list http://www.spout.com/ Recent community activity around Shadows on Spout Copyright 2005-9 Spout, LLC Spout RSS http://www.spout.com/images/SpoutLogoRSS.jpg http://www.spout.com/ 136 30 http://www.spout.com/films/Shadows/72741/default.aspx Title: Shadows
Year: 1959
Director: John Cassavetes
Plot: Shadows was John Cassavetes' first directorial effort. Like his later critically acclaimed films Faces and Husbands, Cassavetes fills the screen with probing, unflattering closeups. Unlike his other films, however, Shadows zips along at 87 minutes, avoiding the pitfall of putting the director's nonfans to sleep. The film is a straightforward account of a biracial romance (a far less common film subject in 1960 than today). Light-skinned African-American Lelia Goldoni falls in love with a white man Anthony Ray, who spurns her when he meets the rest of her family. Far from subtle, Shadows benefits from the undisciplined energy of its direction and the excellence of its individual performances. Costing a scant $40,000 (less than the average half hour TV episode of the era), Shadows won the Critic's Award at the Cannes Film Festival and led to more expensive studio assignments for John Cassavetes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Times Tagged: 1
Number of Lists: 19
Number of blog posts: 4
Number of discussion threads: 1
SpoutRating: 4
]]>Tue, 14 Jul 2009 01:23:17 GMTShadows1959John CassavetesShadows was John Cassavetes' first directorial effort. Like his later critically acclaimed films <a href=/films/56978/default.aspx style='text-decoration:underline'>Faces</a> and Husbands, Cassavetes fills the screen with probing, unflattering closeups. Unlike his other films, however, Shadows zips along at 87 minutes, avoiding the pitfall of putting the director's nonfans to sleep. The film is a straightforward account of a biracial romance (a far less common film subject in 1960 than today). Light-skinned African-American <a href="/players/P____27487/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Lelia Goldoni</a> falls in love with a white man Anthony Ray, who spurns her when he meets the rest of her family. Far from subtle, Shadows benefits from the undisciplined energy of its direction and the excellence of its individual performances. Costing a scant $40,000 (less than the average half hour TV episode of the era), Shadows won the Critic's Award at the Cannes Film Festival and led to more expensive studio assignments for John Cassavetes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide1Slightly Tagged (1-5)19414http://www.spout.com/ProductImages/t00744hefhw.jpghttp://www.spout.com/films/Shadows/72741/default.aspxFilm http://www.spout.com/groups/Directors/Re_Which_Director_interests_you_more/406/31051/1/ShowPost.aspx Post By: Risselada
Post To: Directors
Post Date: 6/10/2008 1:36:26 PM
Body: [quote user="NakedLunchRadioShow"]my co host and I are undecided on which Director we want to cover next. We are hoping some of you here can give us some input. The choices are Billy Wilder (in a 2 part special) Alfred Hitchcock (in a 4 part special) John Cassvetes Jean Luc Godart (in a 2 part special) Gus Van Sant ( in a 3 part special) We would appreciate any feedback. You can also vote on our poll at our main page! http://naked-lunch.org/word/ Thank you[/quote] I've seen both Godard's (I think it's Godard, not Godart) and Cassavette's first feature films, Breathless and Shadows. I was disappointed with them. These are the only films I've seen from each of them, so maybe I should give them another chance. Billy Wilder and Gus Van Sant I am both torn by. Hitchcock is the best, but how much has been said on him already? Not that you can't say more if you want.
