John Cassavetes Lifeworks

Drawing on interviews with his closest collaborators, Tom Charity's critical biography explores the pain and perseverance of Cassavetes, widely known as a passionate and charismatic film director and producer.

Through words and pictures, Cassavetes is shown to have been a deeply thoughtful and self-aware artist and a profound commentator on the American experience.

American filmmaker John Cassavetes (1929-1989) made only nine independent films during a quarter century, but those films affected the cinema culture of the 1960s to the 1980s in unprecedented ways. With a close nucleus of actors and crew members on his team, including his wife Gena Rowlands, Peter Falk, and Ben Gazzara, Cassavetes created films that explored the gritty side of human relationships. He staunchly advocated the right of actors and filmmakers to full artistic freedom over their work. Attracting both fervent admirers and harsh critics, Cassavetes's films have garnered prestigious awards in the US and Europe and continue to evoke strong reactions. Starting in New York with his first film Shadows (1959), Cassavetes moved on to the West Coast with Faces (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), and Love Streams (1984). He also directed several studio films, which often rankled his independent streak that rebelled against a loss of artistic freedom. Cassavetes's work in the theater and his performances in numerous television programs and films, including The Dirty Dozen (1967) and Rosemary's Baby (1968), made him, as a director, fiercely protective of his actors' right to self-expression. Cassavetes's contributions to film as actor, writer, director, producer, and cinematographer at a time of radical changes in cinema history continue to inspire independent filmmakers to challenge creative restrictions and celebrate actors' artistic contributions. John Cassavetes: Interviews captures this "maverick" streak of an intensely personal filmmaker who was passionate about his art.

Most films rely on a script developed in pre-production. Yet beginning in the 1950s and continuing through the recent mumblecore movement, key independent filmmakers have broken with the traditional screenplay. Instead, they have turned to new approaches to scripting that allow for more complex characterization and shift the emphasis from the page to performance. In Rewriting Indie Cinema, J. J. Murphy explores these alternative forms of scripting and how they have shaped American film from the 1950s to the present. He traces a strain of indie cinema that used improvisation and psychodrama, a therapeutic form of improvised acting based on a performer’s own life experiences. Murphy begins in the 1950s and 1960s with John Cassavetes, Shirley Clarke, Barbara Loden, Andy Warhol, Norman Mailer, William Greaves, and other independent directors who sought to create a new type of narrative cinema. In the twenty-first century, filmmakers such as Gus Van Sant, the Safdie brothers, Joe Swanberg, and Sean Baker developed similar strategies, sometimes benefitting from the freedom of digital technology. In reading key films and analyzing their techniques, Rewriting Indie Cinema demonstrates how divergence from the script has blurred the divide between fiction and nonfiction. Showing the ways in which filmmakers have striven to capture the subtleties of everyday behavior, Murphy provides a new history of American indie filmmaking and how it challenges Hollywood industrial practices.

In 1983 visionary director John Cassavetes asked journalist Michael Ventura to write a unique film study -- an on-set diary of the making of his film Love Streams. Cassavetes laid out his expectations. He wanted 'a daring book, a tough book'. In Ventura's words, 'All I had to do for 'daring' and 'tough' was transcribe this man's audacity day by day.' Cassavetes Directs describes the creation of Love Streams shot by shot, crisis by crisis. During production, the director learned that he was seriously ill, that this film might, as it tragically turned out, be his last. Starring alongside actress and wife Gena Rowlands, Cassavetes shot in sequence, reconceiving and revising his film almost nightly, in order that Love Streams could stand as his final statement. Both an intimate portrait of the man and an insight into his unique filmmaking philosophy, Cassavetes Directs documents a heroic moment in the life of a great artist.

American filmmaker John Cassavetes (1929-1989) made only nine independent films during a quarter century, but those films affected the cinema culture of the 1960s to the 1980s in unprecedented ways. With a close nucleus of actors and crew members on his team, including his wife Gena Rowlands, Peter Falk, and Ben Gazzara, Cassavetes created films that explored the gritty side of human relationships. He staunchly advocated the right of actors and filmmakers to full artistic freedom over their work. Attracting both fervent admirers and harsh critics, Cassavetes's films have garnered prestigious awards in the US and Europe and continue to evoke strong reactions. Starting in New York with his first film Shadows (1959), Cassavetes moved on to the West Coast with Faces (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), and Love Streams (1984). He also directed several studio films, which often rankled his independent streak that rebelled against a loss of artistic freedom. Cassavetes's work in the theater and his performances in numerous television programs and films, including The Dirty Dozen (1967) and Rosemary's Baby (1968), made him, as a director, fiercely protective of his actors' right to self-expression. Cassavetes's contributions to film as actor, writer, director, producer, and cinematographer at a time of radical changes in cinema history continue to inspire independent filmmakers to challenge creative restrictions and celebrate actors' artistic contributions. John Cassavetes: Interviews captures this "maverick" streak of an intensely personal filmmaker who was passionate about his art.

On films of John Cassavetes.

Shadows (1959), John Cassavetes' first film as director, ends with the title card - 'The film you have just seen was an improvisation'. Just before his death, however, Cassavetes confessed to Ray Carney something he had never before revealed - that much of his so-called 'masterpiece of improvisation' was actually written by him and Robert Alan Aurthur, a professional Hollywood screenwriter. In the ten years that followed Carney tracked down all of the surviving members of the cast and crew in order to piece together the true story of the making of Shadows. This book is the result of that research. Carney takes the reader behind the scenes to follow every step in the creation of the film - chronicling the hopes and dreams, the struggles and frustrations, and the ultimate triumph of their collaboration on one of the seminal masterworks of American independent film-making.