Biography

Beginnings of career

John Cassavetes is born with New York in a family of Greek origin - his/her father originating in the Pirée, immigrates in the United States at the eleven years age. He passes a happy childhood in user-friendliness and attends in his youth the dark rooms in company of his brother. Not very interested by the higher learning, it is registered under the impulse of comrades to studies of dramatic art to the American Academy off Dramatic Arts at the beginning of the Années 1950. The prestigious school is then very impregnated methods in vogue of the Actors Studio. The play of actor of Cassavetes as his direction thereafter are influenced by the lesson of Lee Strasberg, in particular the culture of a close relationship between the actor and his character. Its finished studies, it leaves in round two years and works a time on Broadway. It meets at the exit of a representation a young actress, Gena Rowlands, that it marries in 1954. The couple will have three children - Nick, Alexandra and Zoe - of which two will continue a cinematographic career: Nick Cassavetes (realizer) and Zoe Cassavetes (scenario writer).

The actor rather quickly gives up the boards for the small screen. Its first appearances are primarily supporting roles in series. He takes part in the dramatic ones televised among which the popular emissions The Philco television Playhouse , The Goodyear Television Playhouse as Kraft Television Theater which are in fact of the retransmissions (sometimes, on line) of plays. At that time, American television is already media of mass. The chains undertake to assemble original programs which could enable them to rise on level of the theater and cinema, and to thus acquire noble letters. These emissions have fact what was called “The Golden Old off Television” (the Golden age of television) in the United States and are seen like programs of anthology in the American audio-visual history. Several actors become famous thereafter, such Eli Wallach, Grace Kelly or James Dean, make there also their first weapons. These demanding productions on the professional level mark the beginning of career of John Cassavetes. Work that it achieves there participle with its maturation of the play of actor. Its collaboration with television, the bonds that it weaves there are deeper and constant that in the theater to which it returns only in the Années 1980.

Located at the time of the one of his televised services, John Cassavetes takes down in 1956 a first role with the cinema in Vis-a-vis the crime ( Crime in the streets ) of Don Siegel then in the Man who killed the fear ( Edge off the city ) of Martin Ritt at the sides of Sidney Poitier. On this occasion, it is familiarized with the setting in cinematographic scene. The two films are worth also a certain notoriety to him which will enable him thereafter to obtain engagements which will very often leave it financial vexations. The same year, with a friend, Bert Lane, it assembles to New York a workshop of theatrical teaching: the Variety Arts Studio . The courses are addressed initially to semi-professionals, then open largely with the coming whole. One privileges there the improvisation, the work of group; environment is studious there. Soon John Cassavetes tests the need to push his artistic experiment more; extremely on its experiment a cinematographic as actor and strong of completed work in its teaching, it decides to pass to the realization: he forsakes the direction of the theatrical workshop to devote himself to the turning of Shadows .

The experiment Shadows

Context, turning of film

John Cassavetes starts his career of scenario writer in 1958 by a master stroke. Shadows gets to the realizer an international repute, especially in Europe. Perhaps echoes of the New wave in France where leave at the same time the four hundred blows and Breathless , Shadows - but also The Connection of Shirley Clarke - fact part of this time when some works with small budget, turned in natural decorations, with unknown actors, appear suddenly to be registered in margin of an American cinema saturated with doors and very ambitious productions. This new wave with American - less literary, more social and more realistic - causes an in-draft. One then evokes the emergence of a “new school of New York” or of a “cinema truth”.

The film is born in spontaneousness and the improvisation. One evening of 1958, John Cassavetes is invited to a radio program and launches a fund campaign to finance a film from which the idea came to him from a meeting of improvisation which proceeded the afternoon even in its school of theater. The history of Shadows is that of an small group of young blacks and mongrels confronted with the Racial discrimination. The characters seek to escape the social cleavage imposed by their skin color. At the beginning, the realizer has only one vague intrigue at the head. He works two weeks with his actors to work out characters and by doing this a history which will be built with the wire of the turning which lasts four months. The starting impulse becomes a frame of mind, spontaneousness is the guiding line of film. The actors improvise, just like the jazzman Charlie Mingus who signs the original soundtrack. Cassavetes estimates that the actors with the cinema are bridled by the marks on the ground which make it possible to take care that they are located well within the framework and are suitably enlightened. To make the play of the actors even freer, it removes the marks and imposes on the camera that she follows them in their movements. The director does not hesitate either to integrate into the engineering team of the people who do not have least cinematographic experience. Al Ribbon, which thereafter will be operator chief of several of his films, has, at that time, no trade. Seymour Cassel, future interprets in title of several films of Cassavetes, is used as odd-job man, seizes the framework and will be bombarded distributer. John Cassavetes counts above all on the emulation and the engagement of each one in creative work.

