John Cassavetes | |
|---|---|
 Cassavetes asJohnny Staccato in 1959 | |
| Born | (1929-12-09)December 9, 1929 New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Died | February 3, 1989(1989-02-03) (aged 59) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Resting place | Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery |
| Occupations |
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| Years active | 1951–1989 |
| Spouse | |
| Children | |
| Relatives | Katherine Cassavetes (mother) |
| Signature | |
 | |
John Nicholas Cassavetes[a] (December 9, 1929 – February 3, 1989) was an American filmmaker and actor. He began as an actor in film and television before helping to pioneer modern Americanindependent cinema as a writer and director, often self-financing, producing, and distributing his own films.[2] He received nominations for threeAcademy Awards, twoBAFTA Awards, fourGolden Globe Awards, and anEmmy Award.
After studying at theAmerican Academy of Dramatic Arts, Cassavetes started his career in television acting in numerous network dramas. From 1959 to 1960 he played the title role in theNBC detective seriesJohnny Staccato. He acted in notable films, such asMartin Ritt's film noirEdge of the City (1957),Robert Aldrich's war filmThe Dirty Dozen (1967),Roman Polanski's horror filmRosemary's Baby (1968) andElaine May's crime dramaMikey and Nicky (1976). ForThe Dirty Dozen, he earned a nomination for theAcademy Award for Best Supporting Actor.[3][4]
As a director, Cassavetes became known for a string of critically acclaimed independent dramas includingShadows (1959),Faces (1968),Husbands (1970),A Woman Under the Influence (1974),Opening Night (1977), andLove Streams (1984). His films employed an actor-centered approach which prioritized raw character relationships and "small feelings" while rejecting traditional Hollywood storytelling,method acting, and stylization. His films became associated with an improvisational aesthetic and acinéma vérité feel.[b] He receivedAcademy Award nominations for Best Original Screenplay (Faces) and Best Director (A Woman Under the Influence).
It has been said that the heart of his films contain "messy anguish [that] sanctifies."[6]
He frequently collaborated with American actressGena Rowlands (to whom he was married from 1954 until his death in 1989) and friendsPeter Falk,Ben Gazzara, andSeymour Cassel. Many of his films were shot and edited in his and Rowlands' ownLos Angeles home. He and Rowlands had a son namedNick and two daughters, namedAlexandra andZoe, all of whom followed them into acting and filmmaking.
John Nicholas Cassavetes was born inNew York City on December 9, 1929, the son of Greek-American actressKatherine Cassavetes (née Demetriou), who was later featured in some of his films, and Greek immigrant Nicholas John Cassavetes. His early years were spent with his family in Greece; when he returned to New York at the age of seven, he spoke no English.[7] He was then raised onLong Island, where he attendedPaul D. Schreiber Senior High School (then known as Port Washington High School) from 1945 to 1947 and participated inPort Weekly (the school paper),Red Domino (interclass play), football, and thePort Light (yearbook).
Cassavetes attendedBlair Academy inNew Jersey and spent a semester atChamplain College inBurlington, Vermont, but was expelled due to his failing grades.[c][10] He spent a few weeks hitchhiking to Florida and then transferred to theAmerican Academy of Dramatic Arts, encouraged by recently enrolled friends who told him the school was "packed with girls".[11] He graduated in 1950 and met his future wifeGena Rowlands at her audition to enter the Academy[12] in 1953. They were married four months later in 1954.[13] He continued acting in the theater, took small parts in films, and began working on television inanthology series such asAlcoa Theatre.
By 1956, Cassavetes had begun teaching an alternative tomethod acting in his own workshop—co-founded with friend Burt Lane in New York City—in which performance would be based on character creation rather than back-story or narrative requirements.[14] Cassavetes particularly scornedLee Strasberg's Method-basedActors Studio, and the Cassavetes-Lane approach held that acting should be an expression of creative joy rather than the "moody, broody anguish" associated with Strasberg's teaching.[14]
Shortly after opening the workshop, Cassavetes was invited to audition at the Actors Studio, and he and Lane devised a prank: they claimed to be performing a scene from a recent stage production but in fact improvised a performance on the spot, fooling an impressed Strasberg.[14] Cassavetes then fabricated a story about his financial troubles, prompting Strasberg to offer him a full scholarship to the Studio; Cassavetes immediately rejected it, feeling that Strasberg did not know anything about acting if he had been so easily fooled by the two ruses.[14]
Animprovisation exercise in the workshop inspired the idea for his writing and directorial debut,Shadows (1959; first version 1957). Cassavetes raised the funds for the production from friends and family, as well as listeners toJean Shepherd's late-night radio talk-showNight People. His stated purpose was to make a film about modest-income “little people”, unlike Hollywood studio productions, which focused on stories about wealthy people. Cassavetes was unable to gain American distribution ofShadows, but it won the Critics Award at theVenice Film Festival. European distributors later released the movie in the United States as an import. Although the box-office returns ofShadows in the United States were slight, it did gain attention from the Hollywood studios.