]]>Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:36:26 GMTRisseladaDirectors6/10/2008 1:36:26 PM[quote user="NakedLunchRadioShow"]my co host and I are undecided on which Director we want to cover next. We are hoping some of you here can give us some input. The choices are Billy Wilder (in a 2 part special) Alfred Hitchcock (in a 4 part special) John Cassvetes Jean Luc Godart (in a 2 part special) Gus Van Sant ( in a 3 part special) We would appreciate any feedback. You can also vote on our poll at our main page! http://naked-lunch.org/word/ Thank you[/quote] I've seen both Godard's (I think it's Godard, not Godart) and Cassavette's first feature films, Breathless and Shadows. I was disappointed with them. These are the only films I've seen from each of them, so maybe I should give them another chance. Billy Wilder and Gus Van Sant I am both torn by. Hitchcock is the best, but how much has been said on him already? Not that you can't say more if you want. http://www.spout.com/blogs/thefilmpanelnotetaker/archive/2008/3/3/25813.aspx Post By: thefilmpanelnotetaker
Post To: thefilmpanelnotetaker Blog
Post Date: 3/3/2008 2:00:52 PM
Body: Stranger Than FictionFilm As a Subversive Art: Amos Vogel & Cinema 16Q&A with Cinema 16 Veteran Jack GoelmanIFC CenterJanuary 29, 2008 (Thom Powers and Jack Goelman)Week four of Thom Powers’ (TP) popular documentary series at New York’s IFC Center, *Stranger Than Fiction, presented last night director Paul Cronin’s Film As a Subversive Art: Amos Vogel & Cinema 16. (FYI, Cronin is also the co-author of Herzog on Herzog.) The screening was followed by a Q&A with Cinema 16 veteran Jack Goelman (JG). Last night’s screening was co-presented by Rooftop Films. A bit of background on Vogel—he was the founder of the New York City avant-garde cinema club, Cinema 16 in the late 1940s. He later became the co-founder of the New York Film Festival in 1963. Film As a Subversive Art is also the title of Vogel’s 1974 book.* Next Tuesday night, Stranger Than Fiction will present Sweet Dreams by Eric Latek.(TP) What was your first interest in experimental cinema?(JG) I started young. I was a film nut. I saw my fist documentary, The River by Pare Lorentz at the New York World’s Fair (1939/40). When I came out of the Army, I went to film school to become a film editor, but became distracted when I heard of Cinema 16. I attended a screening. It was very small. Experimental films fascinated me.(TP) What’s different about cinema now than from back then?(JG) The birth of Cinema 16 took place because the conditions were right at the time. There was no place to show short subject or off beat films. Amos came up with this idea.(TP) Did you ever have differences of opinions with Amos?(JG) Of course! And we talked a lot about them, but they had to fit into a concept of what we were planning, sometimes up to a year in advance. We kept track of them. We took notes. We had to like a film almost immediately. It was a question of blending programs and films together.(TP) In the documentary, we see the 1,600-seat auditorium where Cinema 16 ran. Can you talk about that?(JG) It was scary. I was there every minute taking notes. People would get up from their wooden seats and make noise. We would discuss the tempo of the show the next day. It was very much alive.Audience Q&AQ: How involved were filmmakers in the Cinema 16 screenings?(JG) We tried not to involve them. Relationships with filmmakers were a different story. There was enough going on without that.Q: What is Amos doing now?(JG) We’ve all gotten older and slower. He’s not teaching anymore, but very much alert. His wife Marsha has been ill, and he’s watching over her.Q: Why was it called Cinema 16?(JG) Simply, Amos found out he could get a lot of film in 16mm. Screenings evolved where audiences grew larger and we needed more powerful 16mm projects. We wanted to show the films looking good. We also showed 35mm films such as John Cassavetes’ Shadows. We had a choice between 16mm or 35mm for that, but chose 35mm. We were criticized for it.Q: The documentary mentions that Bosley Crowder, the film critic of The New York Times back then, didn’t support Cinema 16. Were there any other critics who did support it?(JG) Yes. The Herald Tribune. Archer Winston loved Cinema 16. We did get a lot of members through The New York Times through advertising.Q: What interests you in today’s cinema?(JG) I read reviews. I have a sense of the directors. I don’t have a list of favorites with me, but I do go to the Walter Reade Theater, Cinema Village, etc.Q: Do you think film programming now is diverse enough?(JG) There’s a powerful situation now with television and DVD. It’s a different world. They’re useful, but competitive. Originally posted on:The Film Panel Notetaker - Miss a panel discussion? Don't worry! We took notes for you.