Collective work, free actors of their movement, dialogs worked out starting from improvisations, Shadows contains right now the features characteristic of the style of Cassavetes. This first film poses also the bases of the future scenarios of the author. The characters are men or women resulting from the American middle-class which carry out an ordinary life - and, in fact, the ordinary Racisme denounced by film does not say its name. Another recurring element in the work of the scenario writer, it acts of a chronicle without outcome. One follows the characters the time of an episode of their life and one leaves them without dramatic fall, reversal of situation, conclusion: Ben, one of the three heroes of film, disappears simply in the streets from New York, the chin inserted in his wind-breaker. An end which slices with the traditional epilogs of the American cinema.

Reception of film

Shadows will spend time to find its public. It is that before being a film, it is especially about an experimental work for the realizer; no commercial distribution is considered. The film is all the same projected with the end of the year 1958 with the cinema Paris , in New York. In spite of a disastrous representation to the dires of the scenario writer, the event is relayed by the New Yorkean review Film Culture directed by Jonas Mekas, critical and independent realizer who is filled with enthusiasm for film. However, John Cassavetes is not satisfied with his work. He decides to take again the assembly and agrees ten days of additional turnings. He adds sequences and alters the history. The new version of Shadows which remains the only visible one to date - the first being prohibited by Gena Rowlands, heiress of her husband - contributes to still more involve in debt the young scenario writer who awaits its first child - Nick Cassavetes which will become itself realizer. He thus agrees to play the part of a private detective in televised series: Johnny Staccato passage . This production turned in the pure tradition of black film obtains with its defending body, a certain popularity. It will carry out itself besides five episodes and will contribute to the writing of several of the scenarios.

For as much, Shadows continues its course. Thanks to Seymour Cassel, sent on mission in Europe to sell film, it is initially projected with the National Film Theater of London, then with the French Cinémathèque, and gains the price of criticism Pasinetti with the Festival of Venice in 1960. It finds finally a distributer British, the International Lion Films (also distributer of the Third Man of Carol Reed), which will enable him to be exploited internationally.

The growing fame of the young realizer interests Hollywood and the majors of the American cinema who engage it to carry out a new film. It leaves New York for Los Angeles - more precisely for Beverly Hills where it settles with its family. It will carry out for the studios two feature-length films: Too Late Blues (translated into French by the Ballade of the without-hopes , 1961), and a child awaits ( has Child Is Waiting , 1963).

The Hollywood bracket

Designed within a more professional framework, Too Late blues , produced by the Paramount, is not stripped however of a certain continuity compared to Shadows . It takes again of it the set of themes of the Jazz and its interpretation (some of the protagonists of Shadows were already musicians) as well as the set of themes of the community and the place of the individual in his center. The scenario tells the drift of a pianist of jazz, initially leader of a unit, his exile in the forfeiture and then its return; it is cosigné by Richard Carr, author of televised series and in particular of Johnny Staccato . The setting in scene is however less realistic, more sober also than the first work of the realizer. Success is not with go and John Cassavetes is disappointed of his collaboration with Paramount which itself is not filled with enthusiasm for film. The realizer estimates to have had to compose with the Hollywood administration not very available, during all the production.

The summer 1962, by the means of his/her friend Everett Chambers - who played in Too Late Blues -, John Cassavetes obtains to carry out two episodes of the series The Lloyd Bridges Show : off has Even Boots and My Daddy Can Lick Your Daddy . The emission rests on the actor Lloyd Bridges, then high-speed motorboat of the small screen. This strong personality does not have anything any more to prove: scenario writers and realizers have any latitude in the development of the episodes. Among the subjects which are proposed to him, John Cassavetes made the choice approach kinds snuffed by Hollywood: a film of war and a film of Boxing. My Daddy Can Lick Your Daddy opposes a pretentious boxer that his/her own son will cause in duel. has Even Boots off is held during the American Civil War; the two camps used by the conflict, decide to make a truce which will be broken by a Sudiste which undertakes to steal a pair of boots to the opposing side. John Cassavetes is more particularly satisfied with this episode; he is devoted besides by a price Peabody - American reward decreed annually since 1948 to the televisual programs. Produced in an environment favorable to the realizer, it is the only positive experiment of the scenario writer within Hollywood industry.

Always under contract with Paramount, John Cassavetes and Richard Carr prepare another feature-length film: The Iron Men . The film has as a subject an air section black soldiers during the Second world war with Sidney Poitier in the first role; Burt Lancaster is also had a presentiment of. The project nevertheless étiole and turns short like its relation with the major. In 1963, John Cassavetes is requested by Stanley Kramer for the account of United Artists. This last is at that time the whooping-cough of the medium. Charismatic producer of the Train will whistle three times Fred Zinnemann and from Ouragan on Caine of Edward Dmytryk, Stanley Kramer comes to carry out Jugement in Nuremberg ( Judgment At Nuremberg , 1962), for which it gained the Golden Globe meiller realizer. The casting of this super production contained a pleiad of celebrities of which Burt Lancaster and Judy Garland. The two actors pile up again for Kramer, this time producer, in a child awaits whose he entrusts the realization to John Cassavetes.