Cassavetes played bit-parts inB pictures and in television serials, until gaining notoriety in 1955 as a vicious killer inThe Night Holds Terror, and as a juvenile delinquent in the live TV dramaCrime in the Streets. Cassavetes would repeat this performance credited as an “introducing” lead in the 1956 film version, which also included another future director,Mark Rydell, as his gang mate. His first starring role in a feature film wasEdge of the City (1957), which co-starredSidney Poitier. He was briefly under contract toMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer and co-starred withRobert Taylor in the westernSaddle the Wind, written byRod Serling. In the late 1950s, Cassavetes guest-starred inBeverly Garland's groundbreakingcrime drama,Decoy, about a New York City woman police undercover detective. Thereafter, he playedJohnny Staccato, the title character in a television series about a jazz pianist who also worked as a private detective. In total he directed five episodes of the series, which also features a guest appearance by his wife Gena Rowlands. It was broadcast onNBC between September 1959 and March 1960, and then acquired byABC; although critically acclaimed, the series was cancelled in September 1960. Cassavetes would appear on the NBC interview program,Here's Hollywood.
In 1961 Cassavetes signed a seven-year deal with Paramount.[15] Cassavetes directed two movies for Hollywood in the early 1960s:Too Late Blues (1961);A Child Is Waiting (1963) starringBurt Lancaster andJudy Garland. He starred in the CBS western seriesRawhide in the episodeIncident Near Gloomy River (1961). In the 1963–1964 season he was cast in the ABCmedical drama aboutpsychiatry,Breaking Point. In 1964, he again co-starred with his wife, this time in an episode ofThe Alfred Hitchcock Hour anthology program, and in 1965, he appeared on ABC's western series,The Legend of Jesse James. In the same year, he also guest-starred in theWorld War II seriesCombat!, in the episode "S.I.W.", and as the insane nuclear scientist Everett Lang inVoyage to the Bottom of the Sea, season 2, episode "The Peacemaker".
With payment for his work on television, as well as a handful of film acting jobs, he was able to relocate to California and to make his subsequent films independent of any studio, asShadows had been made. The films in which he acted with this intention includeDon Siegel'sThe Killers (1964), the motorcycle gang movieDevil's Angels (1967),The Dirty Dozen (1967), for which he was nominated for anAcademy Award for Best Supporting Actor, the Guy Woodhouse lead (originally intended forRobert Redford) inRoman Polanski'sRosemary's Baby (1968), andThe Fury (1978). Cassavetes portrayed the murderer in a 1972 episode of the TV crime seriesColumbo, titled "Étude in Black". Cassavetes and series starPeter Falk had previously starred together in the 1969 mob action thrillerMachine Gun McCain. The two later starred in Elaine May's filmMikey and Nicky (1976).
Faces (1968) was the second film to be both directed and independently financed by Cassavetes. The film starred his wife Gena Rowlands—whom he had married during his struggling actor days—John Marley,Seymour Cassel andVal Avery, as well as several first-time actors, such as lead actressLynn Carlin and industry fringies likeVince Barbi. It depicts the slow disintegration of a contemporary marriage. The film reportedly took three years to make, and was made largely in the Cassavetes home.Faces was nominated for three Academy Awards:Best Original Screenplay,[16]Best Supporting Actor,[17] andBest Supporting Actress.[18] Around this time, Cassavetes formed "Faces International" as a distribution company to handle all of his films.