]]>Mon, 03 Mar 2008 19:00:52 GMTthefilmpanelnotetakerthefilmpanelnotetaker Blog3/3/2008 2:00:52 PMStranger Than FictionFilm As a Subversive Art: Amos Vogel & Cinema 16Q&A with Cinema 16 Veteran Jack GoelmanIFC CenterJanuary 29, 2008 (Thom Powers and Jack Goelman)Week four of Thom Powers’ (TP) popular documentary series at New York’s IFC Center, *Stranger Than Fiction, presented last night director Paul Cronin’s Film As a Subversive Art: Amos Vogel & Cinema 16. (FYI, Cronin is also the co-author of Herzog on Herzog.) The screening was followed by a Q&A with Cinema 16 veteran Jack Goelman (JG). Last night’s screening was co-presented by Rooftop Films. A bit of background on Vogel—he was the founder of the New York City avant-garde cinema club, Cinema 16 in the late 1940s. He later became the co-founder of the New York Film Festival in 1963. Film As a Subversive Art is also the title of Vogel’s 1974 book.* Next Tuesday night, Stranger Than Fiction will present Sweet Dreams by Eric Latek.(TP) What was your first interest in experimental cinema?(JG) I started young. I was a film nut. I saw my fist documentary, The River by Pare Lorentz at the New York World’s Fair (1939/40). When I came out of the Army, I went to film school to become a film editor, but became distracted when I heard of Cinema 16. I attended a screening. It was very small. Experimental films fascinated me.(TP) What’s different about cinema now than from back then?(JG) The birth of Cinema 16 took place because the conditions were right at the time. There was no place to show short subject or off beat films. Amos came up with this idea.(TP) Did you ever have differences of opinions with Amos?(JG) Of course! And we talked a lot about them, but they had to fit into a concept of what we were planning, sometimes up to a year in advance. We kept track of them. We took notes. We had to like a film almost immediately. It was a question of blending programs and films together.(TP) In the documentary, we see the 1,600-seat auditorium where Cinema 16 ran. Can you talk about that?(JG) It was scary. I was there every minute taking notes. People would get up from their wooden seats and make noise. We would discuss the tempo of the show the next day. It was very much alive.Audience Q&AQ: How involved were filmmakers in the Cinema 16 screenings?(JG) We tried not to involve them. Relationships with filmmakers were a different story. There was enough going on without that.Q: What is Amos doing now?(JG) We’ve all gotten older and slower. He’s not teaching anymore, but very much alert. His wife Marsha has been ill, and he’s watching over her.Q: Why was it called Cinema 16?(JG) Simply, Amos found out he could get a lot of film in 16mm. Screenings evolved where audiences grew larger and we needed more powerful 16mm projects. We wanted to show the films looking good. We also showed 35mm films such as John Cassavetes’ Shadows. We had a choice between 16mm or 35mm for that, but chose 35mm. We were criticized for it.Q: The documentary mentions that Bosley Crowder, the film critic of The New York Times back then, didn’t support Cinema 16. Were there any other critics who did support it?(JG) Yes. The Herald Tribune. Archer Winston loved Cinema 16. We did get a lot of members through The New York Times through advertising.Q: What interests you in today’s cinema?(JG) I read reviews. I have a sense of the directors. I don’t have a list of favorites with me, but I do go to the Walter Reade Theater, Cinema Village, etc.Q: Do you think film programming now is diverse enough?(JG) There’s a powerful situation now with television and DVD. It’s a different world. They’re useful, but competitive. Originally posted on:The Film Panel Notetaker - Miss a panel discussion? Don't worry! We took notes for you. http://www.spout.com/blogs/analogzombie/archive/2007/7/13/14062.aspx Post By: analogzombie
Post To: analogzombie Blog
Post Date: 7/13/2007 8:55:00 PM
Body: John Cassavetes' Shadows is a film that will change you opinion of what cinema is capable of. Shot in 1957, with reshoots a year later, the film tells the story of Lelia and Tommy, young lovers who spend a night together and then are ripped apart by their own very human flaws. The film focuses on a family of three bi-racial siblings living together in New York. Hugh is the oldest brother, darkest skinned, and a jazz singer. Younger brother Benny is a fair skinned rastabout who lives by night, and is only out for kicks. Youngest Lelia is the fairest of the bunch and is mired in the fantasy of female youth. Idelaistic, and apiringly intellectual, Lelia meets Tommy at a literary party. Like all of the people Lelia regularly hangs out with, Tommy is white. This is the central issue with the film, the real drama begins once TOmmy has met Lelia's brother Hugh and is blindsided with her race. It's not so much revulsion he feels, but guilt, for feeling revolted. This sends the family into a circling of the wagons around Lelia, whomust now cometoterms with the world she lives in.The story of Shadows is fairly basic. A lot of what comprises the film isn't germaine to the plot. This is because it was born out of the improvisations Cassavetes was conducting in his acting classes. The idea was to improve until you came up with believable characters and situations, and then rehearse them until they were second nature and you truly embodied them. Only then would the actor be able to catch the reality of emotion Cassavetes was after. His approach was to shoot, and shoot, and shoot some more. Anything until the performance was on film. In later pictures he would find other techniques to ellicit the raw emotion that is the standard of all his films. But Shadows achieved it through perseverance. Working at each role until it was a real person, the actors were able to truly convey.The heart and story are in the eyes, the glances, the body language, the bursts of excitement, and the flaws of every character in Shadows. Besides being the birth of modern American Independent Cinema, it's also adamm good movie, rough and raw, literally bleeding with feeling.
