John
Nicholas Cassavetes (December 9, 1929 - February 3,
1989) was a Greek-American actor, screenwriter, and
director. Cassavetes created an American form of cinéma
vérité with his innovative camera use,
bleak outlook, and emphasis on improvisation. Film
critic Ray Carney called him "the father of American
independent film".
Contents
1 Life and Work
2 A Note On Improvisation
3 Tributes
4 Selected Filmography
5 External links
Life and Work
Cassavetes was born in New York City
to Greek immigrants. He grew up on Long Island, New
York and attended Colgate University before moving
to the New York Academy of Dramatic Arts. On graduation
in 1950, he continued acting in the theater. By 1953,
he was doing small parts in films; he continued to
play a James Dean-like "juvenile delinquent"
throughout the 1950s. Cassavetes also acted on television,
which was still finding its feet as a medium. His
experience working within television's budgetary and
schedule limits influenced his later film production
style.
During this time he met and married
actress Gena Rowlands, a fellow television actor,
who was a year younger than he was. By 1956 Cassavetes
had begun teaching method acting in workshops in New
York City. An improvisation exercise in one workshop
inspired the idea for his writing and directorial
debut, Shadows (1960). Cassavetes raised the funds
for production from friends and family, as well as
listeners to a late-night radio talk show.
Cassavetes was unable to get American
distributors to carry Shadows, so he took it to Europe,
where it won the Critics Award at the Venice Film
Festival. European distributors later released the
movie in the United States as an import.
Although the viewership of Shadows
in the United States was slight, it did gain attention
from the Hollywood studios. Cassavetes directed two
movies for Hollywood in the early 1960s Too Late Blues
and A Child is Waiting but the experience was exasperating.
The intervention of the studios, the lack of creative
control, and the over-all dumbing down of his work
was unbearable. Cassavetes refused to go through the
process again.
His strategy, brought on by necessity,
was to work as an actor in mainstream movies, and
channel the funds he made there into his work as a
director. He didn't just clockwatch as an actor, though;
he did masterly work in blockbuster hits of the late
1960s, including World War II epic The Dirty Dozen
(1967) for which he was nominated for an Academy Award
for Best Supporting Actor and in Roman Polanski's
classy thriller Rosemary's Baby (1968) as Mia Farrow's
struggling actor husband, who has sold out big time
to some very dark forces.
His next independent film was Faces,
which lay down new themes for later work. Starring
Cassavetes's wife Rowlands, Faces depicted a contemporary
suburban marriage in the process of slow disintegration,
with the accompanying desperate and degrading sexual
improprieties. Cassavetes held an unflinching camera
on the pettiness and emotional greed of the distancing
husband and wife and their lovers, but in the end
the pathos of their story gives them an unexpected
dignity. Faces was a critical and financial success,
nominated for two Academy Awards (Best Supporting
Actor and Actress).
After Faces Cassavetes could concentrate
more fully on his directorial work. He had enough
leverage at this point that he could make movies in
the studio system, yet retain full creative control.
Husbands (1970) starred Cassavetes himself, with Peter
Falk and Ben Gazzara. They play a trio of men escaping
their marriages for minor peccadillos. Another in
the 1970s include Minnie and Moskowitz, about a misdirected
young woman seeking love, and starring Rowlands again
with a small part for Cassavetes's mother, Katherine.
His three masterpieces, made in the
late 1970s, however, were produced independently.
A Woman Under the Influence (1974) stars Rowlands
as an increasingly eccentric housewife trying to keep
her hold on reality. Peter Falk played her husband,
who tries to keep up a facade of normality, but ultimately
makes the difficult decision of committing her to
a mental institution. The characters were nuanced,
and the ethical situations were measured in shades
of gray. The wife's behavior, while disturbing and
disconcerting for those around her, is not obviously
dangerous or unstable. Rowlands is an expert collaborator
in the story, playing Mabel with subtlety and energy;
she received an Academy Award nomination for Best
Actress, while Cassavetes was nominated for Best Director.