a child awaits milked children Autiste S. John Cassavetes leaves in locations with the scenario writer, Abby Mann, to visit institutes, to meet mental handicapped children, parents and to dialog with specialists. The realizer very takes in heart his work. Finished turning, Stanley Kramer the évince however of the assembly and finishes film in its place. Collaboration between the two men will degenerate and the film, at its exit, will be disavowed by Cassavetes. The realizer put forward, on this subject, of the perfectly opposite intentions which explain its dissension with the final version. John Cassavetes sought to show the autistic children as normal children who live in ostracism because of the glance that the company carries on them; according to him, the vision of film and Kramer consists in, on the contrary, considering this difference only from the point of view of the company and the efforts which it invests through the institutes to bring back them to it. The incident marks the realizer durably and it will not have too hard words to evoke Stanley Kramer and film thereafter. This experiment with the majors will be the rather sour painting object besides and which in known as length on the reports/ratios then maintained with Hollywood, in its work Meurtre of a Chinese bookmaker (1976). The actor Ben Gazzara, alter ego of John Cassavetes, camps there a director of Cabaret of second zone which, driven back with money problems, and to make it possible its cabaret to survive, agrees to assassinate a bookmaker on behalf of the Mafia.

The scenario writer definitively will decide to free itself from the system to produce his own achievements. Firmly determined not to more call upon capital who could harm his freedom of creation, John Cassavetes decides to produce itself his films like had been to it Shadows . They will be turned in the family home, or that of his/her parents or close relations. The actors will be friends, family members or amateurs. After some engagements as actor, John Cassavetes joins together enough money to carry out Faces .

Independence

Return to the sources

John Cassavetes operates a return to the sources: “ I had not made a personal film since Shadows , in 1959, which was one of the happiest experiments of my life. Its memory me forever left, during all the time where I made pretense become a large Hollywood director. ”. End 1964, it writes initially Faces for the theater then decides to transform it into script for the cinema. The project ambitious, is improved on several occasions, the final scenario will reach two hundred and fifty pages. The film follows the drift of a couple of broken down ripe age, in their adventure extraconjugale. Richard from there will spend the night with a prostitute while his wife, Maria, let themselves undertake by a seducer in a nightclub. The intention of the realizer is to denounce the superficiality of the relations between husband, the absence of communication which reigns in the households of the American middle-class. Turning begins in 1965 after three weeks from preparation, without external financing. The realizer returns to the artisanal method of Shadows , the experiment moreover. He is not any more question of improvisation; all the dialogs are scrupulously written. On the other hand, John Cassavetes leaves free course to the actors to interpret them in a way in which they wish it, even if it means to modify certain counterparts with the need. Casting joins together John Marley, appeared in has off Even Boots , Lynn Carlin of which it is the first role with the cinema, Gena Rowlands - which already played under the direction of her husband in has Child Is Waiting - and Seymour Cassel. More still than in Shadows , the play of actor is the pillar of film. John Cassavetes does not hesitate to suspend turning for new repetitions. The setting time of sights itself puts at the tuning fork interpreters - the scenario writer could let the camera turn until the roller of film came to a end.

The turning of Faces takes six months, the assembly which follows lasts three years. It takes place in the house even Cassavetes-Rowlands couple. To the Déruschage 150 hours of catches of sights, are added the technical vexations, in particular a band its which it will be necessary almost to reconstitute end to end fault a sufficient speed of recording. John Cassavetes carries out a first assembly with the assistance of young inexperienced trainees. Dissatisfied of this version, he entrusts work to his acolythe coproducer and chief operator, Al Ribbon. The post-production continues while John Cassavetes connects various roles as an actor to reinflate film.

He plays thus under the direction of Roman Polański in Rosemary' S Baby (1968), at the sides of Mia Farrow, a film of horror which will popularize the realizer. John Cassavetes does not leave in Polański an imperishable memory. The actor, according to him, did not know to find his marks and plays of Cassavetes. On his side, John Cassavetes regards film as a commercial film, “a ustensil planned on order”. With his discharge, the man is then in full assembly of Faces . Time that it does not pass on the turning of Rosemary' S Baby is devoted to work on its film with Al Ribbon. It incarnates with more success a small fatal striking, one year earlier, in The Dirty Dozen ( The Dirty Dozen , 1967) of Robert Aldrich. The film is a commercial success. Its interpretation is greeted by two nominations, one with the Oscars of the cinema, the other with the golden delicious spheres, for this supporting role.

Faces is completed in 1968. The film collects a plebiscite. It is selected with the Mostra of Venice in the category better film and better male interpretation - John Marley takes down this last reward. It is also selected with the Oscars of the cinema in three categories. Success does not go without causing the anger of the guild of the actors. The powerful trade union does not admit that turning did not receive its downstream. Its president, Charlton Heston, goes until convening the actors to claim a payment of arrears of contribution to them which it will not obtain.

