FILM / VIDEO : Cassavetes Put ‘Woman’ Under the Microscope in ’74

The recent news that “A Woman Under the Influence” is finally out on home video, nearly 20 years after it was made, had me thinking about the first time I saw John Cassavetes’ movie.

It was 1975, about a year following “Woman’s” theatrical debut, and I was in the middle of a 14-month backpacking tour of Europe.

I had just landed on Corfu, a lush Greek island known for the brilliance of its summer fireflies, and was surprised to find the film screening in a nearby village.

The theater was a converted church, not unlike the ornate movie house in “Cinema Paradiso,” and was packed with locals, mostly farmers and fishermen and their sizable families. I and a couple of Brits I met in Rome may have been the only English-speaking folks. The film was subtitled in Greek, but that didn’t help much. Besides a rash of confused looks, there was a spate of gasps and even a laugh or two during Gena Rowlands’ huge performance as a wife who, despite an apparently comfortable life, suffers a breakdown.

Afterward, I had a few glasses of retsina, the Greek wine made from pine needles, with some of the head-scratchers. They didn’t get it at all; how could a woman living in golden America without any real soul-crushing demands go crazy?

These people didn’t have time for such extravagance; work had to be done and kids had to be fed. “Woman” was yanked two days later, replaced, I think, by an anonymous spaghetti Western.

The movie, of course, played a little better elsewhere, especially in urban centers both in the States and Europe, where neuroses and compulsion seem to be natural extensions of a more complicated society. I doubt any of those Corfu natives know that Rowlands went on to receive an Academy Award nomination for best actress, and her husband, Cassavetes, picked up a best director nomination.

“Woman” can now be seen as a logical extension of what Cassavetes, considered by many to be a pioneering filmmaker, did throughout his career. It examines a facet of domestic life, rudely (and, stylistically, crudely) trying to expose the dark heart of the matter.

The film centers on Rowlands, who plays a wife whose middle-class family responsibilities and inherent emotional frailty lead to a nervous collapse. Her husband, played by Peter Falk, is essentially a good but unknowing bystander, powerless to help.

The movie has legions of devotees, especially among those who see Cassavetes’ career as an example of independent thinking and exploratory technique.

I wouldn’t pick it as his best work, not by a big step, but “Woman” is an often moving and frightening depiction of slipping sanity. It does, however, suffer from an expressiveness that is so personal that we may be as confounded as the husband in interpreting the causes of his wife’s decline.

As for Rowlands’ celebrated performance, I’ve always felt it was a breathtaking case of overacting.

Still, Touchstone Home Video’s decision to release it gives Cassavetes’ admirers something to smile about. The grin gets bigger with plans to issue four other Cassavetes’ movies, including “Shadows” (1960, perhaps the director’s finest film), “The Killing of a Chinese Bookie” (1976), “Faces” (1968) and “Opening Night” (1977).

“A Woman Under the Influence” (1974), directed by John Cassavetes. 155 minutes. Rated R.