter her manic tendencies and existential anguish, turns their home into a chaotic place that enrages the neighbours, her mother-in-law and the couple’s three children.

As the household descends into madness and the relationship between husband and wife is pushed to breaking point, Cassavetes with the help of Rowland’s exceptionally nuanced and intense performance, quietly makes a decidedly non-schmaltzy plea for family togetherness and hope in the face of unbearable pressure.

Trailer:

The Stone Cold Classic

Gloria — Rent or buy from Apple TV +

Cassavetes was not a fan of this film. He claimed it was a contractual obligation forced on him by Disney so that his wife could be seen on screen with a child actor, but time has been much kinder to this shift in tone than its director ever was. A terrible remake by Sydney Lumet in 1990, which starred Sharon Stone, probably hasn’t helped its reputation but on its own terms the original film still stands as a distinctively Cassavetes creation featuring another standout performance from Rowlands. She plays Gloria, the tough talking, New York underworld hustler, and gangster ex-girlfriend who after his family is killed by the Mob, is left to look after a macho, grouchy Puerto Rican kid played by John Adames.

She doesn’t want to be a mother just as much as her new charge has no interest in being a son, but circumstances intervene to force them on the run together. As they keep one step ahead of the Mob who are determined to finish what they’ve started, the odd-couple are forced to rely on each other and inevitably, they grow closer, in spite of their initial reticence and antagonism. 

Far more indebted to the tropes and spirit of Classic Hollywood than perhaps any other of Cassavetes’s films, there is still an underlying atmosphere of fatalism and despair that pervades underneath the familiar plot. Rowlands’ performance earned her a deserved Oscar nomination.

Trailer: 

The Diamond in the Rough

Tempest — Rent or buy from Apple TV +

Not loved by critics and definitely not everyone’s cup of tea, this 1982 drama which updates Shakespeare’s play to the world of the upper-Manhattan is a strange, ambitious and intriguing project. Directed by Paul Mazursky who made a career of specialising in the angst-ridden relationships of middle-class Americans, the film sees Cassavetes and Rowlands together in a project they’re not responsible for but which they obviously believe in.

Cassavetes plays American architect Phillip Dimitrius who after the break-up of his marriage to wife Antonia (Rowlands) makes the decision to relocate to a Greek island in the company of his new lover Aretha (Susan Sarandon) and his daughter Miranda (Molly Ringwald). There they think they’ve escaped their Manhattan problems and only have the island’s reclusive inhabitant Kalibanos (Raul Julia) to deal with. This is until Antonia, her new boyfriend and Philip’s son arrive by unexpected means and tensions boil until they inevitably explode.

Trailer: