A one-sentence synopsis of the John Cassavetes film Husbands might read something like: “Three married assholes combat mid-life crises and their own mortality with a booze-filled jaunt to London.” Such a simple dismissal could be appropriate if you’re not familiar with the wrenching, even crippling, films Cassavetes directed, like Faces and A Woman Under the Influence, or if you don’t care for his unique and challenging style. As a filmmaker, Cassavetes is a divisive figure. The most apt word I know when describing his films is “raw,” melting away all that is left of the human soul until we’re left with both the painful and the joyous and none of the interstitial irrelevancies. Life and truth and the pretentious arrogance of art all come together for a couple of hours so that viewers can feel more human, and less alone in the world. Understandably, this is not what many people would classify as entertainment, the main thing I’d guess most audience members are looking for when they watch a movie.

Admittedly, his films even divide my own competing needs for substance and satisfaction and their brilliance seems borne out of the same place that causes self-indulgence and bloated running times. A signature Cassavetes film, to me, leaves the viewer in a far worse mood by the end than however he or she felt prior to watching it. His movies are not so much enjoyable experiences as they are necessary ones, substituting a searching numbness for the typical overwrought disposability found elsewhere. Regardless, there’s no sense of regret over the emotional scars we get from Cassavetes’ films when we’re also given such revealing peeks into the human condition. We may be hurt by what he shows us, but we know we’re better off for having seen it. That awkward nerve he’s unafraid of striking over and over is one mostly ignored in mainstream movies.

The way Cassavetes tends to accomplish this is by creating flawed, real people with natural problems and experiences. It’s not exactly true to everyone’s life, but it still resonates as far closer to reality than more conventional movies. Pain and sadness aren’t accentuated by pop songs or a swelling orchestra. There’s no requirement for redemption or absolute coherence. As in Husbands, most, maybe all, of the main characters in Cassavetes’ films are, indeed, easily and accurately described as assholes, often selfish, insensitive and/or puzzled at where it all went wrong. The striking exception is Gena Rowlands’ Mabel in A Woman Under the Influence, and her reward is debilitating mental illness.

With Husbands, we have three such protagonists, Gus (played by Cassavetes), Harry (Ben Gazzara), and Archie (Peter Falk). The opening credits describe the picture as “a comedy about life death and freedom, ” but it’s mighty difficult to leave these guys with a smile on your face. The film opens with a photo montage of the men horsing around with their families and a fourth friend, whose funeral is the first thing we see taking place. It ends with Gus returning to his family and a black screen. No “The End” because there is no end, perhaps. In between, we see the fragile lives of the three men come full circle over only a few days. We learn Harry’s wife doesn’t love him and Archie has a happy marriage despite feeling his wife is an inadequate lover. All three are weak, arrogant, and childish, skirting responsibilities in favor of drunken all-nighters and a spontaneous trip to London. They’re also charming, likeable, and funny, and, for much of the film, the viewer may see them as sympathetic. These are men we’ve known at some point in our lives, maybe as friends or maybe even a little too much like ourselves.

Following the funeral, Harry, Gus and Archie go out for drinks and end up amidst a group of individuals taking turns singing a song of their choice. It’s a great scene, embodying much of what makes Husbands so compelling and frustrating. The three men are jovial and completely believable as long-time pals. Gazzara is hilarious as he berates the lack of passion in the lady sitting next to him. Falk has an inspired moment where he strips naked and Cassavetes is basically holding court throughout, directing even while playing his role. Again, they’re assholes, but you enjoy watching them. At the same time, it’s remarkable how long Cassavetes the director stays with the scene, allowing song after song with little concern for advancing the “plot.” This indifference to cinematic norms is striking and effectively gives us more than simply a snapshot of the three men at the center of the film.

By devoting so much time to an otherwise ordinary event in these people’s lives, Cassavetes let’s us get to know the characters with little dialogue or action. Falk’s Archie is the most submissive - still volatile, but easily swayed by the other two. (His lack of suavity is later on full display when the men visit a gambling hall in London and Archie has a couple of priceless encounters with women of a certain age.) Both Harry and Gus appear more confident and gregarious, traits later confirmed as the film progresses. They’re also incredibly selfish individuals and not really very good friends to one another. When a sick Archie begs to be alone in the bathroom, Gus laughs at him and refuses to leave the stall while an unsympathetic Harry is in and out of the room clutching his beer. It’s not that they don’t like each other or regret being friends. No, these men, as we see them, are incapable of being good friends or good husbands to anyone, and the short time we spend with Harry and his wife only furthers the idea that these men are basically pathetic creatures unable to cope with the responsibilities of aging.

With the death of their fourth wheel and disintegration of Harry’s marriage, the solution becomes a journey for alcohol, gambling, and women in London. We see each character’s attempts to charm members of the opposite sex and various stages of their clumsy seductions. It’s almost impossible, I’d think, to watch Husbands with an audience and not feel uncomfortable twinges at the purposefully overlong sequence of ambiguous and violent foreplay between Cassavetes’ Gus and his English one-night stand Mary, played by Jenny Runacre. “When is this going to end and how far is Cassavetes (whether as actor or director) going to take it,” I thought to myself. But it’s exactly this type of interactive dialogue between what’s on the screen and the viewer that makes his films so exhilarating decades after they were made. The contrast between what Gus wanted from Mary and Archie’s completely different needs from the woman he’s brought back to the hotel is played absolutely brilliantly. Violent, chaotic camera movements in the former transition to a still, almost frozen framing by the camera on the latter.

A common reaction, knowing that Cassavetes, Gazzara, and Falk were very close in real life, especially after filming Husbands, might be to wonder just how much the film mirrors the actual relationships and personalities of the three stars. It’s likely that much of the dialogue was improvised, either while filming or during rehearsal, but it’s not very helpful to speculate beyond the idea that each actor was playing a character they helped shape while performing alongside two men they socialized with and knew away from the camera. From reading several articles and watching the many interviews with the director on Criterion’s essential John Cassavetes - Five Films box set, plus knowing that he died from cirrhosis of the liver at 59, my impressions of Cassavetes lead me to think he was absolutely similar to the character he plays in Husbands. That’s all anyone who didn’t know him personally can really come away knowing though. If anything, the idea that we’re seeing the three actors play their roles through a murky mirror only makes the film more brave and affecting.

As with other Cassavetes films, like Shadows, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, and, to a lesser extent, Love Streams, there are multiple versions of Husbands. The original cut debuted at the San Francisco Film Festival at 154 minutes and was reportedly met with many audience members walking out before it was over. Apparently a portion of the material that was cut prior to the film’s general release consisted of added vomiting footage when Falk feels sick in the bar bathroom. The running time on IMDB has 138 minutes for the original release and 131 minutes for a television version. Columbia did release the film on VHS (though I’ve not seen it) and listed 140 minutes as the running time.

The print I recently saw projected theatrically at the Museum of the Moving Image was advertised to be 154 minutes, but actually ran closer to the 131 minutes IMDB lists for the television version. Cassavetes’ widow, Gena Rowlands, has apparently made sure that only the shorter cut be in circulation. Currently, there isn’t an official DVD release on the horizon for any version anywhere the world, with Sony controlling the rights in R1. It goes without saying that such an omission is extremely disappointing, but also unsurprising given Sony’s lackadaisical treatment of back catalog titles on DVD.