stbeston

let's get down to answering the question posed by le tigre:
what's your take on Cassavetes?

okay, all i've seen is faces and woman under the influence so far. but extrapolating from those films...
that cassavetes is a genius is undeniable, or rather, that he is a genius within the realm of narrative cinema is undeniable, whether or not being good at making "the pictures" qualifies one as genius or not, i'm willing to debate. fuck it, he's a genius.
can geniuses also be misogynists?
lynch (david) has also been accused of misogynism, as well as many other fine male filmmakers, but cassavetes is the question...
gena rowlands in woman under the influence is probably technically insane, probably a harmful parent to her children, .. an eccentric who is sent away for 6 months for shock treatment by her dim-witted husband played on the nose by peter falk. okay, she fools around on him, she is clearly portrayed as the malevolent force within the family ( mom is evil!!) is contained by stoopid falk and friend male doctor after being penetrated by a syringe of sedatives.
in faces, rowlands is a floosy who is fought over (verbally) by a couple of men on two different occasions who succumbs both times to the more powerful, virile man (the man who cannot make love to his own wife, the man who is the ceo), the second time he takes her up on it, so to speak, leaving his wife. his wife is abandoned with the abrupt announcement of divorce, then finds young lover.. etc.
those are the playing fields... misogynist or genius... obviously these movies need to be seen before a discussion can begin.
initial signs point to non-misogynist, or at least as none misogynist as our fathers and brothers are...

for the one of you interested, i will resume this essay in the near future, just had to begin it while in the mood... feel free to join in... thoughts will collect... i'll try to develop both sides of argument with further viewings...

Master_Shake

"I'm a club owner. I deal in girls."
Cosmo Vitelli, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie

Most understated line, ever.
I think it's important to separate the films from the people who create them. Cassavetes wrote about mysoginistic characters and weak and wild women to be sure, but that doesn't necessarily mean he was mysoginistic, or that his films as a whole were.

Also, we need to define what a mysoginistic film is. Is a film mysoginistic if it portrays women in a degrading or hurtful light, or must it actively try to convince the viewer that women are weak or stupid?

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You know something, I don't think the sun even... exists... in this place. 'Cause I've been up for hours, and hours, and hours, and the night never ends here.

stbeston

i think a misogynist film is one were all information given depicts women as lesser than, or weak and stupid, as you put it.
curiously, after watching faces, i had the dvd with extra segments, including a french tv show on cassavetes, and i couldn't stand the guy. or rather, he seemed so not the director of faces. you're right, couldn't really care less if he was a misogynist, racist, necrophiliac, etc. i don't see the films as being so, either.
the thing about his movies is that he seems to reduce everybody in them to their most core passion of being, if you will, at one point or another. i think that when he does this, there is a distinction between man and woman, of course. as there should be. i just caught jean luc godards newest film, notre musique, and in one scene he is giving a lecture on film. he shows the standard cinematic counter-shot, the contrasting shots of two people talking, in this case, a man and a woman. i forgot the film and director from which the shots are from, but they look similar and godard says something to the effect, "look, here is a counter shot. they both are shot the exact same because the director doesn't know the difference between a man and a woman."
anyway, in both films i saw, the lead woman were slapped, were either left or put into an institution, were fought over like meat, etc. but really, we are dealing with the insecurities of the men in these situations, so only if you extrapolate what the characters enact to the director and to the theme of the film, which you shouldn't be able to in these cases, it's hard to identify films as misogynist.
the only blatantly misogynist film i can think of is purple rain.. ridiculous, really. i think in the first ten minutes, morris day has his "assistant" throw a girl in a trash can, prince makes a girl take off her clothes and jump in a river then drives off in his bike, and later he confronts her on the streets and tears off her jacket left standing there in her undies.
basically this conversation was started as a cute response to the le tigre song, what's your take on cassavetes, and as bait for other cassavetes fans to show themselves.
alright, read next post for the blade 3 reviews.