From the father of independent cinema, Husbands (1970) is an exhilarating movie for anyone who’s ever felt lost, who’s ever felt like they’ve grown old, missed chances, or forgotten what it’s like to risk your neck for love and change. Can people really change? Are we all terrible and rotten? What is it that drives people to change their lives? The plot of Husbands is this: After the funeral ceremony of their friend, 3 men don’t want to go home.

Known for his intensely improvisational filmmaking method, Casavettes’ movies are less about the situations the characters end up in and more about the emotions at play. The characters that confront you are utterly realistic, and you cannot help but feel compassion for them even as they act in the most obnoxious ways. 

It’s not about moral judgement, but about what people need to do to get through their own lives, and what they come to feel in the process. For Cassavetes, maybe most important: exposing all of our wretched, pure and contradictory impulses. -Bea

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