Skip to main content
Gloria film image; little boy holding onto a woman in a street

Gena Rowlands was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrait of gangster’s moll Gloria Swenson: a tough, chain-smoking broad who’s run with the mob all her life, but now finds herself running from it to protect her next door neighbour’s orphaned six-year-old kid. And she hates kids. This one especially. It’s a gift of a part and Rowlands (whose favourite actress was Bette Davis) eats it up. Winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, the movie is the odd one out in Cassavetes’ filmography in its romanticism and escapist underpinnings, but it’s also a terrific New York movie, pulsing with aggravation and hard boiled as they come.

I’m a feminist in that I’ve been a self-supporting woman since I was eighteen years old. I am a wife to a husband; I’m a mother to three children. I am not a cupcake actress – though I have nothing against them and I don’t mean that to sound condescending. My emphasis in life is deeply split between these two things – to be an actress and to be a mother. It’s a great conflict in my life.

Gena Rowlands


It’s clear from the opening montage that we’re in the hands of a master.

Geoff Andrew, Time Out

A powerful, exhilarating piece of work which whirls through its changes from humour to violence so skilfully that it seems to be all over much too soon.

Meaghan Morris, Sydney Morning Herald

Playing a fearless, harsh-talking broad, a female Lee Marvin, Gena Rowlands discovers things she’s never done for Cassavetes in the past: a flair for blunt comedy, a stiff-shouldered walk, a way of dropping acid remarks from the corner of her mouth.

David Denby, New York magazine

Director

John Cassavetes

Cast

Gena Rowlands, John Adames, Julie Carmen

Credits
Country of Origin

USA

Year

1980

Language

English

Awards

Golden Lion, Venice Film Festival

Nominee: Academy Award for Best Actress, Gena Rowlands

19+
121 min

Book Tickets

Sunday May 11

7:30 pm
Hearing Assistance
VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema
Book Now

Tuesday May 13

4:00 pm
Hearing Assistance
VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema
Book Now

Credits

Screenwriter

John Cassavetes

Cinematography

Fred Schuler

Editor

George C. Villaseñor

Original Music

Bill Conti

Art Director

Rene D’Auriac

Also in This Series

Dedicated to one of the most inspiring and influential American actresses of the past half century, this series showcases the versatility and star power that was Gena Rowlands.

Faces

Dir. John Cassavetes
130 min

Ten years after his landmark debut, Shadows, John Cassavetes returned to the indie model, self-financing this wrenching portrait of the sexual mores and miseries of American middle class. Gena Rowlands is luminous as Jeannie, the film's emotional barometer.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

A Woman Under the Influence

Dir. John Cassavetes
155 min

Gena Rowlands is extraordinary in this painful and compassionate trial of love, the most intense and essential movie from legendary independent filmmaker John Cassavetes. "The toughest of all great American films." Kent Jones

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Minnie and Moskowitz

Dir. John Cassavetes
114 min

John Cassavetes' deliciously witty take on Hollywood romance is a modern screwball comedy, a mismatched love story between a car park attendant (Seymour Cassel) and a museum administator (Gena Rowlands) who believes herelf to be too good for him.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Gloria

Dir. John Cassavetes
121 min

Gena Rowlands was nominated for Best Actress for her portrait of gangster's moll Gloria Swenson: a tough, chain-smoking broad who finds herself running from her former friends in the mob to protect her next door neighbour's orphaned six-year-old kid.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Opening Night

Dir. John Cassavetes
144 min

Gena Rowlands plays aging stage actress Myrtle Gordon in this self-reflexive ghost story by John Cassavetes.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Love Streams

Dir. John Cassavetes
140 min

The last movie Gena Rowlands and John Cassavetes made together is an eccentrically beautiful, painful piece about a writer (Cassavetes) broken out of his self-imposed exile by the arrival of a son he doesn't know, and a sister he hasn't seen in years.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Another Woman

Dir. Woody Allen
77 min

Gena Rowlands as philosophy teacher whose meticulously controlled life begins to unravel after she starts to eavesdrop on a psychotherapist's sessions.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Night on Earth

Dir. Jim Jarmusch
128 min

Gena Rowlands takes a cab driven by Winona Ryder in this low-key charmer from Jim Jarmusch, one of five taxi rides around the globe, each ending with a sliver of insight and understanding.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema