John Cassavetes – Bitch Flicks

This guest post by Rhianna Shaheen appears as part of our theme week on Bad Mothers.

In John Cassavetes’ Gloria (1980), the title character must overcome a seemingly insurmountable obstacle: motherhood. Well, not exactly. When the mob wipes out a Bronx family, their neighbor Gloria (Gena Rowlands) suddenly becomes responsible for their 7-year old, Phil (John Adames). It’s more like forced guardianship, but the film constantly hints at her symbolic motherhood to the boy. Even when she’s pleading for Phil’s life, her gangster ex-boyfriend undermines her argument with the inevitable mother-son formula:

“I understand. You are a woman. He is a little boy. You fall in love. Every woman is a mother. You love him.”

Every woman is a mother? Yeah, no thanks. If Gloria is a “mother” to Phil then she’s also a lifetime member to the Bad Moms Club. In the beginning, Jeri, Phil’s real mom, calls on Gloria to take her kids. She tells Gloria that their family is “marked” by the mob. A gangster even waits in the lobby. Jeri begs her to protect her kids to which Gloria bluntly responds: “I hate kids, especially yours.” Despite her tough-talk, this ex-gun moll, ex-showgirl reluctantly agrees.

In her apartment, before the impending hit on his family, Gloria has difficulty relating to Phil. He’s aware that his family is in trouble, but she neither comforts nor coddles this soon-to-be orphan: “You want to play 20 questions? How about watching the TV for a while?” She doesn’t know how to talk to kids.

Neither of these characters wants to be in the same room together.

After a loud explosion, signifying the murder of his family, Phil is in shock: “I want my father! Papi! I hate you, you stupid person!” Gloria, shaken, now understands the gravity of the situation but still lacks the sensitivity to support him:

“I don’t know what to do with you, kid. My poor cat. What do I do with you? You know, you’re not my family or anything. You’re just the neighbor’s kid right?”

It’s both shocking and humorous. His entire family was just murdered, but she can only think of herself and her cat? To her defense, she didn’t sign up for this. She isn’t Daddy Warbucks. She’s a childless, single lady by choice.

Gloria loves her life. She loves her friends. She loves her cat. She saved all of her life so she could have some money. In one moment, she’s expected to just give all that away. She doesn’t want to die for this kid. Does that make her an unnatural woman? Or a rather flawed human being?

“Me, I’m not a mother. I’m one of those sensations. I was always a broad. Can’t stand the sight of milk.”

Not only does she lack so-called maternal instincts but also basic cooking skills. When she attempts to make eggs for Phil she inevitably becomes frustrated and burns them. This scene echoes a similar breakfast disaster in Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) in which newly single father Dustin Hoffman attempts to make breakfast for his son. However, Gloria is a woman, and thus belongs to generation and socioeconomic background that would demand woman to know how to cook. Thus she is even further stigmatized as a bad mother.

Gloria’s first attempt at performing “motherly” duties.

Gloria also shifts between wanting to abandon and wanting to protect the child when things gets tough. At one point she tells him to run home: “Run as fast as you can.” She walks a few steps with him, and then turns around, telling him to go. Although her attempt at abandonment is awful we understand her frustration. She cannot turn him into the police, because she’s been arrested. She also cannot turn on the mob, because they’re old friends of hers.

Regardless, Phil continues to follow her. He sees her as a substitute mother even if she’s a lousy one. Then when a group of gangsters confronts them on the street, Gloria must finally make a choice. It’s an opportunity to walk away, but instead she shoots the men, forever sealing her fate with Phil’s.

It’s a heroic act that speaks more to her humanity than to her ability to be a mother. While her feelings for him are at times ambivalent, Gloria ultimately commits herself to the boy’s survival. She empties her safety deposit box, changes hotels each night, and pistol-whips gangsters all for Phil. Together on the run, Gloria acts more like a partner-in-crime than a mother. Despite his efforts to be “the man” in this pairing Phil lets go of his hyper-masculine anxieties once he witnesses the toughness of this badass woman. She teaches him how to survive in this unfathomable New York environment.

Although there seems a desire to fulfill the mother-son mythos, the film does not explore their relationship in such clichéd terms as its 1999 remake. It lacks the sentimentality but has all the heart and truth to it.

As Cassavetes himself puts it:

“[…] these characters go on the basis that there are certain emotions and rules that go beyond words and assurances. They just know. […] Even when they’re thrown together, they don’t pretend to care about each other, it’s because of their personal trust and regard.” (from Cassavetes on Cassavetes)

“It was about a woman who beyond her control stood up for a kid whom she wanted nothing to do with […]”

However, in his discussion of the film, Cassavetes also evokes the same mythos and stereotypes that Gloria attempts to refute:

“I wanted to tell women that they don’t have to like children – but there’s still something deep in them that relates to children, and this separates them from men in a good way. This inner understanding of kids is something very deep in them that relates to children, and this separates them from men in a good way.”