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976)
was a movie about the experience of men as much as
Influence was about women. Ben Gazzara plays Cosmo
Vitelli, a small-time strip-club owner with an out-of-control
gambling habit, who is convinced by mobsters to commit
a murder to pay off his debt. Driven by fear and uncertainty,
Vitelli deceives friend and foe alike. Author Christos
Tsiolkas said of Bookie that it showed "being
a man means knowing gutlessness better than knowing
courage, that failure stays with you long after success."
Finally Opening Night reflected upon
acting and the profession of the actor itself. Once
again Gena Rowlands was the leading actress alongside
Cassavetes, Ben Gazzara, and in one of her last films,
Joan Blondell. She impersonated the aging former film,
now stage actress Myrtle Gordon who falls victim to
a personal crisis. Alone, unloved by her colleagues,
in fear of her age and always treated as a professional
actress instead of a human being, she succumbs to
alcohol and hallucinations after she witnesses the
accidental death of a young fan. Ultimately she succeeds
to break free by fighting her personal demons on stage,
delivering the performance of her life. Lateron critics
stated that Cassavetes was determined to make this
movie because he was the only one who could reflect
upon this subject so profoundly. According to Laurence
Gavron, Cassavetes worked on the screenplay for several
years, constantly preoccupied by the subject. Unfortunately
the production turned out to be a financial disaster,
costing more than 1 1/2 million dollars of loaned
money and taking more than one year. The first cut
was more than five hours long and only one copy of
the final version was released in the U.S.
Cassavetes continued to work through
the 1980s, although personal troubles with alcohol
were beginning to take their toll. Gloria (1980) is
a more conventional thriller starring Rowlands as
a mob moll who runs off with a young boy orphaned
by the mob and soon to be next. Love Streams (1984)
starred Cassavetes as an aging lothario who suffers
the overbearing affection of his recently divorced
sister. Sadly, Cassavetes's last movie, Big Trouble
(1986), was a last-minute project picked up as a favor
when a younger director friend peremptorily quit the
project. The movie, wracked by incompatible studio
and director edits, was, in Cassavetes' words, "a
disaster". Already ill, he was heartbroken that
it would be the last film he would do.
Cassavetes's personality was overpowering
and driven. He lived to make film, and sacrificed
his colleagues and himself to the process. The intense
effort took its toll; a long-time alcoholic, Cassavetes
died from cirrhosis of the liver in 1989 at the age
of only 59. He was survived by Rowlands, who continued
to act, and three children. His son, Nick Cassavetes,
followed in his father's footsteps as an actor and
director, and made 1997's She's So Lovely from the
elder Cassavetes's screenplay, and directed 2004's
The Notebook.
A Note On Improvisation
Rowlands has stated that the role
of improvisation in Cassavetes films has frequently
been misunderstood. Though Cassavetes allowed and
even encouraged his actors to ad lib while filming,
only very rarely, she says, were entire scenes filmed
as they were being improvised. Rather, Rowlands reports,
the actors would improvise from Cassavetes' scripts
during rehearsals, then Cassavetes would rewrite scenes
based on the improvisations
Tributes
Fugazi, a rock music group who shared
Cassavetes' independently-minded aesthetic, titled
a song after the filmaker on their 1993 In on the
Kill Taker album. Lyrics include: "complete control
for Cassavetes/if it's not for sale you can't buy
it"
The feminist punk rock band Le Tigre
also wrote a tribute song-of-sorts to the filmmaker
called What’s yr take on Cassavetes? which appeared
on their debut, self-titled album. The lyrics mostly
consist of a rotating list of possible answers to
the question posed by the title of the song, and those
answers include Misogynist, Genius, Alcoholic, and
Messiah
Filmography
Shadows (1959)
Too late blues (1961)
A child is waiting (1963)
The Killers (1964)
Faces (1968)
Rosemary's Baby (1968)
Husbands (1970)
Minnie and Moskowitz (1971)
A Woman Under the Influence (1974)
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976)
Opening Night (1977)
Gloria (1980)
The Haircut (1982)
Tempest (1982)
Love Streams (1984)
Big Trouble (1986)
source from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
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