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Cassavetes on Cassavetes
Since his death in 1989, John Cassavettes has become increasingly renowned as a cinematic hero--a renegade loner who fought the Hollywood system, steering his own creative course in a career spanning thirty years. Having already established himself as an actor, he struck out as a filmmaker in 1959 with Shadows, and proceeded to build a formidable body of work, including such classics as Faces, Woman Under the Influence, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, and Gloria. In Cassavettes on Cassavettes, Ray Carney presents the great director in his own words--frank, uncompromising, humane, and passionate about life and art.
400 pages, Paperback
First published August 15, 2001
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About the author
John Cassavetes
15 books43 followersJohn Nicholas Cassavetes was an American actor, screenwriter, and director. He is considered a pioneer of American independent film.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 49 reviews
November 16, 2016
This book is part of a unique series on legendary directors, though the concept is dubious at best.
The idea here is to have a writer sift through all the commentary made by a director (on his life, his work, his influences, his vision) and then arrange this material in loose filmographic order in a valiant attempt to create a cinematic memoir where none in fact exists. To be fair, the writer has some expertise on the man in question and, in this case at least, goes to great pains to structure the content and deliver the quoted statements in context. The downside, of course, is that the director's words were not offered with this intent in mind and were frequently reactions or responses made in a variety of circumstances, most of which were designed to promote a film. So it's all a little dicey, and you should know that going in.
That said, there is no doubt in my mind that John Cassavetes was a beast to tackle. He certainly put Ray Carney through his paces, and posthumously to boot.
You may remember John from his acting roles in The Dirty Dozen and Rosemary's Baby. Or you may, as I do, remember his stewardship of the film Gloria and refer to him often as "that guy who married Gena Rowlands." (Because, you know, Gena Rowlands.) However both recollections fail to accommodate the substantial contribution he made to the field of direction in American cinema.
Cassavetes was part of the vanguard of the independent film movement. While he wasn't the first to split off from the pack, he was definitely the most notorious. He was opposed to many elements of standard film production. Any sort of supervision drove him up the wall. He abhorred studio executives, investors, unions and distributors. You might think that would be enough fodder for rebellion, yet he was also perfectly disgusted by writers who were too attached to their scripts, cameramen who were too attached to accepted forms of shooting film, actors who had been corrupted by too much experience (who had learned too many "tricks") and, sad but true, the movie-going audience itself whom he felt had been conditioned into somnambulism by years of easy and inferior cinematic fare. Looking for a renegade? That buck stops here.
Still, there were dichotomies and, it must be said, they were legion. He was averse to violence and sexual content in film. He wanted to tell stories about emotional life and emotional truth, yet was repelled by narrative structure and anything that smacked of resolution. He couldn't stand Strasberg's Method, he believed acting rooted in psychological motivation was a complete waste of time, yet he spent the bulk of his directorial energy keeping his performers off-balance and off-script so that he might pull their neuroses forward. He ripped all the subtle protections out of the process, then virtually filled his cast and crew with the people closest to him - not because they worked cheap but because he claimed great affection for them. (I was reminded of that line from Tootsie: "I don't take this kind of [abuse] from friends, Michael. Only lovers.") He was maddening, mercurial, megalomaniacal; a hard and profoundly complicated man.
Carney aims for a through-line, which is impossible to get with Cassavetes. John had a lot to say, but the words didn't mean that much to him. I encountered a lot of repetition. In all honesty, there's a mid-section of approximately a hundred pages that grows tedious in the extreme. Yet the director emerges on the page in all his tempestuous glory, and I think that's the best one can expect from a compilation of this nature.
I could pull any number of quotes, but let's leave it to the one that brought a smile. Here's the section on our renegade director in negotiation with a certain Mr. Penn:
"Everyone says they want to work the way I do or work with me; but they don't really want to. They don't want to go all the way to work this way. In the end they want to protect themselves. They are afraid. They don't really want to take the chance."
Another less publicized issue also came between them.
"Sean wanted Madonna in the movie. It was out of the question. I've worked with lots of non-professionals, but I have to draw the line somewhere!"
Color me tickled - a (generous) four-star shade of pink.
The idea here is to have a writer sift through all the commentary made by a director (on his life, his work, his influences, his vision) and then arrange this material in loose filmographic order in a valiant attempt to create a cinematic memoir where none in fact exists. To be fair, the writer has some expertise on the man in question and, in this case at least, goes to great pains to structure the content and deliver the quoted statements in context. The downside, of course, is that the director's words were not offered with this intent in mind and were frequently reactions or responses made in a variety of circumstances, most of which were designed to promote a film. So it's all a little dicey, and you should know that going in.
That said, there is no doubt in my mind that John Cassavetes was a beast to tackle. He certainly put Ray Carney through his paces, and posthumously to boot.
You may remember John from his acting roles in The Dirty Dozen and Rosemary's Baby. Or you may, as I do, remember his stewardship of the film Gloria and refer to him often as "that guy who married Gena Rowlands." (Because, you know, Gena Rowlands.) However both recollections fail to accommodate the substantial contribution he made to the field of direction in American cinema.
