A feature we haven’t written yet, but would love to eventually tackle, brings attention to oddball films not yet on DVD that should come out, but aren’t necessarily strong enough for the Criterion Collection. Many of our original picks — Coppola’s “The Rain People,” Godard’s “Made In U.S.A.,” and “2 Or 3 Things I Know About Her” – have since hit DVD this year (though, again, those minor Godard’s may have been better suited to the Eclipse series, but they know a cash cow when they see one).
Other picks would include Altman’s “Brewster McCloud” and Mike Nichols’ comedy “The Fortune,” we won’t give them all away, but one pick we always had at the top of our list was John Cassavetes, self-indulgent 1970 effort, “Husbands,” which was his first color picture and only his fifth feature-length film. And now this heavily improvised, serio-comic buddy dramedy is heading to DVD on August 18.
Starring Cassavetes and eventual longtime buddies and acting-troupe co-conspirators, Ben Gazzara and the wonderfully confused Peter Falk, the extra good news for Cassavetes fans is that the version coming out to Sony Pictures DVD is the 142 minute director’s cut.
The bad news is the version coming out to Sony Pictures DVD is the 142 minute director’s cut. Rambling, infuriating and maddening are all adjectives that come to mind.
If there was ever the need for an editor to shave down a sprawling mess, this is it. And sure, it’s nice that there’s a long version available, for those who haven’t seen it, but what about those of us who haven’t seen the truncated 90 minute version? Who says studio mandated neutered versions aren’t better, because really, that’s the cut we’d like to see. Problem is, it doesn’t exist. Even the original cut was 138 minutes (perhaps the bootleg we have at home is even longer than 142, it’s hard to measure and seemingly goes on forever).
You’re probably thinking, “What???” It’s Cassavetes!” But if you found “Funny People” remotely long for example, you’re going to find this one a slog.
Still, it’s such a peculiar failure that it is worth seeing the buddy chemistry between these three friends, which produces a lot of real and honest moments. There are flashes of genius as it is unhinged, unfiltered and somewhat cathartic to see these long-takes of actor vomit and logorrhea (but honestly you’re deluding yourself a little if you think it’s front-to-back brilliance). A lot of critics hailed it as an innovative form of newfound radiance, but the always-frank Pauline Kael saw the forest for the trees, calling it, “infantile and offensive” (which is a bit harsh, but that’s never-t0-mince-words Kael for you and it is at times narcissistic and ego-ridden). Time Magazine gave it a glowing review in its day and Roger Ebert said, “seldom has Time given a better review to a worse movie,” and he wisely connected it to another interesting failure by a gifted auteur in the also recently-released -to-DVD counter-culture abstraction, “Zabriskie Point,” by Michelangelo Antonioni.
The almost cinéma vérité-styled picture centers on three longtime best friends (all the aforementioned actors, plus a brief appearance by John Kullers in a prologue) whose world is rocked when a fourth musketeer pal suddenly drops dead of a heart attack, leaving a wife and family behind. The trio, already approaching their ’40s and in the throes of suburban ennui, are so torn and devastated by the death of their friend, they set off on a lost weekend bender, abandoning their own wives and family and eventually set off to London, England in polluted and poor-decision haste.
In their lurching debauchery and now full-on midlife crisis, the mostly inebriated men talk, meet loose women, and tackle issues of manhood, friendship and marriage head-on. Their conversations are intimate and it is rare to see such heart-on-sleeve conversations from men, but that’s alcohol and Cassavetes for you. (Amusingly enough, in Ray Carney’s 2001 book, “Cassavetes on Cassavetes” he wrote about how the director spent a year re-editing the flick because he believed it was too entertaining and too funny in its original form).
With little script to speak of, the unwieldy picture seemingly finds its direction in things blurted out by the unfiltered characters (i.e. if one of the actors wildly would have suggested going to the zoo, the film might have gone that way). Freewheelin’ and almost similar to a long jazz riff that could have been reigned in, “Husbands” is occasionally fascinating and often tedious, however with all “lost classics,” revisionism tends to set in, but don’t be fully duped (see Hal Ashby’s recently released director’s cut of “Looking To Get Out“; it’s nice that it exists for portfolio reasons, but no amount of dissident thinking is going to convince us that it’s a great picture).
Wes Anderson has admitted that “Husbands” was a big influence, and famously used his funeral flashback sequence in “The Darjeeling Limited,” as an homage to the movie, outfitting the actors in a similar raiment of head-to-toe black trenchcoats and gloves and like Cassavetes’ film, ‘Darjeeling’ features three bickering brothers on a voyage to nowhere (Cassavetes’ guys, for all intents and purposes, are spiritual brothers).
What are the extras? Amazon doesn’t say, but it appears to be largely a bare-bones release (if you work for Sony DVD and have more info, please feel free to correct us). Update: a helpful reader points out:
Extended Cut includes:
1.85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
English Mono, English subtitles
Commentary with Author Marshall Fine
The Story of Husbands: A Tribute to John Cassavetes
It would be nice if it contained that 30-minute Making-Of “Husbands” documentary that’s been on the bootleg circuit for years with the excellent Dick Cavett Show appearance.
Here’s two parts from the September 1970 show. With all our buyer beware warnings aside, if you’re a Cassavetes fan you should still at least queue this up in your Netflix, but with lowered expectations, cause it’s an uneven experience that still must be digested for better or worse.