Sightlines · reception
How Faces was received
1968 · John Cassavetes · Faces on Sightlines
The arc
Shot on 16mm in Cassavetes' own house and edited over roughly three years, it looked like an amateur experiment — then it landed three Oscar nominations and has only grown, now enshrined as the founding document of American independent film.
What’s debated
The perennial Cassavetes fight: is the raw, drunken, faces-in-close-up marathon a transcendent emotional experience or an exhausting endurance test — and fans still wrongly argue over whether it was improvised (it was scripted).
Its footprint
It's the ur-text every American indie gets measured against — from Scorsese to mumblecore, 'Cassavetes-esque' as shorthand for raw, handheld emotional honesty starts here.
Where it stands
A Criterion-consecrated 'you must have seen this' for anyone tracing American independent cinema, and a badge-of-honor watch among Letterboxd cinephiles.
Did you know? Lynn Carlin had never acted professionally — she was working as a secretary when Cassavetes cast her — and her performance in Faces earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.