John Cassavetes

A good watch is A Constant Forge, John emerges from that portrait as one of the finest humanist directors ever, A Woman ... is indeed his masterpiece, other films of his have a too unsteady feel, but moments of ferocious truth.

Cassavetes is one of those directors I can’t get into. Killing of a Chinese Bookie is probably my favorite of his that I’ve seen, but generally not a fan.

If I could only watch one director's films for the rest of my life, it would probably be Cassavetes.


And if it wasn't for Kubrick, he would most likely be my favorite director.



The greatness of Cassavetes isn't that his movies made me appreciate the art of film more (which they did), but they made me appreciate people more. In particular, all the tiny beautiful, frustrating, embarassing moments that fill all of our lives. Cassavetes understands humans I think more than any other director I've ever seen.

I love it. It's like a 4-hour documentary, but the others are all good!

__________________
https://www.youtube.com/c/LoyalOpposition

Cassavetes is my favorite (after De Sica and Visconti), but that's the one movie of his I don't like, and I gave it another chance recently.


I'll say this.. The subsequent viewings get better because John never spoonfed the audience, and doesn't do the typical problem/answer, and I definitely noticed things with each viewing. Many of them are on YouTube. I remember watching "Minnie and Moskowitz" (first JC movie) and for the first hour, I was almost angry, thinking, "What is THIS?" but by the end, I thought, "This is amazing".. I was always annoyed with Seymour Cassell, and preferred every other leading man much more.

That's a weird one to like, if the other one's haven't convinced you.


Usually Bookie is the one that alienates even his more ardent fans. I think it daring to play with genre, and being so disrespectful to the rules of that genre, are ultimately pretty frustrating to a lot of people.



His other films you kind of expect that nothing is going to really happen. But in Bookie, he keeps tantalizing you that any second now, we are going to be in the midst of a tight little grimy noire. But we just keep following Ben Gazarra around to strip clubs and poker games and patios while he slowly falls apart.



BTW it's clearly one of his best, but it took me about three watches to finally get on its wavelength.

When I saw 'Bookie' a second time, it seemed like a drunk directing it. Sam Peckinpah had those moments. I think it's because time flies under the influence.

Husbands put me off with its diolague. Cassavetes allows a fair amount of improvisation iirc, and some of those lines just didn’t land in the moment of the actual scene.
I couldn’t stand Woman under the Influence and didn’t think Rowlands was particularly good in it.

Regarding the dialogue, I think one of the frequent misunderstandings of Cassavetes is that what he's aiming for is pure realism. His long and frequently unfussy takes are definitely aiming to keep staring and staring in hopes of finding some kind of truth in his characters, but I don't think this truth necessarily is meant to look like the regular kind of individuals he's depicting. No one really behaves or talks like these people. Instead, their internal struggles are instead exaggerated and made grotesque in order to be seen and heard. So that we understand their desperation. So we feel how invisible they instinctively sense they are becoming.


At the root of nearly all of these characters, there is a terror and even a disdain for ordinary living, a desperate need to matter, to live life to the fullest or else die trying, to be the most important person at the end of the bar....to just keep struggling loudly not to be average, even as they are clearly becoming more and more buried beneath their obviously average and often dull lives.



It's frequently a very strange mix or cinema verite and (nearly) kabuki-esque theatre, where very real emotions are rendered with some amount of hysterical artificiality. It can be a tough sell.


I often think someone who does a similar thing, from the female perspective, is Pedro Almodovar. Stylistically very different directors, but philosophically the same in how they are mining the internal world of their characters in a very theatrical way. Women don't really act the way they do in a Almodovar movie, but in many ways, they are realer than real. It has to with how all their emotions are too big to contain inside of them, and what we are watching is all of that internal chaos spilling out, ultimately distorting them. In some ways making them less relatable, but in so many others, still managing to containing the essence of what it means to be a human. Avatars of how ordinary everyday struggles warp and distort all of us.


I bring this up because I think people are more likely to accept what Almodovar does, don't fuss over his characters dialogue and behavior landing because his style itself is also slightly exagerrated and grotesque. That fits much more cleanly into the worlds he creates than what Cassavetes is doing. I think his anti-style begs the expectation of a similar realism with his characters. But, I think we lose out on the power of his films if we want these two elements to mesh perfectly. The urgency comes from the friction between his environmental grit and emotional pyrotechnics. There is value in this subversive bit of disorientation.




