Opening Night (1977)The challenge for actors comes from being someone else. Stating the obvious, I know, but what does that mean, really: to be "someone else"? Just to pretend? Or is it more than that? It's said that some actors "embody" their characters, like they were real people and not just a work of fiction. And if you embody someone else--or let them embody you, to be more accurate--where do you go? What happens when there isn't room enough on this rock for the both of us, as the saying goes? That is the central conceit at the heart of John Cassavetes' Opening Night (1977), as it concerns Myrtle Gordon (Gena Rowlands), the lead actress in a stage play, who is breaking down under the influence of some force that threatens her very identity.
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Some people look at Woody Allen as the American counterpart to Ingmar Bergman, but I'd argue for John Cassavetes instead. To explain that statement--and in turn why I think that Opening Night is, like many of his films, infused with that essential kernel of humanity at its most true--let's consider a few things about John. Although regarded as the godfather of American independent cinema, John Cassavetes started out as TV and movie actor, such as in NBC's private detective show, "Johnny Staccato", and--perhaps for some his best known acting role--as Guy Woodhouse in Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby. Despite his talents as an actor--or, more accurately, in addition to them--directing movies was destined to be more than just another feather in his cap. It would become a means of expression far beyond his work to date. This began with the likes of Shadows in the late Fifties, but his signature cinéma vérité style wouldn't really emerge until 1968's Faces, along with his perennially fruitful collaborations yet to come with Rowlands and many more talented performers. Compare Ben Gazzara--who plays stage director Manny Victor in Opening Night--with Bergman's Max von Sydow, or Peter Falk (who has but a cameo here) to Gunnar Björnstrand, and the similarities between Cassavetes and Bergman start to come into focus. So by association, Rowlands would be Cassavetes' Liv Ullmann, in all of the best ways possible. This comparison is almost too perfect when you compare Myrtle with Ullmann's Elisabet Vogler in Persona, a stage actress who suffers a mental break after being exposed to violence. Although Bergman did not act in his own movies, one of his stable of stalwart performers would often stand in as a cipher of sorts for him. Cassavetes, however, often plays an incidental character in his films, such as Myrtle's acting colleague and sometimes lover, Maurice Aarons in Opening Night. That brings us to the relationship between stage and film. The story goes that when Cassavetes and Rowlands conceived of the idea for A Woman Under the Influence, that it was originally intended to be a stage play. When Rowlands expressed concerns about the necessity for performing with emotional rawness several times a week, they opted to make it a movie instead. Now, compare this with Myrtle's crisis in Opening Night, along with that oft-quoted statement of Ingmar Bergman's, comparing theater to his "wife" and movies to his "mistress", and you can see even more similarities between them emerging. Bergman was often fond of exposing the creative process in his films, such as the disintegrating film stock in Persona or open interviews with his actors in the midst of The Passion of Anna. In that same metafictional way, Cassavetes dramatizes the backstage work in producing a stage play, adding a thick layer of verisimilitude to Opening Night which makes the accompanying drama all the more authentic. And, for me, one of the most obvious comparisons comes from their focus on faces. Compare the number of close-ups in Opening Night alone versus other movies, and you can tell that Cassavetes puts a premium on an actor's nuanced performance...putting on full display just how much they buy in to their character's emotion and feeling. This is what brings that crucial human component to movies like his, making them so much more than just having pretty people perform the plot. This is drama! Bergman understood faces better than most. Heck, both men have made films that explicitly draw attention to faces by way of their titles (namely Cassavetes' Faces and Bergman's Persona). But putting aside this extensive comparison between these two giants of filmmaking, Opening Night feels like it draws from personal experience in the craft to deliver a unique story that has evidently inspired others. Just look at Alejandro González Iñárritu's Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) and Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan, notably in the way that it explores the breakdown of identity by a "haunted" actor (literally or figuratively, it remains deliciously ambiguous) by the spirit of another--in Myrtle's case, this is an obsessed fan named Nancy Stein (Laura Johnson).
