| Woman Under the Influence - Criterion Collection | 
 enlarge | Director: John Cassavetes
Actors: Gena Rowlands, Peter Falk
Studio: Criterion Collection
Category: DVD
List Price: $39.95
Buy New: $25.26
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New (35) Used (7) Collectible (1) from $25.26
Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 19847
Format: Color, Dolby, Dvd-video, Ntsc, Special Edition, Widescreen
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: Unrated
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 147
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: IMEDWOM070D
UPC: 037429198926
EAN: 0037429198926
ASIN: B0012TIWTY
Theatrical Release Date: 1974
Release Date: November 4, 2008 (New: Last 30 Days)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Five Star Seller!!! New, factory sealed US Region 1 DVD. Item is 100% guaranteed not to be a bootleg or import. Item is shipped directly from our warehouse. Easy exchange if item defective or damaged in shipped.
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| Features:
| • | New high definition transfer, with restored image and sound, and enhanced for widescreen televisions. | | • | New video conversation between actors Gena Rowlands and Peter Falk. | | • | Trailer; Audio interview with Cassavetes by film historians Michel Ciment and Michael Wilson conducted in 1975. | | • | English subtitles for the deaf and hearing impaired. | | • | Audio commentary by longtime Cassavetes collaborators Mike Ferris (camera operator) and Bo Harwood (sound recordist/composer |
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Product Description
Studio: Image Entertainment Release Date: 11/04/2008
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| Customer Reviews:
 Consider Criterion's Five-Film Cassavetes Collector's Set Instead. October 24, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
After previously releasing a definitive five-film set of John Cassavetes (Shadows / Faces / A Woman Under the Influence / The Killing of a Chinese Bookie / Opening Night ), The Criterion Collection is now releasing Cassavetes' 1974 film, A Woman Under the Influence, separately. The five-film Collector's Set is worth the investment in Cassavetes's genius. However, If I were to buy just one of the films of the Cassavete's five-box set, it would be The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, followed by A Woman Under the Influence.
Cassavetes' critically-acclaimed classic, A Woman Under the Influence (1974), stars Gena Rowland as an unhinged suburban housewife and mother, Mabel, whose uninhibited, strange behavior leads her bigoted and bewildered husband, Nick Longhetti (Peter Falk, Columbo), to commit her to a mental hospital for treatment, leaving the family even more dysfunctional than before (though that term was not in use at the time). Nick and Mabel Longhetti may be in love, but they do not belong together, and by the end of the two-and-a-half hour film, viewers will find themselves emotionally exhausted by the two. The film was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actress and Best Director.
The Criterion edition of A Woman Under the Influence features a newly restored high-definition digital transfer; audio commentary featuring longtime John Cassavetes collaborators Michael Ferris (camera operator) and Bo Harwood (sound recordist/composer); video conversation between actors Gena Rowlands and Peter Falk; an audio interview with Cassavetes by film historians Michel Ciment and Michael Wilson, conducted in 1975; the trailer; a stills gallery featuring rare behind-the-scenes production photos; and an essay by film critic Kent Jones and an interview with Cassavetes from 1975.
G. Merritt
 Uneven, but still worth it September 7, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
John Cassavetes was one of those rare artists of whom it could be said that his flaws were his strengths, and his strengths were his flaws. On a purely technical level, his 1974 film, A Woman Under The Influence, is not a very good film. It is often poorly lit, edited, and at times poorly acted, almost as badly as Cassavetes' own Minnie And Moscowitz. Yet, there are moments when its dramatic power rivals that of his first great triumph, Faces, or any other work of drama or fiction. Consequently, the film has to rank somewhere between the two in the Cassavetes canon, and I'd opt for putting it closer to Faces, for, despite its manifest flaws, which I will touch upon, it has moments of sheer brilliance, illumination, and that often misunderstood quality of `artistic honesty', that help it overcome its flaws. To say it is voyeuristic is to be too obvious.... The film follows the doomed marriage of Nick and Mabel Longhetti (Peter Falk and Gena Rowlands), who have three children, Maria (Christina Grisanti), Tony (Matthew Cassel), and Angelo (Matthew Laborteaux), who are not the cute wiseass film kids viewers loathe. He's a foul-mouthed, ignorant, and often physically and emotionally abusive husband and person, while she's a flaming nut case. Many criticisms of the film have tried to leaven such assessments of the two lead characters, but this is because of obvious political or philosophical strains. Anyone who's ever known a family of not quite there folks has known people like the Longhettis, and their bratty children. It is a dysfunctional household, in the modern sense, even though that term had not yet become prevalent when the film was made.
There really is not much of a plot to the film, as in most of Cassavetes' films....Does Cassavetes dig and probe the human psyche in the overt way an Ingmar Bergman does? No. He crafts scenes, sometimes raggedly, and lets us get mere impressions, at times. Cassavetes might be though of as an emotional Impressionist, rather than a visual one. Most of the time, the emotions are spot on, yet every so often an emotional clunker hits....However, Rowlands and Falk give terrific performances, in this acting dominated film. Falk is superb as a clueless bigot, and Rowlands gives a real unhinged performance as the crazy Mabel....Some Feminist critics have tried to claim the film as a document for their wacky theses, stating that Mabel is not crazy, no more so than Nick, and, to a certain extent, they have a point. Nick is a lout, a moron, who lets his kids get drunk on beer with him, and rages against decent people at the drop of the hat....Given that the film clocks in at two and a half hours, he does make great use of silences, as he did in Faces. There is a scene, late in the film, when Nick has been worn down by Mabel and the kids, where he just passes through a doorway, holds it, then inhales deeply. It is a very effective scene.
Cassavetes is, in a way, the Walt Whitman of film, in that his excesses, while technically being excesses, also are indelibly part of what sets him apart from other filmmakers. He lets scenes play on in real time, and often loses control of the scene, but when he is on, he nails things no other filmmaker does- few films have ever portrayed the working class as well as this film does. This film also makes better use of framing and other technical aspects than his earlier films did. Yes, often he makes bizarre edits- such as the earlier scene, where Mabel goes nuts, and is institutionalized. It just ends, mid-sentence, and then we see Nick dealing with his co-workers' knowing of it. But, overall, the film works, more often than not feeling realer than reality often does, and that's the scary part to its success, far more frightening than any Hannibal Lecter film, and like flaws, fear can be a strength. Just as Nick Longhetti.
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