]]>Sat, 14 Jul 2007 00:55:00 GMTanalogzombieanalogzombie Blog7/13/2007 8:55:00 PMJohn Cassavetes&#39; Shadows is a film that will change you opinion of what cinema is capable of. Shot in 1957, with reshoots a year later, the film tells the story of Lelia and Tommy, young lovers who spend a night together and then are ripped apart by their own very human flaws. The film focuses on a family of three bi-racial siblings living together in New York. Hugh is the oldest brother, darkest skinned, and a jazz singer. Younger brother Benny is a fair skinned rastabout who lives by night, and is only out for kicks. Youngest Lelia is the fairest of the bunch and is mired in the fantasy of female youth. Idelaistic, and apiringly intellectual, Lelia meets Tommy at a literary party. Like all of the people Lelia regularly hangs out with, Tommy is white. This is the central issue with the film, the real drama begins once TOmmy has met Lelia&#39;s brother Hugh and is blindsided with her race. It&#39;s not so much revulsion he feels, but guilt, for feeling revolted. This sends the family into a circling of the wagons around Lelia, whomust now cometoterms with the world she lives in.The story of Shadows is fairly basic. A lot of what comprises the film isn&#39;t germaine to the plot. This is because it was born out of the improvisations Cassavetes was conducting in his acting classes. The idea was to improve until you came up with believable characters and situations, and then rehearse them until they were second nature and you truly embodied them. Only then would the actor be able to catch the reality of emotion Cassavetes was after. His approach was to shoot, and shoot, and shoot some more. Anything until the performance was on film. In later pictures he would find other techniques to ellicit the raw emotion that is the standard of all his films. But Shadows achieved it through perseverance. Working at each role until it was a real person, the actors were able to truly convey.The heart and story are in the eyes, the glances, the body language, the bursts of excitement, and the flaws of every character in Shadows. Besides being the birth of modern American Independent Cinema, it&#39;s also adamm good movie, rough and raw, literally bleeding with feeling. http://www.spout.com/blogs/analogzombie/archive/2007/6/24/11965.aspx Post By: analogzombie
Post To: analogzombie Blog
Post Date: 6/24/2007 4:21:00 PM
Body: Cassavetes is one of those directors you either love or hate. Much the same way people are totally polarized on the works of Tarantino, or the film Magnolia, Cassavetes has driven film fanatics to loathe him, critics to praise him, and general audiences to simultaneously revile and admire him. He can either open an entire world of film to you, or simply reinforce your preconceived notions of the pretentiousness of auteur films, and in that he is singular. If the validity of art were based on its ability to produce extreme emotion Cassavetes would be considered a DaVinci. The way in which he achieves this provocation of emotion is special too. No other director, not Ozu, Renior, Scorsese, or Anderson (either of them), has successfully captured the essence of feeling in their films the way Cassavetes does. You don’t watch one of his films, you feel it, you live it. The audience registers every second of joy, anguish, or pain that floats across the characters’ faces. This is why his films create such a variation of comment: some people are not comfortable with how they feel while viewing them. But I think I’m getting ahead of myself here. Let me slow down, back up, and give you a little background on the man and his works.John Cassavetes is considered to be the father of American Independent film. When the French New Wave was exploding in Europe, Cassavetes was developing his own answer to Hollywood in NYC. But unlike his European counterparts who were seeking to take ‘cinema into the streets’, Cassavetes was seeking a more interior and personal space. He always called himself an amateur director and professional actor. Indeed many people know him better as the husband in Rosemary’s Baby, or from The Dirty Dozen, than they do as the creator of Shadows. But it is his work as a writer/director that means the most to us today. His first film, Shadows (1958), was born out of improvisational routines he developed in his acting workshop class. The film proudly proclaims ‘this film was improvised’ at its conclusion, but the reality was it was quite scripted by the time it came to start shooting. It was, however, always fluid, and open to change on set. After the initial shooting of 1958, Cassavetes came back in 1959 to shoot a few more scenes to flesh out the main characters. Presumably because at the time of original shooting it was not clear were the story would end up. Many of these additional scenes involve Lelia and her relationship with her brothers.The heart of the film concerns their sibling relationship, and the reaction of Lelia’s white boyfriend when he realizes, upon meeting one of her darker skinned brothers, that she has been passing for white. In the pivotal scene of realization no words are spoken between the lovers, everything is conveyed in glances and body language. This is what I am getting at with Cassavetes. He doesn’t need excessive dialogue or score to make sure we understand exactly what each character is feeling. He achieves it through his shot composition and by eliciting real moments from his actors. Moments that are all too recognizable to us. We don’t need to be told how Lelia’s boyfriend feels; it’s all there, in his face. The way his eyes dart from Leila to her brother, and then down to the floor. The way his body tightens with revulsion and then immediately loosens to say he is aware of the vibe he’s giving off. He is ashamed of how he feels, but cannot help it. He loves Lelia, but is also repulsed by her. Lelia and her brother recognize that look immediately; they know what he’s thinking and want no part of it. Her heart is broken with his glances, and her brother steps in to be her protector. As he demands the ashamed boyfriend leave his house, Lelia’s would-be beau apologizes, asks them all out for dinner, he is sorry; he wants to prove he is no racist. All this comes too late for Lelia and her kin. The damage has been done; they see him for what he is, for what he thought, if even only for a second. Their world is a world without compromise, they cannot flinch on this issue for one second. They will not be denied, or judged on their race. Her boyfriend knows this too, knows it’s too late, but he cannot help himself, he