Hollywood
1989
John Cassavetes dies
The
film director, writer and actor John Cassavetes, hailed as a fiercely
independent filmmaker and a pioneer of American cinema verite, dies
on this day in 1989 at the age of 59, in Los Angeles.
Born
in New York City, Cassavetes studied acting at the American Academy of Dramatic
Arts there. As an actor, he subscribed to the Method school, in which actors
attempt to replicate the emotional conditions under which the character they
are portraying is operating. Cassavetes racked up an impressive number of TV
roles in the 1950s, on programs such as Studio One, Kraft
Theater and Playhouse 90; he also reprised some of them on
the big screen. In the late 1950s, Cassavetes starred in the well-reviewed TV
series Johnny Staccato. By that time, he had met and married the
actress Gena Rowlands, who would go on to star in many of his films; they would
have three children, Nicholas, Xan and Zoe.
Cassavetes
got funding for Shadows (1960), his first film as a director,
by making an appeal on a radio show to listeners who wanted an alternative to
the standard Hollywood fare. Filmed on the streets of New York City on a
shoestring budget, the movie was shot on 16-millimeter film stock using a
hand-held camera; the script was partially improvised and the actors were from
a Method class Cassavetes had been teaching. When the film was released, its
images were blown up to 35-millimeter, causing them to take on a grainy,
“real-life” look that was praised by film critics, especially in Europe,
where Shadows won the Critics Award at the Venice Film
Festival. The movement in cinema verite, films that portrayed their
characters in everyday situations with dialogue and settings that were as
natural as possible, was gaining ground in France, and Cassavetes’ film became
one of the first American examples of the genre.
The
success of Shadows got Cassavetes contracts for two studio
films, Too Late Blues (1962) and A Child is
Waiting (1963). He took so long over filming and editing that the
studios eventually took control away from him, and both films flopped at the
box office. Over the next two decades, Cassavetes acted in movies to earn money
for his own projects. Among his many notable film roles were The Dirty
Dozen (1967), for which he earned an Academy Award nomination for Best
Supporting Actor, and Rosemary’s Baby (1968), in which he
played Mia Farrow’s sinister husband.
As
a director, Cassavetes was best known for complicated domestic dramas such
as Faces (1968) and Husbands (1970), in which
he starred with Peter Falk and Ben Gazzara. He had his biggest mainstream
success with A Woman Under the Influence (1974), for which
Rowlands garnered a Best Actress Oscar nomination and Cassavetes was nominated
for Best Director. His later films included The Killing of a Chinese
Bookie (1976), Gloria (1980), which won the Golden
Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival; Love Streams (1984)
and Big Trouble (1986).
Perhaps
due to the strongly personal nature of Cassavetes’ films, reviews were usually
divided equally between raves and pans. In the years after his death, however,
his films were issued in DVD sets and studied in film school classes, and his
reputation as a pioneering filmmaker became more generally acknowledged.
Cassavetes’ son Nick followed in his footsteps, directing 1996’s Unhook
the Stars, starring Rowlands, and 1997’s She’s So Lovely, an
adaptation of one of his father’s unfinished screenplays.
COURTESY: HISTORY.com
No comments:
Post a Comment