Happy Birthday, John Cassavetes! Born today in 1929 as John Nicholas Cassavetes, this American actor, screenwriter and film director of Greek descent was a pioneer of American independent film.
He had written and directed over a dozen features, which he partially self-financed, and pioneered the use of improvisation and a cinéma vérité style.
Born in New York City, New York, Cassavetes was the son of Greek American Katherine Cassavetes, who was to be featured in some of his films. His father was Greek immigrant Nicholas John Cassavetes.
Cassavetes' early years were spent with his family in Greece; when he returned at age seven, he spoke no English. He was later raised on Long Island.
Cassavetes later attended Port Washington High School from 1945 to 1947 and participated in Port Weekly (the school paper), Red Domino (interclass play), football, and the Port Light (yearbook).
Next to his photo on page fifty-five of his 1947 yearbook is written: "'Cassy' is always ready with a wisecrack, but he does have a serious side. A 'sensational' personality. Drives his 'heap' all over."
Afterwards, Cassavetes spent a semester at the private university Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont before being expelled due to his failing grades.
Cassavetes later spent a few weeks hitchhiking down to Florida and transferred to one of the two private performing arts conservatories American Academy of Dramatic Arts (AADA).
This was after running into friends who had just enrolled, stating the school was packed with girls, encouraging Cassavetes to enroll.
While there, Cassavetes studied acting with American actor, director, acting teacher and author Don Richardson, utilizing an alternative technique to method acting which privileged character over traditional narrative.
After this, Cassavetes' income from acting later made it possible for him to direct his own films independently.
Cassavetes graduated in 1950 and met his future wife, American actress Gena Rowlands, at her audition into the Academy in 1953. They were married four months later in 1954. They would remain married until Cassavetes' death.
Cassavetes continued acting in the theater, took small parts in films and began working on television in anthology series.
Five years later, Cassavetes co-wrote and directed the first film of which he's is best known. This was the 1959 American black and white independent drama/romance film 'Shadows'. The film had an estimated budget of $40,000.
Cassavetes was passionate about a wide range of music, from jazz to classical to rock, "I like all music. It makes you feel like living. Silence is death."
For the soundtrack of 'Shadows', Cassavetes worked Charles Mingus and African-American jazz tenor and alto saxophonist Shafi Hadi to provide the score.
'Shadows' was initially shot in 1957 and shown in 1958, but a poor reception prompted Cassavetes to rework it in 1959.
Promoted as a completely improvisational film, it was intensively rehearsed in 1957, and in 1959 it was fully scripted.
The opening credits of 'Shadows' include "Presented by Jean Shepherd's Night People". The "Night People" were what Shepherd considered to be nonconformists.
Shepherd would later write the 1966 autobiographical humor fiction novel In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash.
Based on his semi-fictional anecdotes, these would later be used for 'A Christmas Story' (1983), of which he also narrates as the adult Ralph Parker.
The following year after the release of 'Shadows', the film won the Critics Award at the 21st Venice Film Festival in 1960. Cassavetes later obtained distribution through British Lion Films in 1961.
Seven years later, Cassavetes co-starred in Roman Polanski's ('Repulsion', 'Chinatown', 'The Pianist') 1968 American psychological horror film 'Rosemary's Baby'.
This was as the struggling actor Guy Woodhouse, Rosemary's (Mia Farrow) husband. The film was released in April of that same year.
Months later, Cassavetes wrote and directed the second film of which he is best known. This was the 1968 American black and white independent drama film 'Faces'. It was released in October of that same year.
'Faces' had an estimated budget of $275,000, and co-starred Rowlands. It was also the debut of Lynn Carlin.
American drama critic and radio news producer Leonard Probst of WNBC-TV, called 'Faces' "A very good movie–it's 'The Graduate' but all grown up!"
One year later, 'Faces' received three nominations at the Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Seymour Cassel), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Lynn Carlin) and Best Screenplay. However, it didn't win. This occurred at the 41st Academy Awards in mid-April 1969.
Five years later, Cassavetes wrote and directed the third film of which he is best known. This was the 1974 American drama/romance film 'A Woman Under the Influence'.
It stars Rowlands as the mentally unstable Mabel Longhetti, the wife of blue-collar construction worker Nick (Peter Falk).
