Series Site
May 2–May 14, 2025
Gena Rowlands died last August at the age of ninety-four, but she lives on through the many characters she played in the course of her long and distinguished career. Offering the opportunity to honor her memory and celebrate her exceptional talents, Love Streams, Gena Rowlands & John Cassavetes focuses on her performances in six groundbreaking independent films written and directed by John Cassavetes, her husband of thirty-five years. A talented, sought-after actor, Cassavetes was most interested in making films outside the constraints of the entertainment industry and studio system. He wanted to represent the extraordinary emotions of real people and to depict the subtleties and struggles of human relationships and emotions authentically. Cassavetes’s genius as a director was creating the conditions by which his performers could become the characters he conceived. While his screenplays were meticulously scripted, he insisted that his actors discover the characters delivering the lines independently, lending their energy and imagination to the work and opening it up to new perspectives.
In Rowlands, Cassavetes found his most steadfast and brilliant collaborator, and together they crafted some of the most indelible characters in cinema history: Jeannie Rapp in Faces; Minnie Moore in Minnie and Moskowitz; the poignant, quirky Mabel Longhetti in A Woman Under the Influence; the actress Myrtle in Opening Night; the reluctant, then resolute protectress in Gloria; and Sarah Lawson, struggling for connection in Love Streams. Rowlands’s astonishing ability to communicate the intelligence, resilience, emotional depth, and complexity of each unique character is an enduring reminder of the creative power of love.
—Kate MacKay, Associate Film Curator