loves her.This scene in Shadows lasts about 3 minutes, but is so riveting, real, and amazing to behold, that you cannot watch the rest of the movie without it dominating your thoughts. Of course this is not the only instance in which Cassavetes captures real life, there are many others. The diner cruising scene, scenes between the siblings, and between Lelia’s brother (a sad sack jazz singer) and his manager, all resonate with authenticity. Cassavetes went on to develop this style in subsequent movies, each one primarily financed with his own money. Many paid for with cash generated from his growing acting career. He looked at acting as the means to make these intensely personal films. Take 1977’s Opening Night for example. It’s a movie about the lengths one actress (Gena Rowlands) will go to embody the character she plays in a Broadway play. (Cassavetes also stars in this one, as her husband in the play within the movie.) No doubt the desire to ‘get it right’ was something he often sought for himself when making movies, either as an actor or director. Through increasingly disturbing events, we witness the self-destruction of an actress. A woman who is subsuming her own identity within the character she is playing. As this strains her relationship with the play’s writer, the director (Ben Garazza), and the cast, she begins to understand the depths she will really have to sink if she is to be successful. Unwilling to play the ‘desperate woman over 40’ that is written into the script, she attempts to develop her character into a living human being: someone real. This scenario of ‘woman on the edge’ was a recurring theme in his films. With 1974’s A Woman Under the Influence, starring Gena Rowlands (again) and Peter Falk, Cassavetes received some extremely negative criticism for his portrayal of a woman ‘going nuts’ in a suburban home. Those that would label this a perfect example of the inherent sexism in his films would miss the point of the character entirely. As Cassavetes saw it, this was a film about a free spirit who loved life, and was admittedly socially inept in her transition to suburban mother and wife. It did not help her predicament that her spouse is a blue-collar guy with mother issues. This film is Cassavetes condemnation of the routine and monotony of the standardized life that the suburbs can force onto someone. Rowlands isn’t crazy as defined by Cassavetes, she’s simply a woman under the influence of these pressures to conform, and she can’t cope, it’s just not her. For his credit, his husband loves her, demanding throughout the film that she ‘just be herself’. It’s the wild side he loves about her, and he is determined to have her live a happy and fulfilling life, but at the start of the film he is also concerned with the perceptions of his coworkers and family. To free himself, and his marriage of these exterior pressures, this family must endure tests of its unity, culminating in Rowlands’ committal to a psychiatric facility following her nervous breakdown. Her breakdown is brought on by the perception by her husband that some very odd things were going on while she was throwing a party for her children. Sure, allowing them and the neighborhood kids to play dress up, and asking them to imitate Swan Lake for a visitor by yelling ‘Die kids, die for Mr. Jenkins’, is a bit off, but no real impropriety took place. When Faulk comes home to find the children running around his house nude, and a strange man standing in his living room, he doesn’t wait for explanations, he simply unloads onto his wife. As his rage builds, Faulk elicits the help of the family doctor and his mother to confront his wife about, as he sees it, her crazy behavior. All this proves too much for Rowlands. As her world turns against her, she desperately clings to her children while begging her husband to help her. When she realizes the futility of her pleadings, she begins to spiral out of control. She mounts the couch, begins rambling and jabbering about the events of the day, and demands that ‘everyone leave her alone’. All of this is to no avail as the doctor and her mother-in-law are convinced that she is certifiable, and should be committed. Her husband however is reluctant to do so. His love for his wife makes him waiver on what was previously a drawn conclusion of action for him. He doesn’t know if he should sign the paper, doesn’t know if it’ll do any good. He blames himself, he loves her, he wants his wife back, the free spirit, yet he cannot allow such outbursts to overturn his home, and his world. He is too entrenched in what he sees as ‘normal and acceptable’ for Rowlands’ eccentricities to be tolerated.This is perhaps the most extreme scene in any of Cassavetes’ films, yet it doesn’t seem like soap opera. Somehow it all comes off as believable and real. Somehow we sympathize not only with Rowlands, and Falk, but the mother-in-law, the doctor, all the characters in fact. Each one is so eloquently drawn that we can imagine ourselves in any one of those positions. We understand the desire of the family friends to ignore the problem, the same as we can concede that the mother-in-law is right in wanting to keep Rowlands from influencing her grandchildren. It paints the most realistic portrait of coping with someone’s mental illness, or seeming insanity, ever committed to celluloid before or since. It’s a much more truthful portrayal than Harmony Korine’s self-indulgent ‘Julien Donkey-Boy’ which was more about getting a Dogme 95 certificate than it was about looking into life with someone who is schizophrenic.What Cassavetes accomplished with Shadows, Opening Night, A Woman Under the Influence, and every other film he made was the most precise and honest capturing of raw human power in the movies. His achievements cannot be dismissed as pretentious, arty, or self-indulgent, because he never indulged his own ego, rather the egos of his characters. He allowed them to develop and grow within the story as real people do, through believable experiences and trials. While doing so he created some of the most riveting cinema ever. He took these very personal stories that came from within him, and filtered them into something we can all enjoy, connect with, and appreciate. Because of the extremes of emotion his films portray, they polarize their audience. Some people are just afraid to admit to themselves they see their own flaws when watching one of his masterpieces. Shadows, Opening Night, and A Woman Under the Influence are available in a Cassavetes box set of DVDs from Criterion, which also includes Faces, and The Killing of a Chinese Bookie.