As for Rowlands not being that good.........madness. Her performance should be placed right next to Falconetti's in Passion of Joan of Arc as one of the greatest of all time. Just thinking of either of them can be enough to make me burst into tears of both despair for their characters and appreciation that artists can render such feelings as these with such an understanding of the internal beauty of those who suffer.

Interesting. It's in my Top 10, and I think her performance is the best for a woman, comparable to Brando, and maybe even better, in a different way, because she is a woman (under the influence)

Yeah, I’m aware I’m definitely in the minority here, it’s just his dialogue, when taken with what’s happening in the scene, doesn’t come off as having much to do with it. They literally say whatever is not heir kind with no regard to the scene itself.

I will say, I do enjoy his style….he has talent. I don’t judge films only on the how the film looks, however.

Imagine the look on your guys face when I mention I didn’t think much about Tree of Life.

*ducks and runs*

Because Cassavetes is rejecting the notion of what a scene is. How a character is behaving is the scene according to him. He is rebelling against having what a character says as needing to be functional to pushing the narrative along. He wants us to watch, in real time, behaviour unfold. Stop worrying where it's heading. Live in the present. Watch. Be patient with these most impatient of characters.



It can definitely be aggravating at times. Husbands indulges this approach as hard as it can. How long does that scene go on at the table at the bar where they are singing? Nearly half an hour, maybe? Does it have to do that? Of course not, and maybe not all of it is essential to anything...but it slows time down. It gives us a chance to look at film in a different way than we expect it to normally be. It pulls attention away from story, towards people. Because that's what Cassavetes loves. People. And story is ultimately an abstraction to explain characters to us. Cassavetes doesn't want abstractions. He doesn't want explanations. He just wants people being.



Obviously, it's not for everyone. And maybe it will never be for you. But I'm just offering some basic keys on what to expect or look for in his films if you ever return. Having expectations that characters should be 'adding to the scene', is an expectation that is going to always leave you wanting more with him. But his avoidance of doing this kind of thing, is very specifically what he's offering.



He sees life as a beautiful place where you can scream and yell and indulge your most drunken dumb impulses with abandon. And this is what he gives his actors. This is what he gives his audience. Freedom to be whatever they are inside.



He's an entire revolution inside one little drunken man.

I turned "Tree of Life" off within 20 minutes.


As for "Husbands", I do think the non-stop drunken yelling at the women to "sing from your heart" got old quickly, but I never enjoyed being around drunks... even when I drank.


It's rare for me to mention cinematography. My main focus is on the writing and acting.

I like it but it's not a particular favourite of mine. But I've read enough by those who love it that, if I ever go back, I might be a little more primed to appreciate it.


I actually liked his relatively more maligned To the Wonder than it. I thought it was wonderful.



Malick for me is mostly his first two films, which as far as I'm concerned, he's never bettered. Days of Heaven being just about one of the best things the American New Wave produced.

I definitely will get back to Cassavetes this year, Faces, Shadows, Minnie and Moskowitz and even Gloria are on my watch list.

It’s like Truffaut. Still digging into their films and hoping their films improve.

I think I need to start back at the beginning of Truffaut, as I first started firmly in the middle of his career. Mississippi Mermaids on up (70’s mostly). So maybe both of them will be enhanced if I see their earlier films.

A lot of people who don't appreciate Cassavete's indulgences, seem to have a soft spot of Shadows. It's not one I particularly like that much, but it definitely stays on course more than most of them (which is probably why I don't like it too much)


If you struggle with characters talking well outside of what is expected of a scene, Faces will likely drive you as mad as Husbands. There is lots of meandering conversations here. Kind of the beginning of what he'd do even better later. It's still pretty amazing though.



Both Minnie and Moskowitz and Gloria are pretty approachable. I love the former, only like the latter.

First film I saw of his was The Thin Red Line way back when it first came out. I was the only one who liked it compared to my friends who felt it wasn’t a real war movie”. Which was the point, of course.
A few years later I watched Days of Heaven and The New World, slightly preferring Days because it’s such a simple looking film but is anything but simple. Looks amazing too.
I’ve seen some of his newer films, but I really need to get to Badlands at some point.
I haven’t hated anything from Malick, but Tree is probably a film that went over my head with what it was trying to accomplish.