Eclipse Series 24: THE ACTUALITY DRAMAS OF ALLAN KING: KING, Allan: A Married Couple (1969)

KING, Allan (Canada)
A Married Couple [1969]
Eclipse Series 24
DVD

Billy and Antoinette Edwards let it all hang out for Allan King and his crew in this jaw-dropping examination of a marriage in trouble, which "makes John Cassavetes's Faces look like early Doris Day" (Time). Intense and hectic, frightening and funny, A Married Couple is ultimately a film about the eternal power struggle in romantic relationships, as well as a document of the moment when once entrenched gender roles began to crumble.

96 minutes

Color

Monaural

1:33:1 aspect ratio

Criterion Release 2010

Director

Allan King was 39 when he directed A Married Couple.

Other King films in the Collection:

Eclipse Series 24: Warrrendale (1967)
Eclipse Series 24: Come On Children (1972)
Eclipse Series 24: Dying At Grace (2003)
Eclipse Series 24: Memory For Max, Claire, Ida And Company (2005)

The Film

“[This examination of.a marriage in trouble] makes John Cassavete’s Faces [(1968) {Spine #252}] look like early Doris Day” — Time Magazine

With the proceeds from the Cannes success (and Jean Renoir’s praise) of Warrendale, King had the means to film this actuality drama in color, with a full crew, including two composers!

In the early scenes, the couple (Billy and Antoinette Edwards) do appear to be playing to the camera. She wants a harpsichord, and the adamant husband’s refusal seems calm enough.

They dance (to A Day in the Life! — beautifully filmed through reflective glass), they flirt self-consciously before the cameras, they attend to their toddler son, Bogart.

Antoinette — her thick New York accent betrays her origins — seems to aspire to become the princess-queen of her tragic namesake. Having not procured the harpsichord, she is later shown shopping for a piano.

[It is too bad King didn’t delve into her affinity for music — in an intense later scene, as the marriage begins to dissolve — she lustily cries into her husband’s arms at a party where an aria from Mozart’s The Magic Flute is playing. Perhaps she had had more than just one or two piano lessons.]

Reality as raw material — with no real editorial involvement — is interesting enough. But just a few years later, Bergman would show a disintegrating marriage played by actual actors (the magnificent Scenes from a Marriage (1973) {Spine #0000A/#229}, something several planes above King’s docu- — sorry, actuality drama.

Michael Koresky’s liner notes (the only supplementary material on this Eclipse release) tell us that the couple had another child, then divorced in 1972. 

Film Rating (0-100):

86

By Director
By Spine #