Cassavetes’ films seem to escape any effort to encapsulate them in words. They are experiences, made to be seen and heard and endured. OPENING NIGHT had such a good previews that Cassavetes felt it was too easy, so he re-edited to make it tougher. It flopped but it’s a once-in-the-lifetime film for a once-in-a-lifetime cast. Gena Rowlands plays an actress who goes into an altered state of consciousness after seeing a hysterical fan die in an accident. An actress touches her audience personally speaking for their experience and when a fan who waited in the rain to meet her idol dies so senselessly, Myrtle goes into a journey into her self, her identity to question why she does what she does. It’s an intense, overwhelming journey which we feel that we have accompanied her with. An experience that’s possible in cinema in a way that it is not on the stage.