]]>Sun, 24 Jun 2007 20:21:00 GMTanalogzombieanalogzombie Blog6/24/2007 4:21:00 PMCassavetes is one of those directors you either love or hate. Much the same way people are totally polarized on the works of Tarantino, or the film Magnolia, Cassavetes has driven film fanatics to loathe him, critics to praise him, and general audiences to simultaneously revile and admire him. He can either open an entire world of film to you, or simply reinforce your preconceived notions of the pretentiousness of auteur films, and in that he is singular. If the validity of art were based on its ability to produce extreme emotion Cassavetes would be considered a DaVinci. The way in which he achieves this provocation of emotion is special too. No other director, not Ozu, Renior, Scorsese, or Anderson (either of them), has successfully captured the essence of feeling in their films the way Cassavetes does. You don&rsquo;t watch one of his films, you feel it, you live it. The audience registers every second of joy, anguish, or pain that floats across the characters&rsquo; faces. This is why his films create such a variation of comment: some people are not comfortable with how they feel while viewing them. But I think I&rsquo;m getting ahead of myself here. Let me slow down, back up, and give you a little background on the man and his works.John Cassavetes is considered to be the father of American Independent film. When the French New Wave was exploding in Europe, Cassavetes was developing his own answer to Hollywood in NYC. But unlike his European counterparts who were seeking to take &lsquo;cinema into the streets&rsquo;, Cassavetes was seeking a more interior and personal space. He always called himself an amateur director and professional actor. Indeed many people know him better as the husband in Rosemary&rsquo;s Baby, or from The Dirty Dozen, than they do as the creator of Shadows. But it is his work as a writer/director that means the most to us today. His first film, Shadows (1958), was born out of improvisational routines he developed in his acting workshop class. The film proudly proclaims &lsquo;this film was improvised&rsquo; at its conclusion, but the reality was it was quite scripted by the time it came to start shooting. It was, however, always fluid, and open to change on set. After the initial shooting of 1958, Cassavetes came back in 1959 to shoot a few more scenes to flesh out the main characters. Presumably because at the time of original shooting it was not clear were the story would end up. Many of these additional scenes involve Lelia and her relationship with her brothers.The heart of the film concerns their sibling relationship, and the reaction of Lelia&rsquo;s white boyfriend when he realizes, upon meeting one of her darker skinned brothers, that she has been passing for white. In the pivotal scene of realization no words are spoken between the lovers, everything is conveyed in glances and body language. This is what I am getting at with Cassavetes. He doesn&rsquo;t need excessive dialogue or score to make sure we understand exactly what each character is feeling. He achieves it through his shot composition and by eliciting real moments from his actors. Moments that are all too recognizable to us. We don&rsquo;t need to be told how Lelia&rsquo;s boyfriend feels; it&rsquo;s all there, in his face. The way his eyes dart from Leila to her brother, and then down to the floor. The way his body tightens with revulsion and then immediately loosens to say he is aware of the vibe he&rsquo;s giving off. He is ashamed of how he feels, but cannot help it. He loves Lelia, but is also repulsed by her. Lelia and her brother recognize that look immediately; they know what he&rsquo;s thinking and want no part of it. Her heart is broken with his glances, and her brother steps in to be her protector. As he demands the ashamed boyfriend leave his house, Lelia&rsquo;s would-be beau apologizes, asks them all out for dinner, he is sorry; he wants to prove he is no racist. All this comes too late for Lelia and her kin. The damage has been done; they see him for what he is, for what he thought, if even only for a second. Their world is a world without compromise, they cannot flinch on this issue for one second. They will not be denied, or judged on their race. Her boyfriend knows this too, knows it&rsquo;s too late, but he cannot help himself, he loves her.This scene in Shadows lasts about 3 minutes, but is so riveting, real, and amazing to behold, that you cannot watch the rest of the movie without it dominating your thoughts. Of course this is not the only instance in which Cassavetes captures real life, there are many others. The diner cruising scene, scenes between the siblings, and between Lelia&rsquo;s brother (a sad sack jazz singer) and his manager, all resonate with authenticity. Cassavetes went on to develop this style in subsequent movies, each one primarily financed with his own money. Many paid for with cash generated from his growing acting career. He looked at acting as the means to make these intensely personal films. Take 1977&rsquo;s Opening Night for example. It&rsquo;s a movie about the lengths one actress (Gena Rowlands) will go to embody the character she plays in a Broadway play. (Cassavetes also stars in this one, as her husband in the play within the