The following film, Husbands , is the first color film of John Cassavetes. For this production, the realizer is given important financings from an Italian patron, Bino Cirogna, a businessman which admires his work and which it meets at the time of the turning of the Intouchables of Giuliano Montaldo, in Rome in 1968. John Cassavetes camps there a godfather in the Mafia left prison. He divides the poster with Peter Falk which he convinces consequently occasion to play in Husbands . He contacts thereafter Ben Gazzara whose career crossed his on several occasions. The man appreciates films of his fellow-member and on the occasion of him to make share of it. At the time of a dinner in a restaurant of New York, John Cassavetes speaks to him about Husbands and the actor agrees to play there. The realizer as for him incarnates a third character. All three are found in Rome where Ben Gazzara is in turning, and start the repetitions.

Turning takes place with London. Three friends and fathers leave to make an escapade in the British capital. Far from their respective hearths, in an unslung environment, they make the spree in the pubs and allure young girls. The scenario fluctuates progressively of the production. The realizer takes again several times his script. Its attention is entirely related to the actors. He still forsakes the technique with Victor Kemper beginner. As for the assembly, tested by its preceding experiment of Faces , he entrusts it to Al Ribbon. The first projections allure the Columbia which buys the rights of distribution of film. The realizer does not share this enthusiasm. To the great displeasure distributer, it is locked up one year to make a new version of it. While the first was a light comedy, centered on the character of Ben Gazzara, the final version gives the three main roles to the same level and pours in a more dramatic tonality.

In 1970, John Cassavetes leaves to New York in company of Seymour Cassel, for the first of Husbands , it then proposes to him to make a film on the marriage. Approached in Faces and Husbands , through the married life and its mislayings, it is a question of treating more before the reasons which lead a man and a woman to the marriage in contemporary America. He writes a script for Seymour Cassel and Gena Rowlands; it will be a comedy. The two actors thus will play a history of love between two individuals who plan to marry on late. Casting includes/understands also the mother of Obstructed Rowlands which interprets its own role as that of John Cassavetes who incarnates the mother of Seymour Cassel. Universal agrees to produce film entitled Minnie and Moskowitz but leaves to the realizer any freedom. The film, quickly made and assembled, leaves on the screens in 1971.

Around Rowlands Obstructed

Rowlands obstructed, after Minnie and Moskowitz , will interpret under the direction of her husband, three of his important roles to the cinema and for which she gains the many ones and prestigious rewards. a woman under influence, Opening night and Gloria are dedicated to her qualities of actresses. a woman under influence starts in 1971. The film is financed and, to join together a sufficient budget, John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands will mortgage their own house. The intrigue turns around a couple of the American working class. Peter Falk incarnates a simple man who works on building sites, disarmed by the Névrose S of his/her partner played by Gena Rowlands. The film is completely written. Turning lasts thirteen weeks; it is held in the chronological order of the scenes in order to control the dramatic progression. John Cassavetes does not hesitate to resort to long sequence shots to collect all the emotional potential of the play of the actors. He multiplies the catches, varying the visual angles for each one of them. A certain tension reigns on the plate, the scenario writer and his wife have long and sometimes stormy exchanges on the development of film. It is completed with the end of the year 1972. The scenario writer who has the feeling to hold there a film of great scale, makes a point of controlling his distribution. Al Ribbon and Seymour Cassel lend strong hand to him. The task is difficult and during two years, a woman under influence remains in the boxes.

The film leaves in 1974 and is a business success. It gains also several prices. The performance of Obstructed Rowlands, more particularly, is greeted by a nomination with the Oscars and a Golden Globe in the category better actress in a dramatic film.

John Cassavetes gives up a time social America. He contacts Ben Gazzara who lives New York for Meurtre of a Chinese bookmaker (1976), a whodunnit in the form of allegory on the permanent combat delivered by the realizer to put forward his creation. In spite of the recognition which the scenario writer had drawn from his preceding realization, work undergoes a furnace in the United States. The distribution in Europe is happier and after a fashion makes it possible to the realizer to return in his expenses. It calls upon Ben Gazzara again to give the counterpart to his wife in Opening night . The film is mainly financed following the vexations of Meurtre of a Chinese bookmaker ; John Cassavetes borrows itself 1,5 million dollars for his production. Gena Rowlands interprets an actress of theater to which one entrusts the role of a woman who has her youth behind it: The Second Woman . This role weighs on the actress of theater; she realizes that thus one henceforth will look at it and she refuses there. The style of Cassavetes is softened. The tight plans are rarer, the film gives more place to overall plans. It imposes also marks to the actors under the insistence of his chief-operator Al Ribbon. The interpretation of Obstructed Rowlands is celebrated once again by a money Bear to the festival of Berlin. For as much, the film does not find distribution commercial and proves to be a financial failure.

