The films of John Cassavetes: part 12 - LOVE STREAMS
August 17th 2010 13:12
THE FINAL CROWNING WORK
LOVE STREAMS - possibly John Cassavetes best film
In 1984, John Cassavetes would make his final film, Love Streams (not counting the aptly titled ‘Big Trouble’ which he took over half way through). By the time he began shooting, he was sick, he had cirrhosis of the liver and was dying. After so long, Gena Rowlands, his wife and muse and John Cassavetes finally had to contemplate the end, they new it would soon be all over. Love Streams is a farewell from Cassavetes, a farewell to his art, to his wife, a farewell to us. Love Streams is film that has the profundity of poetry, as it weaves references in from all of his previous films, and in the final frame, in the pouring rain, he waves goodbye to us.
Shot immediately after Cassavetes played the leading role in Paul Mazursky’s The Tempest, Love Streams was based on the stage play written by John Cassavetes and Ted Allen called ‘3 Plays Of Love & Hate’. Love Streams is John Cassavetes’ most beautiful film and perhaps his most affecting too. More than any other film, this achieves to look inside the two main characters as they are both going through difficult times in their lives. Sarah (played by Gena Rowlands) is finalising a divorce, her child is going through puberty and doesn’t want anything to do with her and neither does Jack, her husband (played by Seymour Cassel). Sarah, a desperately demonstrative woman, has smothered them with her overwhelming feelings and neediness and both her husband and daughter find her too emotionally overbearing to handle.
Sarah’s only crime is that she loves too much, her therapist suggests she get a hobby outside of her family, maybe a sex life too. It’s an upsetting sight to witness Sarah’s daughter shake her head meanly in a custody ruling as she clearly expresses her lack of want towards her mother. Sarah lives in a world where her selfless, unconditional love is neither wanted, appreciated or reciprocated
While Sarah is dealing with her husband and daughter abandoning her, we meet Robert, the other side of the coin. Robert (played by John Cassavetes) lives alone in a large house, he’s an author, a rich man writing lurid tales of night life and loose women. He controls all female interactions with money, as a parade of hookers constantly move in and out of his house all day long, maintaining that all his temporal relationships are for research. Robert believes that love is a fairytale for little girls, leaving himself unavailable from any kind of attachment or commitment to others, living in this self imposed isolation by choice. One day a woman arrives at his house, “this is your son”, she says, holding the hand of a small boy.
John Cassavetes in Love Streams
Both the reaction of Robert and Sarah’s are revealing in how they cope with their lives, which we see in separate scenes. Sarah buys an entire zoo of animals that she can smother with affection, while Robert breaks the ice with his small, estranged son over a beer and then a trip to Vegas, it’s quite alarming how far their actions are from sane or responsible adults. As Roger Ebert wrote in his review for Love Streams:
“John Cassavetes's "Love Streams" is the kind of movie where a woman brings home two horses, a goat, a duck, some chickens, a dog, and a parrot, and you don't have the feeling that the screenplay is going for cheap laughs. In fact, there's a tightening in your throat as you realize how desperate an act you're witnessing, and how unhappy a person is getting out of the taxi with all those animals. This is a movie about mad people, and they are going to be acting in crazy ways, but the movie isn't going to let us off the hook by making them funny or picaresque or even symbolic. They are, quite simply, desperate.”
We witness the actions of two severely troubled people, who have no balance in anything they do, there is a madness that they have been touched with. One man who feels too little and one woman who fells too much – both brother and sister.
Jack (Seymour Cassel) faces off against Sarah (Gena Rowlands) in their divorce case
Winner of the Golden Bear (best film) at the Berlin Film Festival, Love Streams is a haunting and surreal mediation on love, our relationships and how the streams of love that begin in our lives continue, affecting everything else forever after. The film reminds us that when caught in this love stream we may be completely over whelmed by it, it may cause unexpected changes for better or worse, but this energy stays with us for our entire lives. This is Cassavetes' richest and most beautiful film, and feels unlike anything else. It washes over you with a surreal, healing quality, quiet and aching, here in Cassavetes final parting gift to us which reaches a Zen like level of honesty and emotional resonance. It works on you slowly, getting to you without immediate awareness and this is where his entire body of work fully comes into focus, placing everything into a grand arc.
Anyone who has ever loved someone so much that it defined them, blinded or even consumed them at times, changing their life irrevocably will leave shattered and moved by this stunning film which captures our emotional, inner waters with inescapable insight. Sarah each night has dreams about her family, trying to reason with them over how things could have turned out this way, from where they once started. Sarah struggles to come to terms with where her love has left her. For all the characters we meet here and as flawed as they are, they are never placed in judgement. The film reveals their stupidity, coldness and selfishness to simply be human flaws. Sarah sits on the phone with her husband, attempting to come to some closure. Sarah gets angry with him, “you have no mercy Jack, that’s fine with me, but you leave our daughter out of this”, but she is too vulnerable to be angry, and in the same breath, her words turn to tearful desperation. “Jack, can I ask you a question? Do you believe that love is a continuous stream?”, Sarah pleads, struggling to under stand how her Husband can shut off their years together, in a way she never could.
Gena Rowlands in Love Streams
When Sarah moves in with Robert, her brother, she tries to encourage him to be more nurturing as Robert’s identity crisis becomes more apparent. While they fight at times, revealing their pettiness, Robert’s inability to turn his sister away has a strange affect on him, in the same way he begins to affect her. One wonders why these simple truths are never explored more in films. The honesty of this plight in Love Streams is emotionally devastating as it touches chords few films ever do. As usual, typical of Cassavetes directed films, the acting is superb, but the film feels strange at times, it oddly enough feels close to the tone of a David Lynch film, despite it’s domestic, pragmatic dramas. There are moments where dreams and reality merge as this brother and sister come together for a moment in their lives and then move apart once more.
Love Streams is a profound meditation on the things in life that can overwhelm us and how our lack of control over them can be terrifying but ultimately also worth it, taking us into scary new parts of our lives, and some of the lessons we can take with us in the process. Love Streams is unlike anything else, a beautiful, heartbreaking film that I recommend people see. I recommend all of John Cassavetes film’s which he wrote and directed, they will affect you in unexpected ways. Have effects on you, which you possibly didn’t think films could have. Love Streams isn’t easy to find, regarding it’s current availability, but it’s perhaps the most beautiful film I’ve ever seen, one that changed my life and has stayed with me ever since.
A bit of trivia: Jon Voight was originally cast as Robert Harmon and played the character in the original theatre production of Love Streams. When they were about to begin principle photography on the film, Jon Voight was fired after he tried to strong arm Cassavetes out of his directing role. Cassavetes would then play Voight’s role in the film as a result.
Here's a scene from Love Streams
| 116 |
| Vote |
subscribe to this blog
Comment by David O'Connell
20/20 Filmsight
Screen Fanatic
Comment by ShaunK
Screen Adventure
Comment by Matt Shea
Will be picking my way through most of stuff I haven't seen over the next few months. Thanks for such a great set of write-ups.
Comment by ShaunK
Screen Adventure
Thanks for reading - if you're ever in Sydney I'll be happy to organize a screening of Husbands and Love Streams.
Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
Are you going to review 'Big Trouble? I got the DVD a few months ago but haven't watched it yet. I remember enjoying the film as a teen and found the comedy innovative at the time.
Comment by ShaunK
Screen Adventure
Love this film