Opening Night

Snubbed: Gena Rowlands 

Dir. John Cassavetes. 1977, U.S. 144 mins. DCP. With Gena Rowlands, Ben Gazzara, John Cassavetes, Joan Blondell, Zohra Lampert. 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. Though she had been nominated three years earlier for her epochal performance in Cassavetes’s A Woman Under the Influence and would be nominated three years later for his Gloria, her galvanizing work in Opening Night went unnoticed, partly due to the film’s lack of secure distribution. 

Tickets: $15 / $11 senior and students / $9 youth (ages 3–17) / discounted for MoMI members ($7–$11). Order tickets. Please pick up tickets at the Museum’s admissions desk upon arrival. All seating is general admission. Review safety protocols before your visit.