The scenario writer comes from there to make a variation with his policy with respect to the studios. He writes, on ordering of MGM, the scenario of Gloria . It is finally Columbia which acquires it and which requests it to carry it out. John Cassavetes accepts to reinflate himself of the two successive reverses which it has just wiped. This is why, it qualifies readily Gloria “accident”. Indeed, the film leaves the register of the scenario writer. All work is planned, which is not in the practices. Usually, the scenario fluctuates, according to the evolution of film, the plans are decided at the last time. It comprises also a share of suspense and action. The register intimist is, him, confined in the relation between the character interpreted by Gena Rowlands, and the child that it gets busy to save claws of gangsters. John Cassavetes joins again with success. Work gains a Lion of gold to the Mostra of Venice in 1980.

Last creations: between theater and cinema

It is little before the exit of Gloria , in November 1980, that the scenario writer returns towards the theater, this time as an author and director. Its first part is entitled East/West Games . It directs his son, Nick Cassavetes, and the actress Sandy Martin. Nick Casssavetes is in this part a writer who writes a scenario for Hollywood and which must face the requirements of the studios.

John Cassavetes then puts in scene three other parts which will form a trilogy entitled off Three Plays Coils and Hate ( Three parts of love and hatred ). They will be played in alternation from May in June 1981 in California Center Theater of Los Angeles. The first of them is Knives , the history of a murder in the medium of the spectacle. Peter Falk plays the first part there. The two others are of the Canadian author Ted Allan: The Third Day Comes (with Nick Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands) and Love Streams (with Gena Rowlands and Jon Voight). The setting in theatrical scene of John Cassavetes does not seem much to be distinguished from its setting in cinematographic scene. It adopts a similar step with respect to the actors.

After having endorsed a role in Tempête of Paul Mazursky at the sides of Rowlands Obstructed and Susan Sarandon, according to a part of Shakespeare, John Cassavetes takes again Love Streams in 1984 which it adapts for the cinema. He interprets itself the role initially incarnated by Jon Voight which desisted. Produced by a production company specialized in action films, the Canon company, the film is made in 11 weeks. The relationship with the production is not very cordial, the producer Menahem Golan hardly has the practice of film of author, it leaves the final however cut with the realizer who does not deprive himself to use about it. Love Streams is to combine many sets of themes of its preceding films: emotional insulation ( Opening night , Too Late Blues ), the discharge system in the festival ( Husbands ), the marital bankruptcy ( Faces )… At that time, the health of the realizer already seriously starts to worsen. The realizer developed a habituation with the alcohol which confines with the Cirrhose. Convivial practice which one perceives besides resonances in his films, it mines John Cassavetes on the end of its life. It is sick which it takes the relay of Andrew Bergman with the realization of Big Trouble (1985), on the request of its main actor, Peter Falk. The comedy which it concludes its is not a good experiment; it will be nevertheless its last work for the cinema.

In May 1987, it assembles to the theater a part of its composition: has Woman Mystery off. Originally, John Cassavetes ambitionnait to make a film of it, but under the pressure of its close relations who do not want to see it tiring themselves, it is folded up for the scene. The history proceeds on three acts: a homeless person (Rowlands Obstructed) crosses and recrosses characters in evil of affection as well as figures of his past. Its meetings call into question its insulation but, broken with loneliness, she does not arrive any more to sociabiliser. The part will be given fifteen days to the Short Theater of West Hollywood, a small room containing an about sixty places. It is then put to write several scenarios whose Beguin the Beguine for Ben Gazzara, a continuation of Gloria and revises the script of She' S So Lovely for Sean Penn who will ultimately be carried out by his son, Nick Cassavetes, ten years later. In February 1989, it dies at 59 years of the continuations of its cirrhosis.

The cinema of John Cassavetes

Creative process

The homogeneity of the creative process in the career of John Cassavetes is one of his notable features, with such sign that one could speak about “method”. With some exceptions, indeed, it proceeds in the same way for each one of its productions.

The actor king

The main axis of the creative process of the scenario writer is interpretation. The actor is in the center of the work of realizer of John Cassavetes. He endeavors to create around him a favourable atmosphere to open out his play of which the goal is to lead it to put itself at the tuning fork of its character, to evolve/move spontaneously in his skin. On the film set, the scenario writer can thus devote long hours to the repetitions before putting in shakes the engineering team of it. The actor must be with the apogee of the climax which it got busy to exhort.

Many actors take their first steps in its films: Seymour Cassel, Lynn Carlin, Laura Johnson… the approach of an amateur will be able to guarantee a renewal and a questioning of the professional approaches. Another characteristic, the scenario writer takes care as of Shadows of the freedom of movement of the actors. It releases the play of the obligations of the framework. It leaves him also the margin necessary for to the need to modify the dialogs, to make evolve/move the character whom it incarnates until taking along film in directions which were not preestablished. For as much, it does not leave with the actor a total freedom. If Shadows is mainly impromptu and were born besides from an improvisation, the following films call upon the improvisation little.