Cassavetes was part of the vanguard of the independent film movement. While he wasn't the first to split off from the pack, he was definitely the most notorious. He was opposed to many elements of standard film production. Any sort of supervision drove him up the wall. He abhorred studio executives, investors, unions and distributors. You might think that would be enough fodder for rebellion, yet he was also perfectly disgusted by writers who were too attached to their scripts, cameramen who were too attached to accepted forms of shooting film, actors who had been corrupted by too much experience (who had learned too many "tricks") and, sad but true, the movie-going audience itself whom he felt had been conditioned into somnambulism by years of easy and inferior cinematic fare. Looking for a renegade? That buck stops here.
Still, there were dichotomies and, it must be said, they were legion. He was averse to violence and sexual content in film. He wanted to tell stories about emotional life and emotional truth, yet was repelled by narrative structure and anything that smacked of resolution. He couldn't stand Strasberg's Method, he believed acting rooted in psychological motivation was a complete waste of time, yet he spent the bulk of his directorial energy keeping his performers off-balance and off-script so that he might pull their neuroses forward. He ripped all the subtle protections out of the process, then virtually filled his cast and crew with the people closest to him - not because they worked cheap but because he claimed great affection for them. (I was reminded of that line from Tootsie: "I don't take this kind of [abuse] from friends, Michael. Only lovers.") He was maddening, mercurial, megalomaniacal; a hard and profoundly complicated man.
Carney aims for a through-line, which is impossible to get with Cassavetes. John had a lot to say, but the words didn't mean that much to him. I encountered a lot of repetition. In all honesty, there's a mid-section of approximately a hundred pages that grows tedious in the extreme. Yet the director emerges on the page in all his tempestuous glory, and I think that's the best one can expect from a compilation of this nature.
I could pull any number of quotes, but let's leave it to the one that brought a smile. Here's the section on our renegade director in negotiation with a certain Mr. Penn:
"Everyone says they want to work the way I do or work with me; but they don't really want to. They don't want to go all the way to work this way. In the end they want to protect themselves. They are afraid. They don't really want to take the chance."
Another less publicized issue also came between them.
"Sean wanted Madonna in the movie. It was out of the question. I've worked with lots of non-professionals, but I have to draw the line somewhere!"
Color me tickled - a (generous) four-star shade of pink.
May 6, 2009
Sycophantism in extremis.
Ray Carney's idea of what art is is so dogmatic and limiting it beggars description.
But before I bash, I have to say his writings have made me think and re-think the nature of art, why it is done and when it is "genuine" as opposed to, say, crass or mere hobby craftmanship or manufactured goods.
Carney's a real pitbull, he takes no prisoners, and his slams at fellow critics are delicious. He's a master at pointing out their inconsistencies, ferreting out claims that seem at variance with film content. Devastating at calling out those who confuse pop formulae with high art.
Like Jonathan Rosenbaum, I find him a refreshing, vital and necessary part of the critical mix, as viewers and readers of film confront the art put before them.
And yet, Carney's take on the idea that art is only the pursuit of truth is so fraught with peril it would almost take a novel to debunk him. Carney has no truck with style, which would seemingly not only put him at odds with Hollywood commercial filmmakers but also with a large segment of the experimental film crowd.
The philosophical quandary of "what is truth" would seem endless. In Carney's view, Cassavetes seeks truth, and maybe even finds it to a degree. But what is truth, and whose is it?
Shooting miles of film, hoping that "truth happens," creates a new conundrum. Who picks "the truth" out of those miles of tedious footage with actors flailing around in hysteria? Why, the artiste, of course.
But that very act of selection is an act of control, and thus artifice. It's an issue that has confronted and baffled the cinema verite movement for decades. The second the camera is turned on and records, can there truly be "reality'?
The notion that the only valid art is confrontational art, that takes us out of our comfort zone, is repeated ad infinitum here. It seems a peculiarly aggressive male view of art, that it must "attack" its audience.
I just have big trouble with someone who poo poos 99.9 percent of cinematic output and consigns it all to the bin of the artless based on a very limiting view of art -- one that assumes the truth means rubbing our noses in the shit of life. I'll never be persuaded that an Astaire and Rogers dance scene is not art, for instance. But there is no room in Carney's art universe for fantasy, and that seems rather sad and pathetic.
I read some of this book and got the point fairly early on. Cassavetes had a tendency to repeat himself. I mean, how many ways can you say you shoot miles of footage to get at the truth? Not many, as it happens.
I find it funny that Carney has respect for Frank Capra, based, I would have to think, on Cassavette's own love of the great American pedantic fantasist - a practitioner of the kind of minutely controlled artifice and populist platitude that would seem to be the opposite of what Carney would consider "truth seeking." I like Capra and Cassavetes myself, not every single thing they did, but in my universe there's room for many artists, craftsman, showmen -- call them what you will.
And I find it funny that in promoting his own books, career and scholarship on his website that Carney freely appropriates the iconography of the commercial cinema -- glowing marquees and such...