Myrtle Gordon is an acclaimed stage and movie actress, performing in a production of a play titled "The Second Woman", penned by a sixty-five year old playwright named Sarah Goode (Joan Blondell). After a performance in New Haven, Connecticut--during a run preceding their next destination, Broadway--Myrtle is swarmed by voracious fans (including Nancy) outside of the theater. Nancy is overwrought with joy at meeting Myrtle, to the point where she openly weeps and embraces the actress. But the most affecting event follows shortly thereafter as Nancy is struck by a passing vehicle in the street while standing outside of Myrtle's departing limousine. Myrtle and company see the whole thing, but it seems strange that it is only Myrtle who is affected by the violent loss of life. Given how much alcohol is imbibed by the crew of this production, one might be inclined to chalk up their indifference to inebriation. But this moment becomes a catalyst for Myrtle, who suddenly finds herself in a state of self-examination. She begins to lose focus in rehearsals, drinks even more than before, and--most worrying of all--begins to see a manifestation of Nancy, one that grows increasingly confrontational. Myrtle starts seeing similarities between "The Second Woman" and her own life. She becomes more self-conscious of her age, and how her character, "Victoria", is a woman whose age is leading to her losing agency over her life. Sarah explains that the title alludes to this, but it takes on yet another dimension with the emergence of "Nancy". Is Nancy a ghost, or just a figment of Myrtle's increasingly disintegrating psyche? Consider how characters like Maurice talk to Myrtle in a way that feels more like dialogue from a play instead--deliberately stilted or unnatural at times. Is Myrtle envisioning her life like a stage drama? Then there is the metaphorically incestuous nature of relationships in the theater. Myrtle appears to have had open relationships with Maurice, Manny (who is married), and even with her play's producer, David Samuels (Paul Stewart), at different points, yet they all maintain a working relationship. "Victoria" has also had several loves--past and present--in "The Second Woman"; and so, like Myrtle, it becomes disorienting for the audience to try and figure out just where her heart lies. Between all of these affairs, all of the booze, and the onset of a mid-life crisis, it's safe to say that Myrtle is dealing with a lot--more than she can handle. Nancy thus represents a manifestation (again, literal and figurative) of her primal doubts and fears, of the feeling that she is losing who she is, both to her role and to time itself. She begrudgingly sees a version of her future in Sarah--someone who has at last come to terms with her age, even though she drives a loud, bright red Trans Am. (Perhaps a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor.) So despite her proclamations to the contrary, Sarah becomes the closest thing Myrtle has to a "friend". Things start getting out of hand once Nancy attacks Myrtle...or is it Myrtle attacking herself? To the outside observer--as Sarah is in one instance--there is no difference. Myrtle is falling apart because what has made up the core of her being has withered away. Her only solution: being true to who she is. Can she save herself from living in the shadow of her past persona? (All very Jungian, to be sure.) This accounts for the tonally anachronistic ending to Opening Night, which instead of culminating in a violent slap from Maurice's stage character (as we've been led to expect), is improvised as a "Honeymooners"-esque routine of comedic banter. And because we, like the audience of the play, don't truly know just how it was supposed to end, we have to rely on the expressions of Manny, Sarah, and David to ascertain that this finale was as unexpected for them as it was for us. Maurice hints at this coup before he and the drunk-as-a-skunk Myrtle (or was she merely...acting drunk?) take the stage. It is the only cure that works; as they say, "laughter is the best medicine". It restores Myrtle and exorcising the demons. For some--nay, for many--it is only when we perform that we can truly be ourselves. I think that John Cassavetes saw this, and that's why Opening Night still resonates with us on a core level, as it is with many of his films.
Recommended for: Fans of a compelling and self-aware drama, sometimes (owing to the ambiguous "haunting") referred to as an "arthouse horror" movie. Audiences looking for a movie that has informed and been informed by auteurs exploring the high cost for performers in embodying another persona in totum could do worse than Opening Night, a lot worse. Another great example of why John Cassavetes is a big deal for film buffs, especially for DIY types.
