Opening Night

Dir. John Cassavetes. 1977, 144 mins. 35mm. With Gena Rowlands. Opening Night is one of cinema’s finest portrayals of aging, and a superb exploration of acting. Rowlands gives a virtuoso performance as Myrtle Gordon, a successful but increasingly neurotic actress in her forties, conflicted about portraying an older woman, a role too close to the skin. Myrtle is haunted by hallucinations of an alluring teenage female fan, a symbolic image of a younger self, whose car accident she blames herself for. As reality starts to blur with dreams and the actress and character begin to merge, Myrtle reveals some profoundly uncomfortable truths about “the gradual lessening of [her] power as a woman” (as one character puts it) in the public eye.