I'd say that the minute an aesthetic becomes dogma it becomes like a dangerous church you should walk away from, because it can only convert with bloodshed. And somewhere in the confusion, it chops off its own ears. (The mind already went some time ago...)
I was going to write more, but I have a job.
Ray Carney's idea of what art is is so dogmatic and limiting it beggars description.
But before I bash, I have to say his writings have made me think and re-think the nature of art, why it is done and when it is "genuine" as opposed to, say, crass or mere hobby craftmanship or manufactured goods.
Carney's a real pitbull, he takes no prisoners, and his slams at fellow critics are delicious. He's a master at pointing out their inconsistencies, ferreting out claims that seem at variance with film content. Devastating at calling out those who confuse pop formulae with high art.
Like Jonathan Rosenbaum, I find him a refreshing, vital and necessary part of the critical mix, as viewers and readers of film confront the art put before them.
And yet, Carney's take on the idea that art is only the pursuit of truth is so fraught with peril it would almost take a novel to debunk him. Carney has no truck with style, which would seemingly not only put him at odds with Hollywood commercial filmmakers but also with a large segment of the experimental film crowd.
The philosophical quandary of "what is truth" would seem endless. In Carney's view, Cassavetes seeks truth, and maybe even finds it to a degree. But what is truth, and whose is it?
Shooting miles of film, hoping that "truth happens," creates a new conundrum. Who picks "the truth" out of those miles of tedious footage with actors flailing around in hysteria? Why, the artiste, of course.
But that very act of selection is an act of control, and thus artifice. It's an issue that has confronted and baffled the cinema verite movement for decades. The second the camera is turned on and records, can there truly be "reality'?
The notion that the only valid art is confrontational art, that takes us out of our comfort zone, is repeated ad infinitum here. It seems a peculiarly aggressive male view of art, that it must "attack" its audience.
I just have big trouble with someone who poo poos 99.9 percent of cinematic output and consigns it all to the bin of the artless based on a very limiting view of art -- one that assumes the truth means rubbing our noses in the shit of life. I'll never be persuaded that an Astaire and Rogers dance scene is not art, for instance. But there is no room in Carney's art universe for fantasy, and that seems rather sad and pathetic.
I read some of this book and got the point fairly early on. Cassavetes had a tendency to repeat himself. I mean, how many ways can you say you shoot miles of footage to get at the truth? Not many, as it happens.
I find it funny that Carney has respect for Frank Capra, based, I would have to think, on Cassavette's own love of the great American pedantic fantasist - a practitioner of the kind of minutely controlled artifice and populist platitude that would seem to be the opposite of what Carney would consider "truth seeking." I like Capra and Cassavetes myself, not every single thing they did, but in my universe there's room for many artists, craftsman, showmen -- call them what you will.
And I find it funny that in promoting his own books, career and scholarship on his website that Carney freely appropriates the iconography of the commercial cinema -- glowing marquees and such...
I'd say that the minute an aesthetic becomes dogma it becomes like a dangerous church you should walk away from, because it can only convert with bloodshed. And somewhere in the confusion, it chops off its own ears. (The mind already went some time ago...)
I was going to write more, but I have a job.
March 19, 2025
"A woman under the influence" საუკეთესო ფილმი რაც ოდესმე მინახავს, ალბათ
May 2, 2025
I’m obsessed with the idea that people are human and have fallacies, and that those embarrassing fallacies are better out in the open. That way we don’t waste time covering up. I see life as a struggle, and the real romance is in not walking away from it.
When Cassavetes is already your favourite director, reading this becomes a serious love affair. While our personalities are completely different, never have I felt a more spiritual affinity to another living being. I thought I was alone! At last, I’ve met someone who equally hates entertainment with such passion!; who privileges emotion and individual truth; who wants nothing more than to face this world with complete, unflinching vulnerability; who is tired of everyone wanting an escape; and who simply doesn’t believe in the falsity of acting, who’d rather see people wanting to be themselves instead of pretending to be someone else.
One reason I barely like any fiction is because I can often tell that it’s been acted, or the dialogue sounds unnatural and distant from life—basically it feels like a fabricated story that’s been constructed. Give me something real. Punch me in the guts and make me cry or laugh. Don’t show me anything false; I want to sit with you in the mud. But let us not assign a negative value to the mud. Real love doesn’t make judgments; it steps back and says, “I accept you just as you are.” The only event is emotion. There is no outside. Everything passes through us, transpires with us. The truth as fleeting as what we feel in the moment, and in its flow, all is real—you are alive. Burn with intensity, stay with this magical romance and don’t miss a second.
I could sleep with this book every night. Cassavetes will forever be the GOAT. One of the very few to uncompromisingly stake it all for life, and not for money or art.
When Cassavetes is already your favourite director, reading this becomes a serious love affair. While our personalities are completely different, never have I felt a more spiritual affinity to another living being. I thought I was alone! At last, I’ve met someone who equally hates entertainment with such passion!; who privileges emotion and individual truth; who wants nothing more than to face this world with complete, unflinching vulnerability; who is tired of everyone wanting an escape; and who simply doesn’t believe in the falsity of acting, who’d rather see people wanting to be themselves instead of pretending to be someone else.
