(John Cassavetes, US 1977, 144 min.)
Myrtle (Gena Rowlands), an actress approaching middle age, undergoes an emotional upheaval during rehearsals for her new play. While Myrtle falls apart, the show’s director (Ben Gazzara), author (Joan Blondell), and co-star (John Cassavetes) do all they can to keep the production together. Cassavetes’ most directly personal work on the nature of acting and show business also provides another remarkable tour de force for Rowlands.
Program Notes
One of the most remarkable of John Cassavetes’ qualities as a filmmaker was the enthusiasm he had for his art. That never seems to have left him, even as the hardships of working on his own terms took their toll. Opening Night shows good evidence of that. After facing numerous difficulties in the production and distribution of the picture, Cassavetes never doubted that he had made something good and worthwhile, never stopped believing in himself, his methods or his creation. In an interview to a local LA television station, frustrated by his practically aborted attempts to release the film in the US, he would rant, “This picture is terrific. Everyone should see this movie because it’s better than anything out!” He followed up this statement by saying, “I take a lot of pride in this film.” (Cassavetes, Carney 430)
The idea for making a backstage drama called Opening Night came to John Cassavetes in the 1960s. He had many ideas and wrote several scripts that would never make it to the screen and did not usually dust off old material. But in 1976, as he was about to release The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, the filmmaker decided to resume his old script and give it a whole new dimension. Mentioning his intention of making Opening Night with his wife, actress Gena Rowlands, in a New York Times interview in 1968, he referred to it as “a movie exploring a woman’s fantasies.” (Fine 337) Now, in the late 1970s, Rowlands and Cassavetes were in their forties, having to face the effects of aging on their careers, their craft and their personal lives. Rowlands would play Myrtle Gordon, a successful stage and film actress working in a play she cannot bring herself to like and having to play a character with whom she feels unable to identify.
To complete the cast, Cassavetes wanted his old friend Seymour Cassel to play Maurice Aarons, the other actor in the play as well as Myrtle’s old flame, and Bette Davis in the part of Sarah Goode, the age-obsessed playwright. For himself he reserved the part of the director, Manny Victor. When Cassel and Davis proved unavailable, he decided to play Maurice and cast Joan Blondell, another old Hollywood star, for the part of Sarah. Manny Victor would be played by another familiar face in Cassavetes’ films, Ben Gazzara. Paul Stewart, a member of Orson Welles’ Mercury Theater, who had been in Citizen Kane (1941) and in Cassavetes’ own A Child Is Waiting (1963), was cast as the producer of the play. For the very important part of the young woman who haunts Myrtle, Nancy Stein, the director chose the unknown Laura Johnson right off the streets. She was not an actress, but so reminded him of a younger Gena Rowlands that he went as far as paying for her acting lessons.
Cassavetes was producing the film with his own money, and there was little of it. A few economic measures had to be made. The crew had to be non-union. The extras needed to be the audience of the play, filling some 700 seats, were recruited by ads in the newspaper and on the radio. All they got was a free KFC lunch. The Screen Extras Guild was not amused, but there was no other way. As a result, the filmmaker had numerous problems with the unions throughout the shoot and when the film opened. Still, the money ran out about six weeks into production. Shooting had do be halted. Cassavetes was forced to free his cast and crew without knowing whether he would be able to finish the film. He told them he would understand if they accepted other job offers in the meantime. No one did. It took him almost a month, but the filmmaker was able to take out a loan and resume filming.
Releasing Opening Night was another ordeal. American distribution companies wanted no part of it and Cassavetes was forced to do it himself. But booking and promoting took a great deal of money that he did not have, so the film was never properly released in its own country, as had been the case with Chinese Bookie. Europe was a different matter. The film had successful runs in several countries, winning critical acclaim and earning Gena Rowlands the Best Actress award in the Berlin Film Festival. “Europeans are more appreciative of my work than Americans… You get points for originality there. They believe in art in France” (Cassavetes, Carney 433), he would say. In 1999, Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar would pay homage to Opening Night in his All About My Mother, recreating one of its scenes and dedicating the film to Gena Rowlands.
~Tatiana Carvalho, Student, L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation
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