American Dreaming: The Films of John Cassavetes and the American Experience

by Ray Carney

Analyzes the films written and directed by John Cassevetes and examines his view of American society

Genres: Film

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Ray Carney is an American scholar and critic, primarily known for his work as a film theorist, although he writes extensively on American art and literature as well. He is known for his study of the works of actor and director John Cassavetes. He teaches in the American Studies department at Boston University and has published several books on American art and philosophy.

Reviews

[Kurly Fry · Rating 4 out of 5]

"At the beginning, I had written a first draft that was two hundred and fifty pages long, and that wasn't even half the film... Then we decided to film everything, even if the film lasted ten hours. We were happy to be shooting this film; we shot for six full months. So Faces became more than a film; it became a way of life, a film against the authorities and the powers that prevent people from expressing themselves the way they want to, something that can't be done in America, that can't be done without money."

As the first critical study of Cassavetes' work, it is perhaps a little over-compensatory at times. Take a shot every time Carney refers to Henry James.

But I say that from behind the veil of my own presentism.

For what it did to legitimize John in the independent canon, it is an invaluable work.

"These films everywhere pulse with the pressures of the human desires that created them and which they take as their subjects. And the result is necessarily an entirely different sort of work from the kind usually postulated by academic criticism, a text ultimately much more passionately personal, mobile, energetic, exciting, and unresolved. While the ideal works of art described by most critics stand still and resonate around a fixed pattern of images, or are frozen into a series of structural choices or mimetic strategies, these films never stop moving. Their scenes, plots, and characters never stop changing, adjusting their course, and lunging away from past positions. To stop reacting, adjusting, and correcting their courses would be to stop living for these characters and their creator."

[Jeremy Moran · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful display of admiration and appreciation by Professor Raymond Carney, who published this book in response to the utter lack of information that was available to the public about a man whose work and human nature has been virtually ignored by the masses: John Cassavetes.

Carney would go on to make the definitive Cassavetes book, in Cassavetes on Cassavetes, but here, he begins a conversation on many elements that tie Cassavetes to some of the greatest artists in the American canon (like Emerson, Henry James, and Faulkner, to name a few). Whether it be through dance, literature, or comparing and contrasting to filmmakers of Cassavetes’ time, Carney is sure to draw upon our shared history of the arts to inspect and reflect on what makes Cassavetes’ work so interesting, inspiring, and ultimately unique.

This book made me appreciate the complexity of Cassavetes’ work in much greater detail than I would have been capable of imagining with another rewatch alone. Of course, I will revisit Cassavetes’ work in the near future—especially considering the additional insights brought to me here—because it is work that is rich and so multi-layered that it begs to be seen multiple times.

Some people describe his work as being apart of this or that group, “cinema verite” or “self-indulgent”, but it speaks to how quickly people will dismiss what is different and unique, and what speaks in favor of the individual. And this is not to say that, as Carney points out towards the end, that Cassavetes was in favor of living freely and isolated from everyone else, but of allowing yourself the freedom to be who you want to be and change who you are at any given moment. We have the power to be what we want and if we share this gift, this optimism for life and breaking free from the routines of the everyday, if we can give this to others and live from the best everyone has to offer, what could possibly go wrong?

Cassavetes has changed my life. And not only his films, but his film philosophies, which is so extremely personal to Cassavetes, that it translated into his life and how he chose to live it. And it is thanks to Raymond Carney, whose years and years of work have brought the life of this man into the hearts of so many interested people like me, that I have been allowed to come to know this man the way I do.

Life-changing and life-altering, Cassavetes’ work is one to be explored and appreciated, even if it is very different from one’s normal tastes. Carney’s book here offers insights into the structure of his films and how in their own unique ways, question what it means to dream and pursue the American Dream, amidst the struggle of daily life.