One reason I barely like any fiction is because I can often tell that it’s been acted, or the dialogue sounds unnatural and distant from life—basically it feels like a fabricated story that’s been constructed. Give me something real. Punch me in the guts and make me cry or laugh. Don’t show me anything false; I want to sit with you in the mud. But let us not assign a negative value to the mud. Real love doesn’t make judgments; it steps back and says, “I accept you just as you are.” The only event is emotion. There is no outside. Everything passes through us, transpires with us. The truth as fleeting as what we feel in the moment, and in its flow, all is real—you are alive. Burn with intensity, stay with this magical romance and don’t miss a second.
I could sleep with this book every night. Cassavetes will forever be the GOAT. One of the very few to uncompromisingly stake it all for life, and not for money or art.
November 20, 2007
This is actually "Carney on Cassavetes." It's interesting, but not helpful to anyone with a serious interest in John Cassavetes' films.
October 8, 2017
Ho visto Volti (Faces,1968) a notte fonda, m'impressionò molto, molti anni fa. In seguito lo rividi e lo registrai, sulla videocassetta scrissi 9 e 1/2. Lo rivedrei? forse sì, peraltro è youtubizzato e retrospettivizzato, da tempo, suppongo. Di Cassavetes non mi colpì l'idea del cinema 16 mm, macchina da presa Arriflex, improvvisato, naturalmente su dialoghi scritti, indipendente, squattrinato, in cui si beve e si parla e sparla parecchio. Mi colpì lo slancio percepibile, serio, lo sdegno, l'autenticità insomma, l'idea che egli volesse mostrare che due persone, un uomo e una donna sposati, in questo caso, dovrebbero smetterla di chiedere troppo alla vita, e questo lo si può fare solo lasciandole libere di fare cazzate. Attori "dite cosa siete, non cosa vi piacerebbe essere. Non cosa dovreste essere. Solo cosa siete. Quello che siete è sufficiente" afferma nelle interviste a Ray Carney. In Volti non c'è fine tragica, come in Revolutionary Road di Yates o altri libri o film che volevano rappresentare la crisi della classe media e della mezza età in quegli anni. Nel film lui esce di casa nervoso per spassarsela di notte con un'amica amante, lei esce di casa, nervosa, per spassarsela con le sue amiche in discoteca, seduce un giovanotto e se lo porta a casa, ma resta inebetita da alcool e sonniferi; nella scena in cui lui giovanotto cerca di svegliarla di mattina strattonandola e schiaffeggiandola, prima che arrivi suo marito, c'è tutto Cassavetes. Lo stupido furore delle cose che cerca di rappresentare.
“Ho scritto Volti perché ero in preda alla rabbia e allo sconforto di fronte alla società. Ero davvero arrabbiato con la nostra epoca, e in particolare con quegli adulti che senza riflettere vanno in discoteca, vanno dietro a tutto ciò che è di moda, senza capire davvero cosa sia. Volevo mostrare l’incapacità comunicativa delle persone; l’effetto delle piccole cose su tutti noi; l’incapacità da parte di molti di affrontare quello che sentono in giro, leggono sui giornali, vedono nei film; e come, quando uno è impreparato a pensare con la propria testa e a provare dei sentimenti, questo possa portare a conseguenze tragiche. Vecchie signore che si sforzano di essere giovani muovendo il culo grasso. Uomini che si sforzano di essere sessualmente attraenti. Tutti quei vecchi che si comportano come bambini. Le persone hanno paura di essere se stesse, e così finiscono per diventare qualcun altro, e non riescono mai più a tornare alla loro vera personalità".
“Ho scritto Volti perché ero in preda alla rabbia e allo sconforto di fronte alla società. Ero davvero arrabbiato con la nostra epoca, e in particolare con quegli adulti che senza riflettere vanno in discoteca, vanno dietro a tutto ciò che è di moda, senza capire davvero cosa sia. Volevo mostrare l’incapacità comunicativa delle persone; l’effetto delle piccole cose su tutti noi; l’incapacità da parte di molti di affrontare quello che sentono in giro, leggono sui giornali, vedono nei film; e come, quando uno è impreparato a pensare con la propria testa e a provare dei sentimenti, questo possa portare a conseguenze tragiche. Vecchie signore che si sforzano di essere giovani muovendo il culo grasso. Uomini che si sforzano di essere sessualmente attraenti. Tutti quei vecchi che si comportano come bambini. Le persone hanno paura di essere se stesse, e così finiscono per diventare qualcun altro, e non riescono mai più a tornare alla loro vera personalità".
March 30, 2024
Man gena rowlands was a trooper
August 10, 2023
Earlier this year I was out in New York chatting with someone about art and our tastes. He mentioned John Cassavetes as an artist he returns to, not only because of the quality of his work, but also because of his philosophy towards art. This guy seemed pretty cool so obviously I had to buy this book the next day and watch 9 Cassavetes films while reading it.
