(1975)4Brian WhitenerAn Emmy award-winning documentary director, Cara De Vito is best-known for her early feminist video concerning her grandmother and the abuse she suffered at the hands of her husband. Taking the title from a popular Italian song, Always Love Your Man is a careful portrait of De Vito's grandmother at a time when feminists were just beginning to uncover the unspoken abuses endured by married women. Primarily comprised of interview footage with the grandmother, De Vito also includes scenes that show the grandmother in her social circle and in relation to her husband, now dead, represented by photographs. His smiling, good natured face contrasts deeply with the grandmother's narration of his mistreatments. Sitting in a chair by a window, the grandmother gazes out and recalls her life in her feisty, opinionated style, relating, among other things, her husband's nickname for her -- "Lost Bread" because she never earned money. A family dinner with Cara, the grandmother, and an uncle, positions both women in the larger family structure and lets the viewer see to what extent they are unconsciously dominated by a male presence. With the looseness and immediacy of a Cassavetes film, Always Love Your Man still strikes one visually, as well as emotionally and intellectually.
