By Todd Garbarini
Something
happened to me while watching John Cassavetes’s film Gloria that, to my
knowledge, has never, ever happened before and probably will never, ever happen
again. Towards the end of the film, the titular heroine exits a cab and asks
the cabbie for the time, and she replies, “It’s 9:20.” Unbelievably, this was
the exact time of day that it was on my clock as I watched the film in the
evening. In films, people give the time to others when asked (Charles Martin
Smith is told that it’s “a quarter to twelve” when attempting to purchase
alcohol in George Lucas’s 1973 film American Graffiti), but the
phenomenon of the onscreen reel time being in synch with the offscreen real
time is something that I have not experienced before, and it got me to thinking
about how certain things happen by mere happenstance.
The
cinema of John Cassavetes is an acquired taste as he was a maverick who made many
films on his own terms. If the general audience loved his work, it would
infuriate him and he would recut the film, as was the case with 1970’s Husbands,
a film that was released, critically acclaimed, pulled out of release and
re-cut into a completely different film, culled from roughly 240 hours of raw
footage. Co-star Ben Gazzara stated that his favorite version of the film ran
four-and-a-half hours. The director often employed members of a small but loyal
acting troupe headed by his wife, Gena Rowlands, who portrays the titular
heroine in this film, shot between July and September 1979 and released in New
York on Wednesday, October 1, 1980. She received her second Oscar nomination
for her performance here, the first being for A Woman Under the Influence
in 1974, also under the direction her husband.
Gloria is a film mired in Manhattan, Harlem
and the Bronx in New York. The film opens with nighttime establishing shots of
the New York skyline to the music of Bill Conti best known for the theme to Rocky
(1976). The Statue of Liberty and several bridges are luminescent and invoke Richard
Donner’s Superman: The Movie filmed there two years earlier. The
daylight exposes the filthy streets and the people who inhabit them. A six-year-old
Puerto Rican boy, Phil Dawn (John Adames), narrowly escapes being killed by the
Mafia following his mob accountant father’s (Buck Henry of all people) involvement
with them turned sour. Phil is saddled with a copy of the Bible, which in
reality is incriminating evidence that the Mafia wants back in their hands. His
parents and siblings all become collateral damage as he and the family friend,
Gloria, bolt and attempt to get away. Gloria is part of the Mafia. She
possesses street smarts and packs heat, unflinchingly firing upon her enemies
in broad daylight, though no cops appear to be anywhere in sight. Like the
interior of Marcellus Wallace’s suitcase in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction
(1994), this Bible proves to be a MacGuffin to keep Gloria and Phil on the run.
Initially,
Gloria and Phil cannot stand one another, and the former appears to be
reluctant to be saddled with the latter despite her promise to Phil’s parents
to take care of him. Eventually, they grow on one another and, dare I say it,
even develop a mutual affection. John Adames proves himself to be a capable
actor though, to my knowledge, this is his sole screen credit. The film,
despite reportedly being disparaged by its director (who probably would have
been happy to completely recut it), is a showcase for its leading actress, who
is always fascinating to watch.
Gloria was released on Blu-ray in August 2018 by
Twilight Time and that pressing contained an isolated musical score. There is a
new pressing of the film, this time by Kino Lorber, and the results are
unspectacular. This is not a carp about Kino,since they always do a bang-up job
on their Blu-ray releases. The
film image is dark at times, especially in the beginning scenes in the
apartment building (look fast for Tom Noonan as a Mafia soldier), and it looks
as though it was transferred from a theatrical print, minus the reel-change cue
marks. I am only assuming this to be the case (though I am probably incorrect),
or perhaps this was how it was either photographed or developed as the liner
notes are absent of the usual declaration boasting a high-definition transfer
from the film’s original camera negative.
The only extras to speak of on this pressing
are theatrical trailers for Gloria, Sidney Lumet’s Gloria remake
from 1999, Gorky Park (1983), 52 Pick-Up (1986), Code of
Silence (1985), Number One with a Bullet (1987), and Lonely are
the Brave (1962).
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