The Theme is Cassavetes

John Cassavetes has been everywhere the last week (not to mention on my wall, but then that’s always been true). Alex and I watched Opening Night while she was here (she had never seen it). She said to me, “You know what I feel like seeing right now? Woman Under the Influence.” I said, “I have it!!” Which then began a conversation about other Cassavetes films, and where it was revealed that she had never seen Opening Night. Well, this must not stand! And we MUST watch it together! It was all quite perfect because Alex was in town for a Broadway audition – and Opening Night is, of course, about an actress, and her struggles (mild word) to play a particular role. Gena Rowlands is magnificent here, but then so is everyone. We had a great time watching it. It took us about five hours because we had to keep pausing the film to talk about it, or to dig through my various Cassavetes film books to look for details about how he shot such and such a scene, or how Joan Blondell handled his process, etc.

Awesome time. That movie puts me through the wringer. I find it hard to get through by myself, actually. I need company to watch that movie.

Then there were a couple of Facebook conversations about Cassavetes (I can’t get off Facebook these days), which seemed rather coincidental.

And now I read this lovely piece, and learn that November 11 was the day that Shadows, Cassavetes’ first film (as a director) was screened in Manhattan. The birth of the independent film movement in America? Perhaps. Elbert Ventura talks about how Shadows came to be (a well-known story to Cassavetes fans), but also about that mythical “first version”, and the controversy surrounding it. One of the details I really liked in the article was that after the “first version” was shown and it got a hostile reaction, Cassavetes decided to re-do it. Ventura writes:

Cassavetes held no truck with Hollywood convention. His movie is elliptical, uninhibited, even at times cruel. Cassavetes and his actors aren’t afraid to have their characters act in unlikable ways, as when the siblings torment a square suitor waiting on a primping Lelia. But that’s not to say that Cassavetes was hostile to the viewer—far from it. In fact, Cassavetes said the reason he tinkered with the original was because of that cool audience response to the first version. In other words, he listened to the test-screening crowd. Cassavetes would later call the first version “a totally intellectual movie and therefore less than human.” What he wanted more than anything was to connect with those people sitting in the dark.

As difficult as his movies sometimes can be, I do think that Cassavetes’ love of the audience is something not talked about much. He obviously didn’t have one eye on them at all times, and wasn’t interested in “pleasing” them, ie: filming films that would live up to audience expectations, and show them things they had seen before. Cassavetes was not interested in comfort. He seemed to not only abhor it, but not understand it at all, especially in art. Whatever the reason, I very much liked the added perspective of Cassavetes realizing something was wrong with that first version. It shows a discerning mind. He didn’t say, “Look, you all just didn’t GET it. You didn’t GET what I was trying to do, and screw you!” Above all else, the man wanted engagement. Not pleasure, perhaps, but engagement. If the audience wasn’t engaged, then that was on HIM to remedy.

Cassavetes himself said:

The [shortcomings of the first version] came as a shock, a shattering admission of our own ineptness. It would have been easy to side with those few who refused to believe the film was anything but marvelous, for it is one weakness that all human beings are prone to. It would have been easier just to call it a day, to wrap up the criticisms and say that those who didn’t understand are idiots and that we weren’t trying to impress anybody. However, it is my belief that films can educate, enlighten, entertain and give people release from their hidden fears, their individual terrors, their prejudices. For me, it is imperative that we [filmmakers] sustain our integrity as far as it can reach, because the position of leading and being listened to involves a responsibility that must be responded to. Otherwise, the man lives with the knowledge that he is a fake. It would be impossible, for me personally, to have people think I am ethical and pure and to know inside me that I am a fraud. It would make me live with the fear of time, the fear that I would waste the only life that I have.

(Quote from Cassavetes on Cassavetes, by Ray Carney.)

Shadows was a watershed moment, and it also holds up in subsequent viewings, despite its roughness and amateur acting. The film has a feel to it, an energy that cannot be faked or manufactured. As always, you feel you are looking at something real. The Criterion Collection Cassavetes collection is well worth it, tons of extra features, a booklet, all the fixings.

On November 11, 1959, Shadows was screened at the Fashion Industries Auditorium at 225 West 24th Street. 50 years ago.