A Cassavetes/Rowlands Series at Metrograph

Because of the unmitigated dearth of female directors, the history of cinema has been marked decisively by the shared work of actresses and male directors married to each other, not by the work of actors and female directors. Nonetheless, it’s both strange and noteworthy that the very essence of the modern cinema is the result of two married couples, one in France (the director Jean-Luc Godard and the actress Anna Karina) and the other in the United States (the director—and actor—John Cassavetes and the actress Gena Rowlands). This fact is all the more noteworthy today, when Metrograph launches its series “Cassavetes/Rowlands,” with a screening of their 1977 film “Opening Night,” followed by a discussion with Rowlands. (Cassavetes died in 1989, at the age of fifty-nine.)