Love Streams (1984)

Director: John Cassavetes Starring: Diahnne Abbot, Gena Rowlands, John Cassavetes, Seymour Cassel Genres: Indie-Arthouse Cinema, Drama Origin: USA Certificate: M Languages: English Running Time: 141 min

synopsis

Love Streams is an 1984 American film by John Cassavetes that tells the story of a middle-aged brother and sister who find themselves caring for one another after the other loves in their lives abandon them. The visual style of the film is decidedly different from Cassavetes' other works, as it contains no hand-held camera work (which was a trademark of his visual style). The film is based on the 1980 play of the same name by Ted Allen but the correlation between the screenplay and the play is minimal. In the stage production, the role of Robert Harmon was played by Jon Voight; Cassavetes took up this role for the film version. Love Streams film was originally released with a running time of 141 minutes. It was briefly available on videotape in the mid-80s, in a version cut to 122 minutes by the distributor: one scene was edited and several unusual visual effects (the insertion of black leader and jump cuts) were removed. In 2003, it was released on DVD in France (along with A Child Is Waiting) in its entirety. Love Streams was John Cassavetes' eleventh film, and most of his fans consider it his final work,although in fact he made Big Trouble, a more mainstream film afterwards, mainly in an attempt to finance a subsequent unrealized project.