The technique is also with the service of the actor. John Cassavetes will say readily that it is essential to him little and that is with it to subject itself to the actors and not the reverse. He reproaches “ besides for being fallen in love with the camera ” during the production of Shadows which is the only one of its catalog of films where appear photographic attempts at compositions. John Cassavetes wishes to free himself from a cinematographic language whose framework is the prevalent and directing element: “ I hate the idea that a film is made by the framework or the camera. I never saw a good scene which is not good whatever the angle of the camera ”.

Spontaneousness

John Cassavetes is in constant search for spontaneousness: “ All in a film must find its inspiration in the moment ”. The scenario writer encourages the technicians to take initiatives and to show autonomy, same manner as for the actors.

The scheme of work is not preestablished. It is done, in spontaneousness, from day to day, with the liking of the scenes to turn. The freedom of movement of the actors implies to make certain technical provisions. The sequences are turned with several cameras which are equipped with long Focale S, in order to be able to follow the actors as well as possible, without having to be worried developments constantly. The camera is carried most of the time for better accompanying them. The realizer requires technicians a maximum availability. They can be solicited constantly to start the camera while at the same time the actors are repeating a sequence and are unaware of that they are filmed. The catch of sight can thus start in a scene in progress and stop only when the film comes to a end. It is also this specific fluidity to its manner of working which prevented John Cassavetes from putting up with the financial and administrative requirements studios, and of causing the rupture with American cinema industry.

Intimacy

It is in the intimacy that John Cassavetes creates his films or puts in scene his plays. It is surrounded most of the time of its close relations, technicians (Al Ribbon, Sam Shaw…) or actors (Obstructed Rowlands, his wife, Nick Cassavetes, his/her son, Seymour Cassel, Ben Gazzara, Peter Falk…). It will go until directing his own mother and that of Obstructed Rowlands in Minnie and Moskowitz . It picks in this circle brought closer to the artistic resources, of the beginning at the end of its career. Turnings themselves proceed within the family hearth. Faces and a woman under influence are turned in the house of the Cassavetes-Rowlands couple.

The subjects of its films more do not exceed the framework of the intimacy. When John Cassavetes launches his call for capital with the radio to finance Shadows , he declares: “ If people want to really see films on people, they should contribute ”. The dramaturgy is with the tuning fork of what the “ people live”. Its characters do not evolve/move in the marginality, quite to the contrary. John Cassavetes films the American middle-class and is interested in his concerns with the daily newspaper. Its glance on this social class is not besides ideological, nor sociological. Its films do not have value of stigmatization more. They testify simply to the feelings, of the weaknesses of the protagonists. The intrigue is guided by the ordinary circumstances, close friends with the characters. Marriage, inaccuracy, divorce, friendship, mourning… as many ordinary events, on a its character scale. The family is thus a recurring matter of the realizer. Sometimes it will be about the couple ( Faces , Minnie and Moskowitz …), sometimes it will be about the hearth ( a woman under influence). When the characters do not evolve/move in their family circle, they recreate it and fall under a community, in a clan where the bonds are - if not similar - at least also narrow between the protagonists. In Shadows , in particular, the characters of Lelia, Ben, Hugh and Tony say a family. In the same way, in Murder of a Chinese bookmaker , Cosmo Vitelli ties bonds which are quasi-family with its employees.

Body expression

“ There is at Cassavetes, more than at any modern scenario writer, an absolute literality of the body like mode of figuration and especially like existencielle presence ”. In its films, the body plays a prevalent part in term of expression. What the character cannot say is often expressed by the movement of the actor. a woman under influence is a film which rests for a great part on the gestural hysterical of his character Mabel , interpreted by Gena Rowlands. At the same time rejection from other, from its remark (Mabel against the family of Nick, played by Peter Falk) or research from love, even overflow from love, extase (Mabel organizing a festival with the children which degenerates because of its emotional enthusiasm overflowing), the body of the actress passes by a pleiad of postures and gestures which expresses beyond the dialogs the distress, the joy or the desire of its character.

The body is also means of communication. The body contacts are current. The characters embrace themselves, are caught with arm the body, fight. Often placed in extreme situations, the characters are returned to dialog with their body. In a long sequence of Faces , Chet (Seymour Cassel) gets busy to reanimate Maria (Lynn Carlin) who has just tried to commit suicide with the bituric bars, while carrying it, by taking it in her arms, by making it dance. In Coils Streams , Robert (John Cassavetes) is pricked to visit his ex-wife and to see his son, it is pink by the new husband and, lying on the pavement, his/her son comes to intertwine it. The contact is sought, even caused by the protagonists. Its absence is all the more intolerable. The scene of reanimation of Faces is followed return of the husband of Maria (John Marley), the absence of any contact between the two husbands contrasts bitterly with the rescue of Chet.