movie.) No doubt the desire to &lsquo;get it right&rsquo; was something he often sought for himself when making movies, either as an actor or director. Through increasingly disturbing events, we witness the self-destruction of an actress. A woman who is subsuming her own identity within the character she is playing. As this strains her relationship with the play&rsquo;s writer, the director (Ben Garazza), and the cast, she begins to understand the depths she will really have to sink if she is to be successful. Unwilling to play the &lsquo;desperate woman over 40&rsquo; that is written into the script, she attempts to develop her character into a living human being: someone real. This scenario of &lsquo;woman on the edge&rsquo; was a recurring theme in his films. With 1974&rsquo;s A Woman Under the Influence, starring Gena Rowlands (again) and Peter Falk, Cassavetes received some extremely negative criticism for his portrayal of a woman &lsquo;going nuts&rsquo; in a suburban home. Those that would label this a perfect example of the inherent sexism in his films would miss the point of the character entirely. As Cassavetes saw it, this was a film about a free spirit who loved life, and was admittedly socially inept in her transition to suburban mother and wife. It did not help her predicament that her spouse is a blue-collar guy with mother issues. This film is Cassavetes condemnation of the routine and monotony of the standardized life that the suburbs can force onto someone. Rowlands isn&rsquo;t crazy as defined by Cassavetes, she&rsquo;s simply a woman under the influence of these pressures to conform, and she can&rsquo;t cope, it&rsquo;s just not her. For his credit, his husband loves her, demanding throughout the film that she &lsquo;just be herself&rsquo;. It&rsquo;s the wild side he loves about her, and he is determined to have her live a happy and fulfilling life, but at the start of the film he is also concerned with the perceptions of his coworkers and family. To free himself, and his marriage of these exterior pressures, this family must endure tests of its unity, culminating in Rowlands&rsquo; committal to a psychiatric facility following her nervous breakdown. Her breakdown is brought on by the perception by her husband that some very odd things were going on while she was throwing a party for her children. Sure, allowing them and the neighborhood kids to play dress up, and asking them to imitate Swan Lake for a visitor by yelling &lsquo;Die kids, die for Mr. Jenkins&rsquo;, is a bit off, but no real impropriety took place. When Faulk comes home to find the children running around his house nude, and a strange man standing in his living room, he doesn&rsquo;t wait for explanations, he simply unloads onto his wife. As his rage builds, Faulk elicits the help of the family doctor and his mother to confront his wife about, as he sees it, her crazy behavior. All this proves too much for Rowlands. As her world turns against her, she desperately clings to her children while begging her husband to help her. When she realizes the futility of her pleadings, she begins to spiral out of control. She mounts the couch, begins rambling and jabbering about the events of the day, and demands that &lsquo;everyone leave her alone&rsquo;. All of this is to no avail as the doctor and her mother-in-law are convinced that she is certifiable, and should be committed. Her husband however is reluctant to do so. His love for his wife makes him waiver on what was previously a drawn conclusion of action for him. He doesn&rsquo;t know if he should sign the paper, doesn&rsquo;t know if it&rsquo;ll do any good. He blames himself, he loves her, he wants his wife back, the free spirit, yet he cannot allow such outbursts to overturn his home, and his world. He is too entrenched in what he sees as &lsquo;normal and acceptable&rsquo; for Rowlands&rsquo; eccentricities to be tolerated.This is perhaps the most extreme scene in any of Cassavetes&rsquo; films, yet it doesn&rsquo;t seem like soap opera. Somehow it all comes off as believable and real. Somehow we sympathize not only with Rowlands, and Falk, but the mother-in-law, the doctor, all the characters in fact. Each one is so eloquently drawn that we can imagine ourselves in any one of those positions. We understand the desire of the family friends to ignore the problem, the same as we can concede that the mother-in-law is right in wanting to keep Rowlands from influencing her grandchildren. It paints the most realistic portrait of coping with someone&rsquo;s mental illness, or seeming insanity, ever committed to celluloid before or since. It&rsquo;s a much more truthful portrayal than Harmony Korine&rsquo;s self-indulgent &lsquo;Julien Donkey-Boy&rsquo; which was more about getting a Dogme 95 certificate than it was about looking into life with someone who is schizophrenic.What Cassavetes accomplished with Shadows, Opening Night, A Woman Under the Influence, and every other film he made was the most precise and honest capturing of raw human power in the movies. His achievements cannot be dismissed as pretentious, arty, or self-indulgent, because he never indulged his own ego, rather the egos of his characters. He allowed them to develop and grow within the story as real people do, through believable experiences and trials. While doing so he created some of the most riveting cinema ever. He took these very personal stories that came from within him, and filtered them into something we can all enjoy, connect with, and appreciate. Because of the extremes of emotion his films portray, they polarize their audience. Some people are just afraid to admit to themselves they see their own flaws when watching one of his masterpieces. Shadows, Opening Night, and A Woman Under the Influence are available in a Cassavetes box set of DVDs from Criterion, which also includes Faces, and The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. http://www.spout.com/blogs/quint/archive/2006/6/15/1470.aspx Post By: quint
