Sony Pictures is doing the humanitarian service of finally getting John Cassavetes’ Husbands released on DVD. Netflix, buy, steal, Youtube it, do whatever you gotta do to see this work of art. Just know that unlike 99% of all other films, your hand will not be held as you watch and navigate through the emotional terrain of this picture. Cassavetes’ genius is that he always made it hard on the viewer. Insight is not given, but achieved. Film scholar Ray Carney elaborates:

….Most films foster two fundamental illusions about experience: namely, that things happen to us, and that what matters is what we do back to them. Characters have enemies or are given obstacles to deal with. Cassavetes understands that our only real enemy is ourselves. There are no villains and never anyone to blame in his work. There are no obstacles to overcome, except the ones we impose on ourselves.

The other kind of movie gives characters problems to solve. Cassavetes tells us that we create all of our own problems. Character itself is the only important problem. There is no need to add anything else; it is already more than enough for someone to deal with. The events in Husbands are not generated by anything that Archie, Harry, and Gus do, but by what they are. In Cassavetes’ work, personality is plot; behavior is narrative. Living does not involve doing anything but being something – a much harder task for both a character and a viewer to deal with.

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