Un couple marié

Like a documentary version of SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE, this is a stunning portrait of a couple falling to pieces. Billy and Antoinette allow King and his cameraman into some of the most private moments of their lives. The usual questions arise about how much the participants are putting on a show for the camera (they'd have to have some exhibitionist qualities to even agree to this) and apparently some of it is not in chronological sequence, but ultimately I feel that what we're getting is real, even if perhaps slightly heightened. The fact is that their arguments often greatly resemble ones I've had with my wife, which perhaps doesn't bode well for my own marriage (I love ya, honey!) but it definitely has the sting of truth to it. Ridiculously small disagreements become massive battles under the weight of buried, and not-so-buried, resentment. Which is not to stay that it's always war in the Edwards household... they have their tender moments. But perhaps some relationships cannot be salvaged. A very intense, gripping film that drew me in completely.

This is a documentary about a real life married couple. It's not the type of documentary where there are interviews or anything like that. It's just a camera crew filming these people and their lives, and their interactions and their struggles and their constant fighting with each other.

One could be forgiven for not realizing it's a documentary, because of the way the story is told. But it's so great that it doesn't feel like a crummy reality show either. It's wonderful. It's raw and it's real. Or is it? Maybe the filmmakers just said it was a documentary when in fact it was staged. It's possible, but not likely, because that would mean the subjects were acting, and acting is never this good.

I saw a bunch of films by John Cassavetes where the couple are fighting and critics loved it and talked about how raw and real it felt. And I felt that way too about those films, and I still do to an extent, but just when I felt it couldn't get anymore real than that, I saw A Married Couple. It just feels so much more raw and in-your-face because you know that this stuff really is happening just as you see it.

And the way the whole thing is put together to tell the story is just absolutely perfect. I don't think anyone could have done a better job with something like this. It's just great and really fun to watch. You really get involved in these people's lives, and they're so caught up in things they seem to forget the cameras are even there, never looking at them, fighting as if they're alone, and even walking around naked. The crew probably even filmed the couple having sex, but I guess they had to cut that scene for obvious reasons.

A MARRIED COUPLE is a classic; a seminal film in the Direct Cinema movement, in its heyday during the late 1960's. Light years before all this "reality TV" dreck, documentary filmmakers were doing projects without the traditional narration to the camera, or voiceovers.. just attempting to capture things as they naturally unfold. The great dichotomy of this practice of course, is just how much of this stuff is real that they are putting on film?

Be it with a Bolex in the 1960's or a mini-DV camera today, the basic argument has not changed. The camera is still too powerful a tool to ignore if it is in plain view. Sometimes with Direct Cinema, these projects seem like the director is saying, "the film's rolling; put on a show for me". Perhaps A MARRIED COUPLE is the best example of this feeling. Whatever the case, it remains a hilarious, shocking, upsetting, bristling piece of work. In 90 minutes (with footage culled from months of staying with this couple), we watch the disintegration of the marriage between Billy and Antoinette Edwards. The way in which Allan King captures these desperate moments (and these two fight about everything, believe me) is unequalled in standard narrative film, except perhaps works by John Cassavetes. The fact that these two are screaming at each other over every little thing is hilarious theatre at first, but the effect soon becomes saddening. Plus, one cannot help but wonder if the intrusion of the film crew is partially responsible for their own marriage breakdown.

Taking the theory, "put on a show for me", do the Edwards' begin to believe their own feelings that they vent on film? Few pieces of cinema constantly test the viewer's ability to discern reality within such a natural setting. And although the film is a documentary (albeit perhaps not wholly completely one), it does have a standard A to B narrative progression-- as it begins with sweetness and kissing, and then just declines from there. On those terms, this might be remarkable for just being a documentary about a marriage coming apart. However, once one learns that these scenes were not shot sequentially, a whole new set of issues arise. What are we really seeing?

But still, A MARRIED COUPLE is an astonishing piece of work which is worthy for its subject matter as well as its paradoxical approach. No other film illustrates late 1960's suburban milieu with such sad poetry. You understand how and why people get into ruts by being married to people they can no longer stand, in these posh surroundings. The unhappiness of executive life outside of the office is laid bare. (In hindsight this film anticipated the escalating divorce statistics of the 1970's.) How on Earth did this couple put their trust in Allan King to reveal themselves so completely to the camera? In one astonishing scene, Antoinette reveals to a co-worker over lunch that she had an extra-marital affair!! (Imagine Billy when he saw the finished film.)

I don't believe that the Edwards' are saying anything or behaving in any fashion that they do not mean, but I would guess that the presence of the camera nonetheless heightened their emotional outbursts. In any case, they are damned convincing actors, and A MARRIED COUPLE remains an unforgettable, hair-raising film that also speaks layers about film language.

Not just a time capsule, although that's part of it; this is a full-color archive of the physical details of middle-class Torontohood in the late sixties. The personal details, though, are personal details. Documentarian as nosey house guest, King plants himself among a very tenuous couple, their infant and their dog, and creates the kind of inevitably self-conscious psychodrama that is now familiar to us as post-Osbornes pop culturites. The outside eye seems to create an uncontrollable urge to embarrass themselves, just to make things interesting. But it's not just the merciful one-sitting format that makes this rendition of the tendency more bearable. It's King's (and of course camera guy Richard Leiterman's) eyes and ears; they give the hyperbole enough room to breathe, with all interactions seen through to some kind of conclusion instead of punched up in post. As a result, the raw intimacy routine has enough shape and rhythm and continuity to draw you into the argument instead of driving you to the remote.