Post To: An inordinate number of peppers
Post Date: 6/15/2006 8:53:00 PM
Body: I recently rewatched this film. Previously I'd checked it out at the library and the disc was so scratched as to be unwatchable. Then I bought the Criterion collection boxed set and have procrastinated about finishing it ever since. I love these boxed sets because it is like committing to reading every book by a particular author. Watching the artist mature through their work. The extras on the disc are marvelous, so some of the juiciest bits were quite buried in the mix. In a photo gallery of the recording sessions of the soundtrack, there are some great anecdotes about Charles Mingus. I've read Mingus' memoit "Beneath the underdog" and am quite familiar with his temperament and his music. I guess Cassavettes contacted him to do the music and he took months to do just a few minutes of the score. He asked Cassavettes to send some people over to clean up the cat shit in his studio. He couldn't work with all this cat shit on the floor. So Cassavettes dutifully came over and cleaned up the cat shit. The next time he contacted Mingus, he couldn't work without the cat shit and was waiting for the cats to shit all over the place again. Great stuff.Mingus went on a notorious bender to Tijiuna that inspired some great music, but this was just as Shadow's was in it's final polish and they needed some more music. The saxophonist agreed to do it for some quick cash. He asked Cassavettes to tell him the story of his life so he could blow it out his horn. There are some great pictures of Cassavettes dancing around and generally making an ass of himself while the saxophonist blows for all he has. It's that joyous creative outpouring that coats this film. The whole effort seems doused in that excitement. The acting is often quite bad, but hey, it hardly matters. The film is a document of a great man and what he inspired in those around him.The documentary of the film's restoration is also quite interesting if you're into that kind of thing. I've grown quite interested in it myself as I've become vaguely involved in a film restoration project myself. What a painstaking labor of love it seems. A sort of filmic archaeology with a healthy whiff of vinegar.
]]>Fri, 16 Jun 2006 00:53:00 GMTquintAn inordinate number of peppers6/15/2006 8:53:00 PMI recently rewatched this film. Previously I'd checked it out at the library and the disc was so scratched as to be unwatchable. Then I bought the Criterion collection boxed set and have procrastinated about finishing it ever since. I love these boxed sets because it is like committing to reading every book by a particular author. Watching the artist mature through their work. The extras on the disc are marvelous, so some of the juiciest bits were quite buried in the mix. In a photo gallery of the recording sessions of the soundtrack, there are some great anecdotes about Charles Mingus. I've read Mingus' memoit "Beneath the underdog" and am quite familiar with his temperament and his music. I guess Cassavettes contacted him to do the music and he took months to do just a few minutes of the score. He asked Cassavettes to send some people over to clean up the cat shit in his studio. He couldn't work with all this cat shit on the floor. So Cassavettes dutifully came over and cleaned up the cat shit. The next time he contacted Mingus, he couldn't work without the cat shit and was waiting for the cats to shit all over the place again. Great stuff.Mingus went on a notorious bender to Tijiuna that inspired some great music, but this was just as Shadow's was in it's final polish and they needed some more music. The saxophonist agreed to do it for some quick cash. He asked Cassavettes to tell him the story of his life so he could blow it out his horn. There are some great pictures of Cassavettes dancing around and generally making an ass of himself while the saxophonist blows for all he has. It's that joyous creative outpouring that coats this film. The whole effort seems doused in that excitement. The acting is often quite bad, but hey, it hardly matters. The film is a document of a great man and what he inspired in those around him.The documentary of the film's restoration is also quite interesting if you're into that kind of thing. I've grown quite interested in it myself as I've become vaguely involved in a film restoration project myself. What a painstaking labor of love it seems. A sort of filmic archaeology with a healthy whiff of vinegar. http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/family/MemberTagFilms.aspxfamily
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