The idea of “selling out” has always pissed me off. Why can’t we just create for the sake of creating? John Cassavetes maintained this independent spirit. He found funding wherever he could, he even mortgaged his home to fund his films. He hated money, he hated that everything had to make money to warrant creation. But it was clear that he loved art. There is a humanity to his films that is unlike anything I’ve seen, and it is humanity, not emotion. Any hack can convey emotion.
You can’t describe it, but you know what it feels like when art is telling the raw truth, Cassavetes was a master of capturing that truth. There are a selection of special films from his work, but A Woman Under the Influence is the one that will stick with me forever.
The idea of “selling out” has always pissed me off. Why can’t we just create for the sake of creating? John Cassavetes maintained this independent spirit. He found funding wherever he could, he even mortgaged his home to fund his films. He hated money, he hated that everything had to make money to warrant creation. But it was clear that he loved art. There is a humanity to his films that is unlike anything I’ve seen, and it is humanity, not emotion. Any hack can convey emotion.
You can’t describe it, but you know what it feels like when art is telling the raw truth, Cassavetes was a master of capturing that truth. There are a selection of special films from his work, but A Woman Under the Influence is the one that will stick with me forever.
Read
June 13, 2025“The artist really is a magical figure whom we would all like to be like and don't have the courage to be, because we don't have the strength to be obsessive. Film is an art, a beautiful art. It's a madness that overcomes all of us. We're in love with it. Money is really not that important to us. We can work thirty-six, forty-eight hours straight and feel elated at the end of that time. I think film is magic! With the tools we have at hand, we really try to convert people's lives! The idea of making a film is to package a lifetime of emotion and ideas into a two-hour capsule form, two hours where some images flash across the screen and in that two hours the hope is that the audience will forget everything and that celluloid will change lives. Now that's insane, that's a preposterously presumptuous assumption, and yet that's the hope."
My hero.
My hero.
Read
June 30, 2025There’s not much to say about craft here book-wise, but this is essential film reading to understand the madness of the man who made american indies possible. It took 6 months to read this but I already wish I could spend more time with Cassavetes’ insights in my back pocket. Another thing I’m thinking about is how people love to mythologize him in the present moment. What is inspiring and semi-unstated is how much he failed. He would probably hate being known distinctly as an auteur in 2025.
May 3, 2021
M'ha interessat sobretot al principi i al final de la carrera i la part d'Opening Night i Faces. I la construcció d'ell com a creador. Les reflexions d'algú que sempre ha estat treballant a la perifèria de tot, però treballant sempre i bé i amb la gent que volia i com volia.
March 20, 2021
up there (and far above for reasons i'll explain) with my favorite books on/by/talking with favorite directors (godard on godard, tarkovsky's sculpting) and way above the others in the director on director series i've read (scorsese, altman, malle). moreover, one of the most important (practically speaking, in terms of guiding me to what i want to do/be) books i've ever read. cassevetes stands as maybe my favorite filmmaker or at least high up so to go so in depth on every work, on every phase, and to learn how seriously (but also playfully) he took the business of life, of love, was incredibly incredibly inspiring. i watched (after reading the related chapter) every film with the exception of the less personal/more studio works and felt more from each one of them as a result. will probably be referring to this for a long time to come.
March 23, 2007
Probably the most fascinating and exhaustively in-depth book on one filmmaker I've ever read. Carney has pretty much devoted his life to studying Cassavetes and telling the true story of his life, much to the chagrin of his wife, Gena Rowlands, who has stopped every great thing Carney has tried to do to preserve his legacy, including releasing early cuts of Shadows and Faces. This book moves from Carney's biographical narration to long passages of Cassavetes' own words. I think this monster is about 500 pages long, devoting about 80 pages to every one of his major films, so I would recommend it only to die-hard Cassavetes fans.
June 11, 2021
“The artist is really a magical figure whom we would all like to be like and don’t have the courage to be because we don’t have the strength to be obsessive.”
I had such a good time reading this over the last month, frequently quoting it in real life like it’s the Bible, and in many ways it has become my Bible. May we all find the courage to be obsessive!
I had such a good time reading this over the last month, frequently quoting it in real life like it’s the Bible, and in many ways it has become my Bible. May we all find the courage to be obsessive!
July 30, 2012
I think this was delicious.
June 28, 2025
For a disclaimer: I am not really familiar with the oeuvre of Cassavetes nor how to "review" this (auto)biography. Ray Carney's commentary is undeniably essential to understand the latitude of lies and partial-truths espoused to/by John Cassavetes and his work.
By the merits of Carney's work, I would give this book 5 stars. The introduction outlines the process to gather and compose this information in an elegant manner and each chapter is wonderfully robust, eclectic, granular, and everything in between; giving us sharp, and occasionally comedic, commentary on the ins and outs from conception to reception for Cassavette. I will be forever thankful for the people who care this passionately about these topics and choose the tremendous work to elevate their study for archival work to last generations. The book is indispensable as a historical resource and one I deeply admire. (Even assuming more correct is to come)
As for the rest, Cassavete...I will temper further. Now, theres a reason the book is about Cassavete and not Carney. Obviously this person has a following and comes up constantly in film study, influencing work that I like. I just don't have a strong stomach for dialectics.