Influence and carried

John Cassavetes forever truly asserted filiation. He admires Frank Capra because its films show “ the beauty of people who still have a species of hope and of dignity whatever the medium which they leave ” but its step is basically different. Capra is initially of another generation, that of the American Rêve and the Idéalisme while John Cassavetes adopts a realistic vision, with characters who have a material comfort and who must face their nature, with the model of company which is imposed to them. It quotes on the occasion Carl Theodor Dreyer (with which it had the ambition to make a film) as well as the Italian cinema neorealist. Its course in the American television of the Fifties will have a certain influence on its work methods. All these references have however only very indirect relations with the cinema of Cassavetes.

It is that the realizer fits more in the rupture. Shadows was conceived in New York, far from the studios, carried by a current of independent cinema federated by Jonas Mekas which had the ambition to escape a budgetary logic by carrying out films without financial constraints. Thereafter, and after his disastrous Hollywood experiment, the scenario writer will have of cease only to preserve his esthetic and financial independence. One and the other will be carried out of face. It reinjects its seals of actor in his productions; if need be, he mortgages his house. Few scenario writers will have shown such a determination in their creative step. Majority of the realizers recognized for their independence of mind (Arthur PEN, Robert Aldrich, Martin Scorsese…), once entered the Hollywood system will not leave it.

The work of John Cassavetes will be truly known of the public only on late, probably because of the hard distribution of its films of alive sound. Nevertheless, generally, criticism agrees to recognize the talent of the scenario writer as of his first steps in the realization. The singularity of its step is not besides without causing the controversy. One could in particular reproach him for re-sifting the topic rebattu evil of living what for others, rather indicates the quasi-obsessional attachment of the realizer to depict the infirmity physical or moral of its characters and the behavior which result from this.

In any event, John Cassavetes leaves his print in the history of the American cinema. Its independence, in particular, which appears as of its first films Shadows and Faces , will be perceived in the United States as a formidable opening for the generation of scenario writer who will follow. Martin Scorsese, for example, will request it personally to guide it in its first steps in the cinema.

Certain realizers will test themselves, in addition, with its style as a homage. Pedro Almodóvar, in particular, is openly inspired by Opening night in All on my mother ( sober Todo semi veined , 1999). The shade of Cassavetes also planes on Maris and women ( wives Husbands and , 1992) of Woody Allen. In a major way, works of Maurice Pialat are not without relationship with those of John Cassavetes. The two realizers share the taste of independence but also a direction of actor related to the body play of the interpreter. Lastly, Jean-François Stévenin is asserted, as for him, openly in its continuity.

Catalog of films

As a realizer

1959 : Murder in major C ( Murder for Credit ), the Preacher ( Evil ) and a corner of paradise ( has Part Paradise off) - episodes of the televised series Johnny Staccato
1960: the Forger has the nerves ( Night off Jeopardy ) and Solomon - episodes of the televised series Johnny Staccato
1961: Shadows
1961 : Too Late Blues or the Ballade of the without-hopes
1962: has off Even Boots and My Daddy Can Lick Your Daddy - episodes of the televised series The Lloyd Bridges Show
1963: a child awaits ( has Child Is Waiting )
1966: In Pursuit off Excellence - episode of the televised series Bob Hope Present The Chrysler Theater
1968: Faces
1970: Husbands
1971 : Minnie and Moskowitz or Ainsi goes the love ( Minnie and Moskowitz )
1975: a woman under influence ( has Woman Under the Influence )
1976: Murder of a Chinese bookmaker ( The Killing off has Chinese Bookie )
1978: Opening Night
1980 : Gloria
1984 : Coils Streams or Torrents of love
1985: Big Disturbs

