Archival Print!

Introduced by Rob Nilsson

Shadows's charmed moment is that in which Ben Carruthers and two pals careen through the sculpture garden at MOMA, humorously critiquing the works-only to be caught short by the reflection of their own pain in the statues. Husbands brings that romp out of the Modern into middle age. Suburban buddies Cassavetes, Ben Gazzara, and Peter Falk go off on a forty–eight–hour bender after the funeral of a fourth friend brings them within spitting distance of their own mortality. The spree takes them as far as London, but only brings them closer than ever to the death's–face they dread. Falk and Gazzara were never better than in their work with Cassavetes, and Husbands puts their method in focus: it is less a question of improvisation than of a collective search for character. The film is savagely funny and most inescapably expressive in its characters' failed attempts at expression. In a work very much about love, Falk, Gazzara, and Cassavetes are most admirable for being decidedly unlovable.