Dont get me wrong, I can find Cassavete impassioned, agreeable, and charming but in a Martin Shkreli/Elizabeth Holmes kind of way, hes a con artist and we'd both love that. It's genuinely funny seeing the 20th century as a missing link in our social evolution, how distant it seems and close we really are/could be given social permission. But to insist today he's a genius? i dont know about that, weve seen that one before. Under scrutiny (albeit pedantic) what he says in the book can be flawed and often hypocritical.
The limitations as a hapless user of language are ever apparent, I might be able to empathize and use my intuitions to closer to what I believe he felt when he is saying, but so often this insistence of insular expression comes from feeling trapped, not truly from freedom. Hes a crazy, interesting guy from his singularness, to say his "way is the best" or "the most __" spits in the face of his own teachings.
I guess I am more resigned to that and focus on finding more how precisely we are trapped. I am grateful for structured philosophy and living in a world with so much information to see that whether you make "good art" can be ultimately singular but examining the meta-conditions is paramount. Can good art be commercial? Yes. Can it be inconsequential? Of course. Is it worth making if it makes himself, his cast, and audiences miserable? All of these things are possible with and without our intentions, we just hope to get lucky or sort of figure it out in our lifetime, but it requires us to change and feel life; even we like certain values, its important to re-examine what conditions lead to them.
In contrast, theres only so many pages of Cassavetes lying about _, production being disorganized, him bonding with his actors before screwing them over. It can get repetitive. That's not really Carney's fault but the egoist blend of Tom Hulce Manchild and Cringe from House M.D that makes Cassavete himself. So it seems some important topics that earnestly makes up a person's life that Cassavetes he might falter and ignores just because he doesnt particularly like them (race and politics) When they have a tremendous influence on his work and tries to depict through other. Its for these reasons, I am lead to believe "art" is more empathetic than individual and i found Cassavete unpleasant at times.
Are we wrong? Is it all Relative? We can have pointers, but only for sometime. I might say he is tragically unaware of his duties but I see his expression of bravery is deeply human. I think that is the quintessential takeaway, whether you like him as a person, believe he often misunderstands his own works, or even simply mediocre, he acted for undeniable influence defining the conditions we examine today, and we must act to see even further.
By the merits of Carney's work, I would give this book 5 stars. The introduction outlines the process to gather and compose this information in an elegant manner and each chapter is wonderfully robust, eclectic, granular, and everything in between; giving us sharp, and occasionally comedic, commentary on the ins and outs from conception to reception for Cassavette. I will be forever thankful for the people who care this passionately about these topics and choose the tremendous work to elevate their study for archival work to last generations. The book is indispensable as a historical resource and one I deeply admire. (Even assuming more correct is to come)
As for the rest, Cassavete...I will temper further. Now, theres a reason the book is about Cassavete and not Carney. Obviously this person has a following and comes up constantly in film study, influencing work that I like. I just don't have a strong stomach for dialectics.
Dont get me wrong, I can find Cassavete impassioned, agreeable, and charming but in a Martin Shkreli/Elizabeth Holmes kind of way, hes a con artist and we'd both love that. It's genuinely funny seeing the 20th century as a missing link in our social evolution, how distant it seems and close we really are/could be given social permission. But to insist today he's a genius? i dont know about that, weve seen that one before. Under scrutiny (albeit pedantic) what he says in the book can be flawed and often hypocritical.
The limitations as a hapless user of language are ever apparent, I might be able to empathize and use my intuitions to closer to what I believe he felt when he is saying, but so often this insistence of insular expression comes from feeling trapped, not truly from freedom. Hes a crazy, interesting guy from his singularness, to say his "way is the best" or "the most __" spits in the face of his own teachings.
I guess I am more resigned to that and focus on finding more how precisely we are trapped. I am grateful for structured philosophy and living in a world with so much information to see that whether you make "good art" can be ultimately singular but examining the meta-conditions is paramount. Can good art be commercial? Yes. Can it be inconsequential? Of course. Is it worth making if it makes himself, his cast, and audiences miserable? All of these things are possible with and without our intentions, we just hope to get lucky or sort of figure it out in our lifetime, but it requires us to change and feel life; even we like certain values, its important to re-examine what conditions lead to them.
In contrast, theres only so many pages of Cassavetes lying about _, production being disorganized, him bonding with his actors before screwing them over. It can get repetitive. That's not really Carney's fault but the egoist blend of Tom Hulce Manchild and Cringe from House M.D that makes Cassavete himself. So it seems some important topics that earnestly makes up a person's life that Cassavetes he might falter and ignores just because he doesnt particularly like them (race and politics) When they have a tremendous influence on his work and tries to depict through other. Its for these reasons, I am lead to believe "art" is more empathetic than individual and i found Cassavete unpleasant at times.