When Richard Dreyfuss appeared on The Mike Douglas Show (1961–1981) with Peter Falk, he described the film as "the most incredible, disturbing, scary, brilliant, dark, sad, depressing movie."
He also added, "I went crazy. I went home and vomited," which prompted curious audiences to seek out the film capable of making Dreyfuss (who is himself bipolar) ill.
The following year, 'A Woman Under the Influence' received two Oscar nominations for Best Director and Best Actress in a Leading Role (Gena Rowlands), However, the film didn't win. This occurred at the 47th Academy Awards in early April 1975.
The following year, Cassavetes wrote and directed the fourth and final film of which he is best known. This was the 1976 American neo-noir crime/drama film 'The Killing of a Chinese Bookie'.
A rough and gritty film, this is the second of Cassavetes and Ben Gazzara's three collaborations, following 'Husbands' (1970) and 'Opening Night' (1977).
The film's original release, at 135 minutes in length, was a commercial disappointment and the film was pulled from distribution after only seven days.
In January 1987, Cassavetes was facing health problems, but having outlasted his doctor's prognosis, he wrote the three-act play. It later premiered at the West End theatre The Royal Court Theater in London.
In January 1988, Roger Ebert called 'A Woman Under the Influence' "terribly complicated, involved and fascinating – a revelation."
He added, "The characters are larger than life (although not less convincing because of that), and their loves and rages, their fights and moments of tenderness, exist at exhausting levels of emotion. [...]
Cassavetes is strongest as a writer and filmmaker at creating specific characters and then sticking with them through long, painful, uncompromising scenes until we know them well enough to read them, to predict what they'll do next and even to begin to understand why.
Ebert later added the film to his "Great Movies" list, in which he called the film "perhaps the greatest of Cassavetes' films." He rated the film four out of four stars.
One year later, Cassavetes passed from cirrhosis of the liver in Los Angeles, California on February 3, 1989. This was caused due to many years of alcoholism. Cassavetes was 59.
In 1990, 'A Woman Under the Influence' was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant", one of the first fifty films to be so honored.
In 1993, 'Shadows' was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
In 1994, American film critic, film historian and author Leonard Maltin said 'Shadows' "was considered a watershed in the birth of American independent cinema."
Six years later, American film writer Charles Kiselyak wrote and directed the three-hour 2000 American historical documentary film 'A Constant Forge'. It tells about the life and work of Cassavetes.
On September 21, 2004, the John Cassavetes: Five Films were released by the Criterion Collection in a boxed set.
With 'The Killing of a Chinese Bookie', it is presented in two versions: Cassavetes’s original 1976 edit and his 1978 one, nearly thirty minutes shorter. 'A Constant Forge' is also part of the box set.
On May 17, 2008, at a George Eastman House screening of 'The Killing of a Chinese Bookie' in Rochester, Gazzara said he "hated" the original cut; "it's too long", he had told Cassavetes.
In 2011, 'Faces' was added to the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
In 2015, the BBC named 'A Woman Under the Influence' the 31st greatest American film ever made.
Cassavetes' three children are all filmmakers. These are American actor, director and writer Nick Cassavetes, American actress and director Alexandra "Xan" Cassavetes and American film director, screenwriter, and actress Zoe Cassavetes.
Nick appears in his first acting role in 'Husbands' as Nick (uncredited). Xan appears as Adrienne Jensen in 'A Woman Under the Influence'.
Greek-American actress Katherine Cassavetes appears in 'A Woman Under the Influence' as Mabel's badgering mother-in-law. In real life, she was the mother of John and mother-in-law of Rowlands.
As an actor, Nick has appeared in John Woo's ('The Killer') 'Face/Off' (1997) and 'The Astronaut's Wife'(1999).
As a filmmaker, Nick has directed 'She's So Lovely' (1997), 'John Q.' (2002), 'The Notebook' (2004), 'Alpha Dog' (2006), and 'My Sister's Keeper' (2009).
Nick had made 'She's So Lovely' from the She's Delovely screenplay that his father had written.
Among his credits, John is also known for directing 'Husbands' (1970), 'Opening Night' (1977), 'Gloria' (1980), and 'Love Streams' (1984).
Primarily known as an actor early in his career, Cassavetes would later be regarded as one of the most daring and influential filmmakers of the 20th Century, attributed by many as the artist who shaped the current definition of independent film.
