The Sheila Variations

Just seeing the name "John Cassavetes"

... gives me chills. There's something about it, for me. "Cassavetes". What John Cassavetes, the film director, represents to me ... what kinds of doors he opened up in my mind ... his collaboration with Peter Falk, Ben Gazzara, many others ... Those movies, those movies he directed ... I freakin' LOVE them. Not everybody in 'my' field wants to become a Lindsey Lohan, or even wildly outrageously famous and HOT. Some people look to those like Gena Rowlands (Cassavetes' genius wife) as their idols. I'm one of those people.

This article is a gold-mine. John Cassavetes, renegade film director (and also actor - of course - Dirty Dozen, Rosemary's Baby, etc.), and his wife Gena Rowlands (otherwise known as "Sheila's Favorite Actress") are discussed here, in great depth - because of the release of Cassavetes' films in DVD.

There's a guy out in California - an ex-boyfriend - who was my partner-in-crime in terms of the Cassavetes obsession. We had a brief and intense relationship, and I always think of him when Cassavetes' name comes up. I loved that guy. Anyway, I read the article and immediately wanted to pick up the phone. But I've lost track of him ... sadly.

However - I am sure he has seen this article. I am sure of it. And I am sure that when he saw it, he thought of me, too.

So in a funny way, we are connected.

If you don't know Cassavetes' directing work, take a look at this article. It gives some great background.

It was his fierce idealism and relentless optimism that helped make him a legend. He was also difficult, unyielding, chaotic - He drank like he was on a mission of obliteration - He aged almost as though it were on speeded-up film, he lived such a wacked-out life. But those MOVIES. Especially Opening Night. That one is my favorite. One of my favorite movies ever, actually.

The last paragraph of the article made a lump rise in my throat.

The hostility Cassavetes inspired has always puzzled me. Like Orson Welles, he didn't always play well with others and he didn't make all that much money for the movie industry. The other reason for the discomfort, I think, is that he called himself an artist. Many critics prefer their art with subtitles or not at all. Cassavetes dared to believe that art and movies were not mutually exclusive, and he never gave up on the movies' capacity to move us, to make us feel, to connect us to the world and to other people. It says something about our age that it actually comes as a shock to hear him talk with such frank sincerity about his films as art, which he does in a French television interview included in the Criterion box set. For him, art was never a dirty word; it was a reason for living, the animating pulse.

God. I need to pull out some of his old films again. I have them all on VHS.

Posted by sheila