Are we wrong? Is it all Relative? We can have pointers, but only for sometime. I might say he is tragically unaware of his duties but I see his expression of bravery is deeply human. I think that is the quintessential takeaway, whether you like him as a person, believe he often misunderstands his own works, or even simply mediocre, he acted for undeniable influence defining the conditions we examine today, and we must act to see even further.
November 3, 2023
Full disclosure: I’ve never actually seen a John Cassavetes movie from beginning to end. But I’ve always had this fascination with the man who was one of the first truly independent American filmmakers. Ray Carney, the editor and writer of the in-depth exegesis of Cassavetes’s films, cannot be faulted for lack of comprehensiveness. He seems to have spent a large portion of his life researching, watching, and writing about Cassavetes’s films, and even had a personal relationship with the man. If you’re looking to not just understand the artistic and creative choices made in Cassavetes’s films, but to know the man himself, you won’t find a better piece of literature.
What maybe struck me the most about this book — which serves as a biography of Cassavetes as much as a life-long critique of his ouvre — was the unflagging passion of this writer/director/actor, pretty much from early adulthood through to his death. Hyphenates are thrown around a lot in Los Angeles; everyone’s a writer-actor-producer-model-director. But Cassavetes actually was all the things he claimed to be, and he could have easily rested on his laurels as an actor and never pursued his independent filmmaking passions. In fact he would have been much wealthier had he gone this route: most of the films he directed were partially or entirely self-financed, forcing him to immediately take parts he wouldn’t have otherwise accepted in order to pay down debts incurred by his last film, or in order to pay for the next. You don’t see a lot of actors-filmmakers theses days willing to literally put their money where their mouths are the way Cassavetes did.
The incredible thing is that Cassavetes never really found much success for his efforts, financial or critical. And yet he kept on going, tirelessly jumping into the next project with as much energy and enthusiasm as if he were perpetually 25 years old. This retrospective of Cassavetes is a work of film criticism, but it is also a portrait of a man in the grip of pure, unadulterated passion; a self-sustaining fire to create that could not be extinguished by anything short of death. Cassavetes showed us what film, unburdened by the fetters of studio mandates could look like. He also showed us what an indefatigably creative vision was capable of, and provided inspiration to generations of filmmakers and artists who might not otherwise believe they could create with such freedom and ferocity without anyone else’s permission.
What maybe struck me the most about this book — which serves as a biography of Cassavetes as much as a life-long critique of his ouvre — was the unflagging passion of this writer/director/actor, pretty much from early adulthood through to his death. Hyphenates are thrown around a lot in Los Angeles; everyone’s a writer-actor-producer-model-director. But Cassavetes actually was all the things he claimed to be, and he could have easily rested on his laurels as an actor and never pursued his independent filmmaking passions. In fact he would have been much wealthier had he gone this route: most of the films he directed were partially or entirely self-financed, forcing him to immediately take parts he wouldn’t have otherwise accepted in order to pay down debts incurred by his last film, or in order to pay for the next. You don’t see a lot of actors-filmmakers theses days willing to literally put their money where their mouths are the way Cassavetes did.
The incredible thing is that Cassavetes never really found much success for his efforts, financial or critical. And yet he kept on going, tirelessly jumping into the next project with as much energy and enthusiasm as if he were perpetually 25 years old. This retrospective of Cassavetes is a work of film criticism, but it is also a portrait of a man in the grip of pure, unadulterated passion; a self-sustaining fire to create that could not be extinguished by anything short of death. Cassavetes showed us what film, unburdened by the fetters of studio mandates could look like. He also showed us what an indefatigably creative vision was capable of, and provided inspiration to generations of filmmakers and artists who might not otherwise believe they could create with such freedom and ferocity without anyone else’s permission.
July 9, 2020
My heart is so full and I am so honored, grateful, thankful, overjoyed that this book exists. For Ray Carney and all those who made this book possible, everyone who dedicated countless hours and hours of work in memory of one of the greatest living people of all time.
John didn’t want people to know him personally. As vulnerable and open as he was, even at the end of this book, there is so much more to him that I do not know and I will never know. No one will. But what he offered to the world is incredibly powerful. He lived his life in such an honest and beautiful way that this passion for life and people rippled through those closest to him, and all who worked with him, because why would anyone want to live any other way?
The information and context for all of Cassavetes’ quotes throughout his life is staggering. There are so many fascinating stories and quotes, moments forever captured in time with Cassavetes’ comments on it all. I love how much I was given of a man I have never met, but love so much! Truly!
This is a bible of sorts—though I’m sure he would not want to his words to referred to as such. Its holy in its grand scale of a person who lived by his own rules, his own way, and came into conflict with the world at large because of it. Even to this day, John Cassavetes’ following is not nearly as large as it should be, and yet his works still offer much more honesty and truth than the grains of honesty found in hundreds of movies being made today.
I love this book. I love this man. And my heart is full.