Myrtle Gordon is an acclaimed stage and movie actress, performing in a production of a play titled "The Second Woman", penned by a sixty-five year old playwright named Sarah Goode (Joan Blondell). After a performance in New Haven, Connecticut--during a run preceding their next destination, Broadway--Myrtle is swarmed by voracious fans (including Nancy) outside of the theater. Nancy is overwrought with joy at meeting Myrtle, to the point where she openly weeps and embraces the actress. But the most affecting event follows shortly thereafter as Nancy is struck by a passing vehicle in the street while standing outside of Myrtle's departing limousine. Myrtle and company see the whole thing, but it seems strange that it is only Myrtle who is affected by the violent loss of life. Given how much alcohol is imbibed by the crew of this production, one might be inclined to chalk up their indifference to inebriation. But this moment becomes a catalyst for Myrtle, who suddenly finds herself in a state of self-examination. She begins to lose focus in rehearsals, drinks even more than before, and--most worrying of all--begins to see a manifestation of Nancy, one that grows increasingly confrontational. Myrtle starts seeing similarities between "The Second Woman" and her own life. She becomes more self-conscious of her age, and how her character, "Victoria", is a woman whose age is leading to her losing agency over her life. Sarah explains that the title alludes to this, but it takes on yet another dimension with the emergence of "Nancy". Is Nancy a ghost, or just a figment of Myrtle's increasingly disintegrating psyche? Consider how characters like Maurice talk to Myrtle in a way that feels more like dialogue from a play instead--deliberately stilted or unnatural at times. Is Myrtle envisioning her life like a stage drama? Then there is the metaphorically incestuous nature of relationships in the theater. Myrtle appears to have had open relationships with Maurice, Manny (who is married), and even with her play's producer, David Samuels (Paul Stewart), at different points, yet they all maintain a working relationship. "Victoria" has also had several loves--past and present--in "The Second Woman"; and so, like Myrtle, it becomes disorienting for the audience to try and figure out just where her heart lies. Between all of these affairs, all of the booze, and the onset of a mid-life crisis, it's safe to say that Myrtle is dealing with a lot--more than she can handle. Nancy thus represents a manifestation (again, literal and figurative) of her primal doubts and fears, of the feeling that she is losing who she is, both to her role and to time itself. She begrudgingly sees a version of her future in Sarah--someone who has at last come to terms with her age, even though she drives a loud, bright red Trans Am. (Perhaps a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor.) So despite her proclamations to the contrary, Sarah becomes the closest thing Myrtle has to a "friend". Things start getting out of hand once Nancy attacks Myrtle...or is it Myrtle attacking herself? To the outside observer--as Sarah is in one instance--there is no difference. Myrtle is falling apart because what has made up the core of her being has withered away. Her only solution: being true to who she is. Can she save herself from living in the shadow of her past persona? (All very Jungian, to be sure.) This accounts for the tonally anachronistic ending to Opening Night, which instead of culminating in a violent slap from Maurice's stage character (as we've been led to expect), is improvised as a "Honeymooners"-esque routine of comedic banter. And because we, like the audience of the play, don't truly know just how it was supposed to end, we have to rely on the expressions of Manny, Sarah, and David to ascertain that this finale was as unexpected for them as it was for us. Maurice hints at this coup before he and the drunk-as-a-skunk Myrtle (or was she merely...acting drunk?) take the stage. It is the only cure that works; as they say, "laughter is the best medicine". It restores Myrtle and exorcising the demons. For some--nay, for many--it is only when we perform that we can truly be ourselves. I think that John Cassavetes saw this, and that's why Opening Night still resonates with us on a core level, as it is with many of his films.
Recommended for: Fans of a compelling and self-aware drama, sometimes (owing to the ambiguous "haunting") referred to as an "arthouse horror" movie. Audiences looking for a movie that has informed and been informed by auteurs exploring the high cost for performers in embodying another persona in totum could do worse than Opening Night, a lot worse. Another great example of why John Cassavetes is a big deal for film buffs, especially for DIY types.