In 1970, Cassavetes directed and acted inHusbands, with actors Peter Falk andBen Gazzara. They played a trio of married men on a spree in New York and London after the funeral of one of their best friends.[19] Cassavetes stated that this was a personal film for him; his elder brother had died at the age of 30.[20]
Minnie and Moskowitz (1971), about two unlikely lovers, featured Rowlands and Cassel.A Woman Under the Influence (1974) stars Rowlands as an increasingly troubled housewife. Rowlands received an Academy Award nomination forBest Actress, while Cassavetes was nominated forBest Director.[21] InThe Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976), Gazzara plays a small-time strip-club owner with an out-of-control gambling habit, pressured by mobsters to commit a murder to pay off his debt.
InOpening Night (1977), Rowlands plays the lead alongside Cassavetes; the film also stars Gazzara andJoan Blondell. Rowlands portrays an aging film star named Myrtle Gordon, who is working in the theater and suffering a personal crisis. Alone and unloved by her colleagues, afraid of aging and always removed from others due to her stardom, she succumbs to alcohol and hallucinations after witnessing a young fan accidentally die. Ultimately, Gordon fights through it all, delivering the performance of her life in a play. Rowlands won theSilver Bear for Best Actress at the28th Berlin International Film Festival for her performance.[22]
Cassavetes directed the filmGloria (1980), featuring Rowlands as a Mobmoll who tries to protect an orphan boy whom the Mob wants to kill, which earned her another Best Actress nomination.[23][24] In 1982, Cassavetes starred inPaul Mazursky'sTempest, which co-starred Rowlands,Susan Sarandon,Molly Ringwald,Raúl Juliá andVittorio Gassman.
Cassavetes penned the stage playKnives, the earliest version of which he allowed to be published in the 1978 premiere issue ofOn Stage, the quarterly magazine of the American Community Theatre Association, a division of the American Theatre Association.[25] The play was produced and directed as one of hisThree Plays of Love and Hate at Hollywood, California's Center Theater in 1981. The trio of plays included versions of Canadian playwrightTed Allan'sThe Third Day Comes andLove Streams, the latter of which served as the blueprint for Cassavetes' 1984 film of the same name.[26]
Cassavetes starred inMarvin & Tige (1983), also titledLike Father & Son, an American drama film directed by Eric Weston and written by Wanda Dell and Eric Weston based on a novel by Frankcina Glass. Marvin (played by Cassavetes), a heavy-drinking widower who has seen better days and makes a living taking odd jobs, meets suicidal youngster Tige (played by child actor Gibran Brown).Billy Dee Williams also appeared in the film in a supporting role.
Cassavetes made theCannon Films-financed[27][28]Love Streams (1984), which featured him as an aging playboy who suffers the overbearing affection of his recently divorced sister. It was entered into the34th Berlin International Film Festival where it won theGolden Bear.[29] The film is often considered Cassavetes' "last film" in that it brought together many aspects of his previous films. He despised the filmBig Trouble (1986), which he took over during filming fromAndrew Bergman, who wrote the original screenplay. Cassavetes came to refer to the film as "The aptly titled 'Big Trouble,'" since the studio vetoed many of his decisions for the film and eventually edited most of it in a way with which Cassavetes disagreed.[30]
In January 1987, Cassavetes was facing health problems, but he wrote the three-act playWoman of Mystery and brought it to the stage in May and June at the Court Theatre, Los Angeles.[31]
Cassavetes worked during the last year of his life to produce a last film that was to be titledShe's Delovely. He was in talks withSean Penn to star, though legal and financial hurdles proved insurmountable and the project was forgotten about until after Cassavetes' death, when his sonNick finally directed it asShe's So Lovely (1997).[32]
Cassavetes spent the majority of his directing career working 'off the grid' and in a communal atmosphere "unfettered by the commercial concerns of Hollywood."[33] His films aim to capture "small feelings" often repressed by Hollywood filmmaking, emphasizing intimate character examination and relationships rather than plot, backstory, or stylization.[34] He often presented difficult characters whose behaviors were not easily understood, rejecting simplistic psychological or narrative explanations for their actions.[35] Cassavetes also disregarded the "impressionistic cinematography, linear editing, and star-centred scene making" fashionable in Hollywood and art films.[36] Often unable to interest Hollywood studios in financing his work, Cassavetes typically worked with small but dedicated crew of friends and technicians. He said: "The hardest thing for a film-maker, or a person like me, is to find people … who really want to do something."[37]