Despite this backpedal into maternal instinct bullshit, I think Cassavetes has good intentions. In the end, Gloria is not defined by her ability to mother or understand this child (whatever that means) but by her heroism and humanity (not that those are mutually exclusive). Her desire to protect this helpless child is rather mistaken for motherhood.

Let’s consider Luc Besson’s Léon: The Professional (1994). A New York hitman shelters a 12-year old girl after her family is murdered by corrupt DEA agents. It’s almost an exact replica of Gloria except with the gender roles reversed and the cult film status. Instead of a father/daughter relationship, this unlikely pair acts as teacher/protégée. In fact, there is no mention of fatherhood at any time. Some pedophiliac undertones? Maybe. But no paternal transition.

Despite these double standards, Gloria represents an important cultural touchstone that is often overlooked. Released at the end of Second-Wave Feminism, the political relevance of this film is undeniable. It not only exposes the absurdities of gender norms but also captures the nuanced relationship women have with this idea of “motherhood.”

Rhianna Shaheen is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College with a BA in Fine Arts and Minor in Film Studies and Art History. Check her out on twitter!

Written by Rachael Johnson.

It was announced earlier this week that the Los Angeles Film Critics Association is to honor Gena Rowlands with its 2014 Career Achievement Award. Long overdue, no doubt, but perhaps the well-deserved attention will encourage people to revisit her impressive work. Most associated with the films she did with her husband, the ground-breaking independent director, John Cassavetes, Rowlands is an exceptionally talented and courageous actor. I must admit that I did not fully appreciate her talent until I experienced her extraordinary turn in A Woman Under The Influence. It’s not only Rowland’s finest performance; it is, unquestionably, one of the greatest cinematic performances of all time.

John Cassavetes with Gena Rowlands and Peter Falk

Both written and directed by Cassavetes, A Woman Under The Influence deals with non-conformity, mental illness, and the family. It’s also a considerably sympathetic examination of the socio-cultural role of women. Rowlands plays Mabel Longhetti, a mother of three young children, and wife to construction worker, Nick (played by Peter Falk). Mabel is a lively, spontaneous, somewhat charismatic woman, but it is clear from the very start, that she is psychologically unstable. She is feverish performing the most ordinary of tasks, such as getting the kids ready to visit their grandmother, or preparing pasta for her husband’s co-workers. Cassavetes seems to indicate that Mabel’s mental illness is an extreme form of non-conformity; her unrestrained behavior includes flirting with one of her husband’s co-workers directly in front of him. Although an uninhibited soul, Mabel is a deeply vulnerable woman who is consumed by her role as a wife, and mother. She wants to make everything right, but it is all too much. Perhaps she also feels that she has lost her very self. Her husband is characterized as a loving, traditionally masculine type who often responds to his wife’s extroverted ways, and unstable behaviour with frustration, and, sometimes, aggression. Mabel is, eventually, hospitalized for six months, and we see Nick struggle to perform his paternal role. In that it recognizes that that Mabel’s condition has both a psychological and social source, A Woman Under The Influence manifests a certain feminist awareness.

Rowland flawlessly channels Mabel’s open and exposed self, as well as her extraordinary intensity. She mines all aspects of her character, and deeply empathizes with her condition. Although she plays a woman whose condition issues from self-consciousness, specifically self-alienation, it is not a self-conscious performance. There are no gimmicks or false notes. Rowlands fully inhabits the role. She is, simply, Mabel, in all her complexity.

Unlike most American movies, A Woman Under The Influence does not romanticize non-conformity and mental illness. Cassavetes’s masterpiece is worlds apart from the likes of A Beautiful Mind (2001) and Silver Linings Playbook (2012). Frankly, it makes those films look totally fake. Unlike most Hollywood movies, it, equally, does not paint a sanitized portrait of the nuclear family. Cinematic depictions of struggling parents and young children are often unduly sentimental and exploitative but Cassavetes never falls into that trap. Although the family’s often heart-breaking story is sympathetically told, the director does not manipulate his viewers. Nor does he sugarcoat the bad stuff. He completely immerses us in the life of the family. We literally live with them. The nuclear family is vividly, and accurately, characterized as a psychic, and literal site of love, want, humor, hate, and sickness. Very few films about the domestic space have so effectively captured its unceasing tensions, and complexities. Note too that Cassavetes never judges his characters. He portrays their intimate, authentic selves. Contemporary audiences may also find the socio-cultural setting unusual too: A Woman Under The Influence is an American film about a working-class family.

A Woman Under The Influence is Cassavetes’s most powerful, and greatest film. Peter Falk’s naturalistic, and vivid portrayal of Nick should also be acknowledged but it is Gena Rowlands’s performance that stands out. It is up there with Brando in On The Waterfront, Streep in Sophie’s Choice, and de Niro in Raging Bull. In short, it is a performance for the ages.

Tag: John Cassavetes

The Accidental Motherhood of ‘Gloria’