John didn’t want people to know him personally. As vulnerable and open as he was, even at the end of this book, there is so much more to him that I do not know and I will never know. No one will. But what he offered to the world is incredibly powerful. He lived his life in such an honest and beautiful way that this passion for life and people rippled through those closest to him, and all who worked with him, because why would anyone want to live any other way?
The information and context for all of Cassavetes’ quotes throughout his life is staggering. There are so many fascinating stories and quotes, moments forever captured in time with Cassavetes’ comments on it all. I love how much I was given of a man I have never met, but love so much! Truly!
This is a bible of sorts—though I’m sure he would not want to his words to referred to as such. Its holy in its grand scale of a person who lived by his own rules, his own way, and came into conflict with the world at large because of it. Even to this day, John Cassavetes’ following is not nearly as large as it should be, and yet his works still offer much more honesty and truth than the grains of honesty found in hundreds of movies being made today.
I love this book. I love this man. And my heart is full.
September 30, 2023
A really incredible, inspiring glimpse into the mind and work ethic of the godfather of independent cinema. Highly recommend for anyone serious about cinema history or biographies, but it is a bit of a bigger read than I've been tackling lately. It's only somewhere between 500-600 pages, but the pages are large and the font is small. This was the first book where I ever struggled to read when the light was dim and realized that I'm gonna have to get some fucking readers! As I read each chapter that was focused on one of his feature films, I would then go watch the film, so I also went through his entire filmography. I was pretty sad when I got to his final film (Love Streams, even though *technically* Big Trouble was his last film, but he was just filling in for another director a third of the way through production, didn't have an incredible amount of artistic input, and hated that movie). I was also a little sad to finish the book today. But it has inspired my for the next screenplay I'm working on. I technically started this book back in March and read the first couple chapters, but didn't really start this book in earnest until September 7th. Anyway, the journey through this incredibly detailed book, his filmography, and his life was an emotional and satisfying one.
December 18, 2024
Landmine of filmmaking and acting insights. But not written in a lecture type of way, very personal and free flowing interview style. I commend the author for getting this information out of Cassavetes. He uncovers his contradictions and follows up whenever he senses another story or idea. Cassavetes’ life is so sprawling and eventful, or at least it’s captured like that here. There’s a lot of respect but also objectivity. You see the genius but also the flaws, chaos and persistence. Other than the autobiography part, if you feel like you’ve failed a million times and find it hard to get back up, is this the book for you.
July 20, 2020
this was an EXPERIENCE to read because i also watched all of john cassavetes' movies as i read along with it. eleven films and a 500+ page book later, and i now have my full cassavetes education!!! lmao i am so tired i need a nap but anyway this was a great companion for what i did and i feel like i know everything i will ever need to know about john cassavetes now in case i ever happen to speak to a pretentious film student
Read
May 7, 2024“The best compliment is complete silence. I hate entertainment. I’m not an entertainer.”
“But nobody’s really laughing. It’s more an hysterical, joyless kind of sound. Translation: ‘I am here and I don’t know why’.”
“I hate being nice. I’m not nice. It’s better to start out crude. It’s so much simpler.”
“Don’t allow yourself to be bought. Especially if you can sell yourself.”
“I don’t want anyone to imitate me!”
“But nobody’s really laughing. It’s more an hysterical, joyless kind of sound. Translation: ‘I am here and I don’t know why’.”
“I hate being nice. I’m not nice. It’s better to start out crude. It’s so much simpler.”
“Don’t allow yourself to be bought. Especially if you can sell yourself.”
“I don’t want anyone to imitate me!”
January 31, 2020
Breezed through this one!
About the man, his thoughts, how they translate into his films, how those films got made.
I get that they are unique pictures and didn't often get appreciated in their time, but the guy didn't do himself any favours what with all the people he noised up!
Still, a true artist and a fascinating account :)
About the man, his thoughts, how they translate into his films, how those films got made.
I get that they are unique pictures and didn't often get appreciated in their time, but the guy didn't do himself any favours what with all the people he noised up!
Still, a true artist and a fascinating account :)
September 13, 2023
One of those books that fools you. For a moment, it seems like it contains everything you'll ever need to know. Of course it doesn't, but in that moment you really believe that it might. All Cassavetes' films have that same effect on me. I always feel like I'm experiencing the truth of the world and watching people the way they really are.
January 23, 2023
For anyone interested in making movies, this is essential reading. A true bible for filmmakers, this book edits together the thoughts of one of the only true artists ever to make films. Reading this book you feel inside the mind of the master.
June 8, 2023
Took 6 months, became my Bible / Tao, opening it everyday to find something that would get me to keep going. Always did. Endless knowledge. Endless bars. I am glad I know who I am. No one will ever do it like him.
August 18, 2019
Read to this one now and really enjoying it. I love writing style and everything Describe in this book.
Want to read
September 17, 2021Gaby Cartol
January 13, 2023
"As an artist I feel that we must try different things--but above all we must dare to fail..."
-John Cassavetes
-John Cassavetes
July 20, 2024
la bibbia
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