Cassavetes worked to create a comfortable and informal environment where actors could freely experiment with their performances and go beyond acting clichés or "programmed behaviors."[35] He dismissedMethod acting as "more a form ofpsychotherapy than of acting" which resulted in sentimental cliches and self-indulgent emotion.[14] Instead, he held that acting should be an expression of creative joy and exuberance, with emphasis put on the character's creation of "masks" in the process of interacting with other people.[14] Cassavetes also said that 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."[38] He frequently filmed scenes in long, uninterrupted takes, explaining that:
The drama of the scenes comes naturally from the real passage of time lived by the actors [...] The camera isn't content to just follow the characters' words and actions. I focus in on specific gestures and mannerisms. It's from focusing on these little things—the moods, silences, pauses, or anxious moments—that the form arises.[39]
Cassavetes also rejected the dominance of the director's singular vision, instead believing each character must be the actor's "individual creation" and refusing to explain the characters to his actors in any significant detail.[40] He claimed that "stylistic unity drains the humanity out of a text [...] The stories of many different and potentially inarticulate people are more interesting than a contrived narrative that exists only in one articulate man's imagination."[40] The manner in which Cassavetes employed improvisation is frequently misunderstood: with the exception of the original version ofShadows, his films were tightly scripted.[5] However, he allowed actors to interpret characters in their own way, and often rewrote scripts based on the results of rehearsals and performances.[5] He explained that "I believe in improvising on the basis of the written word and not on undisciplined creativity."[5]
Cassavetes worked with jazz musiciansCharles Mingus andShafi Hadi to provide the score forShadows. Mingus's friend, Diane Dorr-Dorynek, described Cassavetes' approach to film-making in jazz terms:
The script formed the skeleton around which the actors might change or ad lib lines according to their response to the situation at the moment, so that each performance was slightly different. A jazz musician works in this way, using a given musical skeleton and creating out of it, building a musical whole related to a particular moment by listening to and interacting with his fellow musicians. Jazz musicians working with actors could conceivably provide audiences with some of the most moving and alive theater they have ever experienced.[41]
When asked byAndré S. Labarthe during the making ofFaces whether he had the desire to make amusical film, Cassavetes responded he wanted to make only one musical,Dostoyevsky'sCrime and Punishment.[42] Cassavetes was passionate about a wide range of music, from jazz to classical to rock, saying "I like all music. It makes you feel like living. Silence is death."[43]
Cassavetes worked with composerBo Harwood from 1970 to 1984 on six films in several different capacities, even though Harwood had initially only signed on to do "a little editing" forHusbands, and "a little sound editing" forMinnie and Moskowitz. Harwood composed poignant music for Cassavetes' following three films, and was also credited as "Sound" for two of them. During these projects Harwood wrote several songs, some with Cassavetes contributing lyrics and rudimentary tunes.[44] During his work with Cassavetes, Harwood claimed the notoriously unpredictable director preferred to use the "scratch track" version of his compositions, rather than to let Harwood refine and re-record them with an orchestra. Some of these scratch tracks were recorded in Cassavetes' office, with piano or guitar, as demos, and then eventually ended up in the final film. While this matched the raw, unpolished feel that marks most of Cassavetes' films, Harwood was sometimes surprised and embarrassed.[45]
The relationship between Harwood and Cassavetes ended amicably. When asked by documentarian Michael Ventura during the making of Cassavetes' last filmLove Streams, what he had learned from working with Cassavetes, Harwood replied:
I learned a lot through John. I've done a lot of editing for him.Picture editing, sound editing, music editing,shot sound, composed score, and I've learned a lot about integrity ... I think you know what I mean. You know, thirty years from now, I can say I rode withBilly the Kid.[46]
Cassavetes was married to American actressGena Rowlands from 1954 until his death in 1989. Many of his films were shot and edited in his and Rowlands' ownLos Angeles home. He and Rowlands had a son namedNick and two daughters namedAlexandra andZoe, all of whom followed them into acting and filmmaking.
A long-timealcoholic,[47] Cassavetes died inLos Angeles from complications ofcirrhosis at the age of 59 on February 3, 1989.[48][49] He is buried atWestwood Village Memorial Park cemetery in Los Angeles.
