Opening Night

Broadway actress Myrtle Gordon (Gena Rowlands) rehearses for her latest play about a woman in denial at the onset of her autumn years. When she witnesses the accidental death of an adoring young fan, it leads to a crisis of confidence in both her professional and her personal life which threatens to wreck the production.

Featuring a startling and compelling performance by Gena Rowlands which won her the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the Berlin Film Festival, Opening Night is one of John Cassavetes’ most self-reflexive works, a contemplation of aging and the actor’s art of making a part your own. Myrtle’s epic battle with the playwright Sarah Goode (Hollywood veteran Joan Blondell) cuts to the heart of the filmmaker’s struggle with industry convention and conformity; Sarah believes the play is there on the page — Myrtle knows that it can only come to life if the actors transcend their lines to convey lived experience.

My favourite Cassavetes film. It has an aura, a taste, which is very explosive. It’s very raw, very distraught. Those fights in the movie feel real to me. The film is about an actress becoming crazy, which is a plot I like very much. Myrtle Gordon is an amazing character and Gena Rowlands does one of the best drunk scenes I ever saw.

Pedro Almodovar