John Cassavetes' 1977 film Opening Night is, what critics usually call the work of such a significant artist, 'overlooked'. It is an excellent film, in its own right, and one of the best portraits of a midlife crisis ever put to film. It's not a perfect film, in that, at two hours and twenty four minutes it's about a half hour too long, and there's a bit too much emphasis on the drunkenness of the lead character Myrtle Gordon, played by Gena Rowlands, the wife of Cassavetes, long after we've gotten the point. But only Woody Allen's masterpiece, Another Woman, which also starred Rowlands, eleven years later, is a better portrait of the internal conflicts of an aging woman. Yet, Rowlands did win the Best Actress Award at the Berlin Film Festival for this portrayal, and it was well deserved. Often this film, written by Cassavetes, is easily compared to his earlier- and inferior- film, A Woman Under The Influence, but it's a spurious comparison. Rowlands' character in that film is severely mentally disturbed from the start, as well as coming from a blue collar background, while her characters in this film and in Allen's film are both artists who are haunted by apparitions. In this film it's the ghost of a dead young woman who can be seen as Myrtle's younger doppelganger, while in Allen's film it's her character's own past
. Many critics have taken this film to be a portrait of an alcoholic, seeing Myrtle surround herself with enablers, such as a stage manager who tells her, during opening night, 'I've seen a lot of drunks in my time, but I've never seen anyone as drunk as you who could stand up. You're great!', but this is wrong, for alcohol isn't her problem- nor is her chain smoking. They are merely diversions from whatever thing is really compelling her to her own destruction, and much to Cassavetes' credit, as a storyteller, he never lets us find out exactly what's wrong with Myrtle, and despite her coming through in the end, there's no reason to expect that she has really resolved anything of consequence. This sort of end without resolution links Cassavetes directly with the more daring European directors of the recent past, who were comfortable in not revealing everything to an audience, and forcing their viewers to cogitate, even if it hurts.
Yet, the film recapitulates perfectly the effect of a drunk or fever lifting out of the fog, and as such the viewer again is subliminally involved in its drama. Whether or not Myrtle Gordon does recover, after the film's universe irises about her is left for each and every viewer to decide, and as we have seen before that lid closes, one's choices do matter.
Yet, the film recapitulates perfectly the effect of a drunk or fever lifting out of the fog, and as such the viewer again is subliminally involved in its drama. Whether or not Myrtle Gordon does recover, after the film's universe irises about her is left for each and every viewer to decide, and as we have seen before that lid closes, one's choices do matter.