Today, Cassavetes is regarded as a pioneer of American cinema verité and as the father of the independent film movement in the United States.
Most of his films were painstakingly made over many months or years and were financed by Cassavetes’s acting, which was much sought after by the same studios that were reluctant to back his filmmaking projects.
As a result, Cassavetes essentially carved out his own one-man domain in independent filmmaking, which, while not truly part of Hollywood, eventually earned the industry’s respect and admiration.
He was one of the few filmmakers in the history of the Academy Awards to be nominated for directing, acting, and writing awards.
First known as an actor on television and in film, Cassavetes also became a pioneer of American independent cinema, writing and directing movies financed in part with income from his acting work.
AllMovie called him "an iconoclastic maverick, while The New Yorker suggested that he "may be the most influential American director of the last half century.
They wrote that Cassavetes "may be the most influential American director of the last half century"—this in announcing that all the films he directed, plus others he acted in, were being screened in a retrospective tribute at the Brooklyn Academy of Music throughout July 2013.
The Independent Spirit Awards named one of their categories after Cassavetes, the Independent Spirit John Cassavetes Award.
Aside from presenting difficult characters whose inner desires were not easily understood, Cassavetes paid little attention to the "impressionistic cinematography, linear editing, and star-centered scene making" that are fashionable in Hollywood and art films.
Instead, he chose to shoot mostly hand held with general lighting or documentary style to accommodate the spontaneity of his actors.
Cassavetes was never interested in working with actors who were more concerned with their images than with that of the characters whom they were portraying, which is why he rarely had actors of note (other than Rowlands, Falk and Gazzara) in his films.
As Cassavetes said, he strove "to put [actors] in a position where they may make asses of themselves without feeling they're revealing things that will eventually be used against them."
The manner in which Cassavetes employed improvisation is frequently misunderstood. With the exception of the original version of 'Shadows', his films were completely scripted.
Confusion arose in part because Cassavetes allowed actors to bring their own interpretations of characters to their performances. Dialogue and action were scripted but delivery was not.
Cassavetes' unorthodox characters reflected his similarly unconventional method in the making of his films.
He employed mostly his friends as actors and set personnel, generally for little or no money guarantee and a share in the profits of the film.
Both 'Shadows' and 'Faces' were shot over a four-year period on weekends and whenever funds became available.
Cassavetes said: "The hardest thing for a film-maker, or a person like me, is to find people … who really want to do something … They've got to work on a project that's theirs."
This method differs greatly from the 'director run' sets of big-budget Hollywood productions.
Cassavetes' films employed an actor-centered approach which privileged character examination and "small feelings" over traditional Hollywood storytelling or stylized production values.
Many of his films were shot and edited in his and Rowland's own Los Angeles home.
Cassavetes' films became associated with an improvisational, cinéma vérité aesthetic. He had collaborated frequently with a rotating group of friends, crew members, and actors, including Rowlands, Peter Falk, Gazzara, and Seymour Cassel.
Cassavetes has been called a genius, a visionary, and the father of independent film. But all this rhetoric threatens to obscure the humanism and generosity of his art.
His films represent his self-financed works made outside the studio system of Hollywood, on which he was afforded complete control.
While about beatniks, hippies, businessmen, actors, housewives, strippers, club owners, gangsters, and children, all of them are beautiful, emotional testaments to compassion.
Cassavetes has often been called an actor's director, but this body of work astoundingly, even greater than the sum of its extraordinarily significant parts reveals him to be an audience's director.
While professional acting was a mere means to an end, Cassavetes pursued his own artistic truth and provided audiences with new experiences through his deeply personal films.
Perhaps better known to the general public as an actor, Cassavetes' true artistic legacy derives from his work behind the camera.
Arguably, he was America's first truly independent filmmaker, an iconoclastic maverick whose movies challenged the assumptions of the cinematic form.
Obsessed with bringing to the screen the "small feelings" he believed that American society at large attempted to suppress.
Cassavetes' work emphasized his actors above all else, favoring character examination over traditional narrative storytelling to explore the realities of the human condition.
A pioneer of self-financing and self-distribution, Cassavetes had led the way for filmmakers to break free of Hollywood control, perfecting an improvisational, cinéma vérité aesthetic all his own.
Cassavetes had been active from 1951–1989.
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