jdbrecords: August 2024

The below article originally appeared on Pop Matters in 2010.

Little Gambits to Seduce: Gena Rowlands in Another Woman

Another Woman is one of Woody Allen’s lesser discussed works but by no means a sub par achievement. In fact his quiet, nuanced character study is one of his finest directorial works and scripts. It’s elevated even more by the brilliance of Gena Rowlands, who gives an understated and resonant performance.

In Another Woman, Marion (Gena Rowlands) is introduced through her voice-over and Allen’s characterization. She is dressed in layers of earthy neutrals, hair done up in a tightly-braided French bun, in “drab contrast” to her friends and family. As she begins work on her book, she overhears the next-door therapy sessions of a young woman named Hope (Mia Farrow). The thin, fragile, emotional, and high-pitched voice of Farrow is a contrast to the steely, deep tone of Rowlands. Throughout, Allen gives us many close-ups of Rowlands, who has a beautiful, strong face like the women of Ingmar Bergman’s films (an obvious influence here; Sven Nykvist was also his cinematographer) that can register shades of regret and sadness.

As Marion becomes more introspective and sadder, the gait of Rowlands slackens. Fidgety at a recital and visibly uncomfortable when a former student tells her what an inspiration she once was, Rowlands shows Marion as a bit rattled from listening to Hope. She gives us downward glances, a few nervous ticks.

The dreamlike movement of the film explores the emotional territory of Marion’s past and present. In a flashback scene, Gene Hackman, a former lover, is shown kissing Rowlands on the eve of Marion’s impending marriage to a cardiologist (Ian Holm). Rowlands looks happier, less stuffy—her hair in a loose ponytail. In one scene, she finds herself at her brother’s, wide-eyed, in disbelief. He recalls her critiques of his writing as “overblown, maudlin, too emotional.” This is the antithesis of Rowlands and her character but also a sense of vitality that Allen suggests as too-lacking in Marion’s own life.

In a quiet moment, Marion reads her mother’s favorite Rilke poem and in voice-over, describes the page’s tear stains from her mother. After reading the poem, Rowlands perches her glasses on her head, fist on cheek, then looks off, eyes welling, thinking of the line, "You must change your life."

In a dream sequence, we see the contrasting style of Sandy Dennis when she performs a staged scene as Marion. Dennis uses hand gestures, moves around a bit more, and verbalizes her thoughts instead of withholding them (“there isn’t much passion in this relationship anymore”). In both instances, Allen gives Rowlands the space to react, as she gives us more sad, regretful downward glances.

With Rowlands, we often see a woman who wants, as Marion describes, to weep, but the tears unable to come. Her dream of her first husband who killed himself (Marion refers to him clinically as “not a suicide”) triggers an argument with her husband. She finally raises her voice, yelling at him (“There was a time when we were dying to be together.”) Here, Rowlands lets loose a bit, and also shows how she towers over him (which reminded me of the visually awkward pairing of Ingrid Bergman and Claude Rains in Notorious).

When she overhears Hope describing Marion as a “sad woman” who has “alienated everyone her,” Rowlands finally breaks and sobs. She goes home to confront her husband from a wingchair—suddenly more like Hope in one of her sessions—telling him passionately that she feels sorry for him, that he has been just as lonely as she has been.

In the coda, once she breaks away from her husband, the film gradually gets warmer. In displays of compassion we hadn’t seen before, Rowlands puts an arm around other characters. Her studio looks less cold. She flips to read Hackman’s novel, finding the passages about her, and here, Allen shows them together in a montage sequence—her happiness, her loose ponytail back again. He describes Marion as “capable of intense passion, if she’d just allow herself to feel.” This is a poignant contrast to the scene where an unsettled Rowlands read the Rilke poem. Here, Rowlands closes the book, removes her glasses. Her voice-over: “I felt a strange mixture of wistfulness and hope. And I wondered if a memory is something you have or something you’ve lost. For the first time in a long time, I felt at peace.” Rowlands looks up, the sun behind her.

Gena Rowlands is best-known for her daring performances in the films of her husband John Cassavetes. However her quiet, gracefully subtle work in Allen’s film shouldn’t be overlooked when evaluating the richness of her career. Like her performance, the theme music by Satie is regal, and elegant but also tinged with sweetness and vulnerability. Rowlands gives the camera and the audience “little gambits to seduce.”

-Jeffery Berg