At the time of his death, Cassavetes had amassed a collection of more than 40 unproduced screenplays, as well as a novel,Husbands.[50] He also left three unproduced plays:Sweet Talk,Entrances and Exits, andBegin the Beguine, the last of which, in German translation, was co-produced by Needcompany of Belgium and Burgtheater of Vienna, and premiered on stage at Vienna's Akademietheater in 2014.[51][52]
Cassavetes is the subject of several biographies.Cassavetes on Cassavetes is a collection of interviews collected or conducted byBoston University film scholarRay Carney, in which the filmmaker recalled his experiences, influences, and outlook on the film industry. In the 2005 Hollywood issue ofVanity Fair, one article features a tribute to Cassavetes by three members of his stock company, Rowlands, Gazzara, and Falk.[53]
Many of Cassavetes' films are owned by Faces Distribution, a company overseen by Gena Rowlands andJulian Schlossberg, distributed by Jumer Films (Schlossberg's own company), with additional sales and distribution byJanus Films. In September 2004,The Criterion Collection produced aRegion 1 DVD box set of his five independent films:Shadows,Faces,A Woman Under the Influence,The Killing of a Chinese Bookie andOpening Night. Also featured in the set is a documentary about the life and works of Cassavetes,A Constant Forge, a booklet featuring critical assessments of the director's work and tributes by old friends. Criterion released a Blu-ray version of the set in October 2013. In 2005, a box set of the same films was released inRegion 2 byOptimum Releasing. The Optimum DVD ofShadows has a voice-over commentary by Seymour Cassel. Then, in 2014, the Faces/Jumer library became the property ofShout! Factory, which acquired the films' holding parent company, Westchester Films.
Cassavetes' sonNick followed in his father's footsteps as an actor and director, adapting theShe's Delovely screenplay his father had written into the 1997 filmShe's So Lovely, which starred Sean Penn, as John Cassavetes had wanted.Alexandra Cassavetes directed the documentaryZ Channel: A Magnificent Obsession in 2004, and in 2006 served as 2nd Unit Director on her brother Nick's film,Alpha Dog. Cassavetes' younger daughterZoe wrote and directed the 2007 filmBroken English, featuring Rowlands andParker Posey.
The New Yorker 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 theBrooklyn Academy of Music throughout July 2013.[54]AllMovie called Cassavetes "an iconoclastic maverick".[34]
TheIndependent Spirit Awards named one of their categories after Cassavetes, theIndependent Spirit John Cassavetes Award. A one-person show about John Cassavetes titledIndependent[55] premiered at Essential Theatre in Atlanta in August 2017. The play was written by John D. Babcock III and starred actor Dan Triandiflou as Cassavetes. The song "What's Yr Take on Cassavetes?" by the bandLe Tigre is about misogynistic themes within John Cassavetes' films and whether they can still be praised after those themes are identified.[56] The song "Cassavetes" by the bandFugazi parallels John Cassavetes' independence from the film industry with the band's own independence from the record industry.[57] In concert, singerGuy Picciotto introduced it as "a song about making your own road."[58]
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As director
| Year | Title | Distributor |
|---|---|---|
| 1959 | Shadows | British Lion Films |
| 1961 | Too Late Blues | Paramount Pictures |
| 1963 | A Child Is Waiting | United Artists |
| 1968 | Faces | Continental Distributing |
| 1970 | Husbands | Columbia Pictures |
| 1971 | Minnie and Moskowitz | Universal Pictures |
| 1974 | A Woman Under the Influence | Faces Distribution |
| 1976 | The Killing of a Chinese Bookie | |
| 1977 | Opening Night | |
| 1980 | Gloria | Columbia Pictures |
| 1984 | Love Streams | Cannon Films |
| 1986 | Big Trouble | Columbia Pictures |
As a filmmaker, he was nominated for theAcademy Award for Best Original Screenplay forFaces (1968)[59][16] and theAcademy Award for Best Director forA Woman Under the Influence (1974).[60][61] TheIndependent Spirit Awards named theJohn Cassavetes Award in his honor.
| Year | Feature | Academy Awards | BAFTAs | Golden Globes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominations | Wins | Nominations | Wins | Nominations | Wins | ||
| 1959 | Shadows | 4 | |||||
| 1968 | Faces | 3 | |||||
| 1970 | Husbands | 1 | |||||
| 1974 | A Woman Under the Influence | 2 | 4 | 1 | |||
| 1977 | Opening Night | 2 | |||||
| 1980 | Gloria | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Total | 6 | 4 | 8 | 1 | |||
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| Artists | |
| People | |
| Other | |