As an actor

Feature-length films

1951 : 14 hours ( Fourteen hours ) of Henry Hathaway
1953: Taxi of Gregory Ratoff
1954: the Flame crimson ( The Purple lime pit ) of Robert Parish
1955: Night of terror ( The Night holds terror ) of Andrew L. Stone
1956: Vis-a-vis the crime ( Crime in the streets ) of Gift Siegel
1957: Affair in Havana of Laszlo Benedek
1957: the Man who killed the fear ( Edge off the city ) of Martin Ritt
1958: Free like the wind ( Saddle in the wind ) of Robert Parish
1959: Virgin island of Stalemate Jackson
1961: Too Late Blues (or the Ballade of without hopes ) of John Cassavetes
1961: The Webster servant boy of Gift Chaffey
1963: has Child is waiting (or a child awaits ) of John Cassavetes
1964: With bearing end ( The Killers ) of Gift Siegel
1967: Devil' S angel of Daniel Haller
1967: the Corrupters ( Ground Madrid ) of Brian G. Hutton, a few days of turning, then replaced by RIP Torn)
1967: The Dirty Dozen ( The Dirty dozen ) of Robert Aldrich
1967: Angels of the hell ( Devil' S angels ) of Daniel Haller
1968: Alexander the great of Phil Karlson (telefilm)
1968: Rome like Chicago (Roma like Chicago) of Alberto de Martino
1968: Rosemary' S baby of Roman Polanski
1968: Untouchable the ( Gli intoccabili ) of Giuliano Montaldo
1969: Tuesday, it is thus Belgium ( If it' S tuesday, this must Be Belgium ) of Mel Stuart
1970: Husbands of John Cassavetes
1971: Minnie and Moskowitz (or Ainsi the love goes) of John Cassavetes
1974: Capone of Steve Carver
1976: Mikey and Nicky of Elaine May
1976: a killer in crowd ( Two minute warning ) of Larry Peerce
1977: has special Very places of Richard Donner (telefilm)
1978: Opening Night of John Cassavetes
1978: the spangled Target ( Arm target ) of John Hough
1978: Fury ( The Fury ) of Brian De Palma
1979: Flesh and Blood of Jud Taylor (telefilm)
1981: It is my life after all ( Whose life is it anyway? ) of John Badham
1982: The Haircut of Tamar Simon Hoffs (short-measuring)
1982: The Incubus of John Hough
1982: Storm ( Tempest ) of Paul Mazursky
1983: Marvin and Stem of Eric Weston
1984: Coils Streams (or Torrents of love ) of John Cassavetes
1985: Frauleïn Berlin of Lothar Lambert
1985: King Kongs Faust of Heiner Stadler

Televised series

1954 : Danger - episode: Lonesome Road
1955 : Danger - episodes: Wire Tap and No Passport for Death
1956: Alfred Hitchcock presents ( Allred Hitchcock present )
1956: Climax! - episodes: No right to kill and Savage portrait
1959 with 1960: Johnny Staccato passage (high-speed motorboat role and realization of certain episodes)
1962: Dr. Kildare - episode: The Visitors
1963 : Breaking Not - episode: There Are the Hip, and There Are the Public garden
1964 with 1965: Burke' S Law - four episodes ( Who Killed Hamlet? , Who Killed the Large Piano? , Who Killed Gift Pablo? and Who Killed Annie Foran? ).
Jesse James
1965: Voyage at the bottom of the seas ( Voyage to the Bottom off the Sea ) - episode 9, season 2: The Peacemaker ( The Peacemaker )
1966: Virginien - episode: Long Wrinkles to Wind River
1972: Columbo - episode 10, season 2: Symphony in black ( Study in black )

Dramatic televised

1954 : Robert Montgomery Present
1955: The Elgin Hour
1955 : Armstrong Circle Theater
1955: Kraft Television Theater
1955: The Philco Television Playhouse
1955: Goodyear Playhouse
1956 : The United States Steel Hour
1956 : 20th Century-Fox Hour
1957 : Playhouse 90
1958: Alcoa Theater
1959: General Electric Theater
1959: Lux Playhouse
1965: Kraft Suspense Theater
1965: Bob Hope Present the Chrysler Theater

Distinctions

Rewards

Mostra of Venice 1960: Price Pasinetti ( Shadows )
National Society off Film Critics Awards 1969: Better scenario ( Faces ).
International festival of film of San Sebastián 1975: Honourable price OCIC mention ( a woman under influence), money Shell ( a woman under influence).
Mostra of Venice 1980: Lion of Gold ( Gloria ).
Festival of Berlin 1984: Bear of gold of the Best film ( Coils Streams ), price FIPRESCI.
Italian National union of the film critics 1984: Money medal of the best actor ( Coils Streams ).
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards 1986: Price of the whole of work.

Nominations

BAFTA 1961 : BAFTA of the best film ( Shadows ).
Oscars of the cinema 1968: Best supporting role ( The Dirty Dozen ).
Golden Globes 1968: Best supporting role ( The Dirty Dozen ).
Laurel Awards 1968 : Best supporting role ( The Dirty Dozen ).
Laurel Awards 1968 : Better realizer.
Mostra of Venice 1968: Lion of Gold ( Faces ).
Oscars of the cinema 1969: Better scenario ( Faces ).
Golden Globes 1971: Better scenario ( Husbands ).
Writers Guild off America 1969: Better drama ( Faces ).
Laurel Awards 1971 : Better realizer.
Writers Guild off America 1975: Better comedy ( Minnie and Moskowitz ).
Oscars of the cinema 1975: Better realizer ( a woman under influence).
Golden Globes 1975: Better realizer, better scenario ( a woman under influence).
Writers Guild off America 1975: Better drama ( a woman under influence).
Festival of Berlin 1978: Bear of gold of the Best film ( Opening Night ).
Emmy awards 1980 : Best supporting role ( Flesh and Blood , telefilm).

Others

National Film Registry 1990: Selection of a woman under influence for conservation with the Library of the American Congress.
National Film Registry 1993: Selection of Shadows for conservation with the Library of the American Congress.

See too

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