Love Streams (1984)

The film describes a few days in the life of the writer Robert Harmon and his sister Sarah. The decadent life of Robert is made of alcohol, cigarettes, and short-time relationships with ... See full summary »

Director:

John Cassavetes

Writers:

Ted Allan (play), Ted Allan (screenplay),

Stars:

Gena Rowlands, John Cassavetes, Diahnne Abbott

4 wins.

Cast

Credited cast:
Gena Rowlands	...	Sarah Lawson
John Cassavetes	...	Robert Harmon
Diahnne Abbott	...	Susan
Seymour Cassel	...	Jack Lawson
Margaret Abbott	...	Margarita
Jakob Shaw	...	Albie Swanson
Eddy Donno	...	Stepfather Swanson
Joan Foley	...	Judge Dunbar
Al Ruban	...	Milton Kravitz
Tom Badal	...	Sam the lawyer
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Julie Allan	...	Charlene
Doe Avedon	...	Mrs. Kiner
Frank Beetson	...	Cashier
Neil Bell	...	The Dog Man
Gregg Berger	...	Taxi Driver

Storyline

The film describes a few days in the life of the writer Robert Harmon and his sister Sarah. The decadent life of Robert is made of alcohol, cigarettes, and short-time relationships with women; women he interviews for a book, he spends a weekend with at a casino or fall in love with for the fun of an evening. Having no constraints, he his unable to be responsible for anything including the care of his son, leaving him alone in an hotel room and teaching the 12-years old boy how to drink. His life is made of his own phantasms as an artist. His sister is divorcing from her husband because of her exuberant and insane behavior. She scares her daughter Debbie who prefers to stay with her father, a decision that hurts Sarah very deeply and reinforces her nervous breakdown. Most of the movie takes place in the house of Robert. We watch Robert and Sarah struggling with their own lives. As the movie progresses, the house gets empty little by little...

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Plot Keywords:

written and directed by cast member | brother sister quarrel | brothers living together | brother brother relationship | brother sister relationship | 

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Genres:

Comedy | Drama

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Certificate:

PG-13

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

24 August 1984 (USA)

Also Known As:

Amantes

Company Credits

Production Co:

Cannon Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

141 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Metrocolor)

Did You Know?

Trivia

Jon Voight originated the role of Robert Harmon in the stage play and was originally slated to reprise his role in the film, but left the production due to scheduling conflicts and "creative differences" with Cassavetes.

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Goofs

(at around 1h 40 mins) The camera crew can be seen clearly behind the taxi when Sarah brings the animals home to her brother.

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Quotes

Robert Harmon: Love is dead. Love is a fantasy little girls have.

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Connections

Featured in At the Movies: Body Rock/Irreconcilable Differences/A Soldier's Story/Love Streams (1984)

User Reviews

Love is like alcohol ... one is too many and more is never enough ...

An emotional exploration into the true meaning of love, not the feeling itself but the very endurance of it, whether this feeling that you're your heart is canalized toward a person, an animal …or an addiction…

Like many Cassavetes' movies, "Love Streams" provides more interrogations than answers, and while I couldn't determine what the directors' intentions were, I thought the film' was the portrayal of two tormented hearts, Robert a trashy alcoholic writer incapable to show affection and his sister Sarah, a divorced mother drown in her awkward obsessions to love and love be loved. Two polar opposites who'll learn lesson from each other in the movie-defining moment when Robert, witnessing the emotional downfall of his sisters, grab her in his arms with a fierce tenderness, a moment of pure emotion beautifully conveyed by the film's poster.

As usual with Cassavetes, characters are as unique and specific as their feelings. It's extraordinary how Cassavetes' films paradoxically embodies the very aspect that differentiate between movies and reality, the absence of archetypes, no plot, no typical characters, all of his films are a tribute to the total independence of human's spirit from any attempt to translate them into plot devices, and "Love Streams" is the fitting masterpiece of the champion on independent film-making that concludes one of the most fascinating series of cinematic character studies that started with "Shadows", foreshadowing the coming of the American New Wave, and that reached its pinnacle with the unanimously applauded "A Woman Under the Influence". Indeed, it's only after having watched the other films that I became aware that "Love Streams" was the most beautiful statement to Cassavetes' work… the epitaph of an artist haunted by an imminent death.

Sarah's torment mirrors, the condition of Mabel from "A Woman Under the Influence", as a mother incapable of being herself because of her alienation by her total desire to be loved, on the other hand, Robert reflects the character of Cosmo in "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie" in his dedication to his occupation and constant womanizing and the "Husbands" syndrome in the many contradictions that inhabits his mind and prevents him for being a good father. The presence of a child also reminds of the poor kids in "Influence" or "Gloria", and the total incapability to be educated or tutored by so-called adults as themselves happen to act with the same level of child-like cowardice by escaping from their responsibilities and picking the easy way. Indeed, Robert lets his kid have a beer or accompany his in his lifestyle (including going to Vegas or hanging out with girls) while Sarah, in the most memorable scene, buys to his brother animals so he can have a presence to love.

These unsettling moments highlight the insecurity of the protagonist and incapacity to control their emotions, yet lucid about their desires. Sometimes it worked like in the light-hearted "Minnie and Moskowitz", sometimes it didn't like in "Shadows", "Faces" and "Husbands". Satisfying, frustrating, embarrassing or even infuriating, the key in Cassavetes' characters is that they don't tell a story, but the slices of their lives echo the eternal duality of what we are and what we want to be, our social beings and emotional ones, and maybe the source of happiness is to reconcile between these two images, like in "Opening Night". I'm not trying to make random connections between "Love Streams" and other films but to show how the Artist never changed and this film is probably the truest and most complete expression of all the eternal conflict between social pressure and emotions.

And on that level, even the title, beyond its poetic resonance, perfectly describes the painful beauty of love. The word 'streams' refers to a movement, that follow either a linear or tortuous road, it kind of remind of Fellini's strada, love is road, a journey between hearts that are mostly chaotic in Cassavetes' film, and this streams is in total contradiction of social labels. Being a parent is not loving like a parent,. And Cassavetes never take those labels for granted; love is too much an abstraction to be only defined by a social status. In her desperate attempt to make her daughter and husband Seymour Cassel laugh, in a powerful improvised scene, Gena Rowlands show more what it is to be a mother, than by claiming it in a meeting, and by through his tragic journey with his boy, in his tragic clumsiness, there is a part of inner truth in Robert's fatherhood, that the kid finally perceives when he shouts "you're my father".

This is what love is about, it's action. And as most Cassavetes' film, "Love Streams" is guided only by actions, and the only genuine emotions that don't need actions to be proved are between Sarah and Robert, as they are so close, they don't need to play a role together, the intimacy between them echoes the same intimacy between Cassavetes and his audience, who don't expect answers or entertainment, only the closeness to the truth of life. Yet the film feels more achieved, more mature on a technical level, like an allegory of Cassavetes' artistry, as if he tried to overcome fascinating paradox that defined his genius: being an Artist, loved by average viewers, while making films that could only appeal to a certain category.

Cassavetes was no elitist, yet his movies divided, he loved people, yet the reciprocity is more uncertain and maybe he tried to make a more 'normal' film so 'more' people would love him… but perfectly lucid that you can't do something just to please without becoming a patronizing impostor, and the reason we love his films is that he always remained true to his own nature, and desire of human authenticity.

That's what real Artist are, and "Love Streams" is the best tribute to Cassavetes' genius.