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Cameraman Mike Ferris (on Cassavetes'
A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE, THE KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE, OPENING NIGHT, Elaine May's MIKEY AND NICKY, and Nick
Cassavetes' SHE'S SO LOVELY): "You did it. You made it happen. This is the best Cassavetes Retrospective I've ever been to."
He made it to every single screening to watch the film and speak afterwards, did an interview with CineMad Magazine (posted
on hungryartistdvdmedia.com) and threw a big party at his house, complete with Greek home cooking!
Composer and Sound Mixer Bo Harwood
(on A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE, OPENING NIGHT, LOVE STREAMS, and the 3 plus hour Charles Kiselyak documentary A CONSTANT
FORGE, premiering in L.A., as the events' finale, as well as doing the original music on the Criterion DVD Box Set: John
Cassavetes, 5 Films, on which the doc.'s included), present at the WOMAN Q & A to talk, and the Doc.'s premiere, for support,
(as was the filmmaker Charles Kiselyak and his special guest, FACES' Lynn Carlin): "You threw a party, and everybody showed
up."
It all started with a book I'd been
anticipating, reading excerpts of it about a year before it was published, and ordered from the author directly before it
was on sale in the book stores. I'm talking about "Cassavetes on Cassavetes", of course, by professor Ray
Carney, the extensive biography drawn from mostly tape recordings of casual and enlightening interviews with John Cassavetes
and his extended film family. I ordered it along with Carney's pocket guide: "The Adventure of Insecurity", (had to buy it
based on that title alone, and the fact that one wasn't for sale at stores, only through Ray's website cassavetes.com
"Cassavetes on Cassavetes" came to my mailbox
with this description: "To Gabie. The deep lessons in these pages is to follow your heart & soul whereever they lead you.
May John inspire you as he has inspired me. July 2001", need I say more? I devoured the book at my steady job as a box office
ticket seller at the Laemmle's Monica 4-Plex in Santa Monica, having customers come up to the window, tilt their heads to
get a glimpse of the cover and invariably make a comment that would confirm my own belief, that "they should play Cassavetes
films more often", "they" meaning who?
The only theatre in Los Angeles where Cassavetes'
films would play on a fairly regular basis was L.A.'s last revival house The New Beverly, where I'd discovered his films
in the early '90's, and limiting their double features, at least at the time, to "Shadows" with "Husbands", and "Faces" with
"A woman Under the Influence", I'd caught "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie" on TV once but it went over my head at the time,
never heard of "Minnie and Moskowitz", "Opening Night", "Love Streams", ran into Elaine May's "Mikey and Nicky" at a
local video store in West L.A., purely by accident, "Is that John Cassavetes on the cover? What is this?", only
the best acting performance I've ever seen.
And so it hit me, as all revelations do, in
a split second, I work at a theatre, I'm gonna ask Robert Laemmle to do a John Cassavetes Retrospective. And that was it.
Isn't that how all great ideas are always recounted? "I got this, I talked to so and so, they said yes, and we were on a roll",
well I guess that's how it really goes. I asked if I could do the flyers' write-ups, choose the pictures, etc. And then the
ideas started pouring in, "I should try to get a hold of Seymour Cassel, he's come in here before", and Seymour said yes,
and said "Call Lelia Goldoni, call Gena Rowlands", and Ray Carney said "Call Mike Ferris", Cassavetes' cameraman, "Call Bo
Harwood", his composer and sound mixer. And pretty soon I'd cut myself out another full-time job, one which eventually would
replace my regular job, change the way I'd look at everything, work, art, courage, independence ...
(Note: The Criterion DVD box set: JOHN CASSAVETES; 5
FILMS, has A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE Feature Commentary by John Cassavetes cameraman Michael Ferris and Composer/ Sound
Mixer Bo Harwood.)
CineMad's Mike Plante interview with John
Cassavetes' cameraman Mike Ferris ('01):
Michael Ferris
SHOOTING FACES FOR
CASSAVETES
by Mike Plante
Michael Ferris is a native Californian. After earning a BA in Psychology and Literature, he earned credits towards his Masters
in Film at UCLA. His initial film experience was working with Orson Welles on the infamous and unfinished THE OTHER SIDE OF
THE WIND, after which he became closely involved with actor-writer-director John Cassavetes as cameraman on A WOMAN UNDER
THE INFLUENCE (1974), MIKEY AND NICKY (1976), THE KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE (1976) and OPENING NIGHT (1977).
As he worked his way up through the union
assistant cameraman ranks he was hand-picked by John Alonzo (from CHINATOWN fame) to operate on bigger budget films like BLUE
THUNDER (1983) and SCARFACE(1983). Since then he has worked every type of camera position on big films and television,
and specializes in underwater photography.
His house is one of a film lover; with tons
of movies on video, DVD, laserdisc and even 8 mm videotape. During a recent Cassavetes retrospective in Santa Monica, Mr.
Ferris made every single screening to share background info and stories about John Cassavetes and his filmmaking family.
CINEMAD: How did you meet Cassavetes?
MICHAEL FERRIS: I've told it more than any
other story. It shows people that you can get where you want to be. It was 1972, I was on my way to work with Gary Graver
on a film. I'm driving up the hill and look over and there's Seymour Moskowitz on a motorcycle, riding the opposite way. I
say Moskowitz because that was Seymour Cassel's character in MINNIE AND MOSKOWITZ (1971), which I had seen 13 or 14 times.
I'm not exaggerating, I saw it that many times. Before I even think, I yell, "Seymour! Hey, Seymour!" He stops, looks, pulls
back up to my car and we start talking. I just tell him I can't believe it's you. I've just been out here a year and a half,
I'd give anything to work with John. He tells me John is preparing a film right now. Call him up! Here's the number.
I drove back to my
house and called immediately. My only thoughts were how to get past the secretary. A woman answered, "Hi - Faces." Nice and
friendly. I said, "Hi, this is Mike Ferris. Can I talk to John?" She said yeah, hold on. It wasn't ten seconds - "Hi, this
is John, who's this?" I said, "I'm a fan and I just met Seymour and he said this...." John just listened, he didn't stop me.
When I finally ran out of breath, he asked me what I was doing Friday. "Well, we're down here at CBS studios, can you come
down at five o'clock?" Gave me the address. I show up at five.
Over in the corner,
Peter Falk is drawing - I learned later he is a wonderful artist. Ben Gazzara has a big cigar. Over on the right is John Cassavetes
walking up and down in front of a couch with a woman who is writing down everything he's saying. Some other scattered people.
Things were winding down for the weekend. John stops and says, "Hey, you're Mike." He comes over, introduces me to Peter and
Ben like I was one of them, and to his secretary. He went back to his desk and pulled out the script to A WOMAN and threw
it across the desk. Talked to me for half an hour about the script, the story, the people, and asked me what I thought.
That's how I met
John Cassavetes and every part is true. I walked out of there with a job. We spent a month working on the house (for the set).
Painting it, getting furniture, cleaning it. I always thought that was John's way of figuring out who everybody was. By the
time we werre done, we all knew who was who. Everyone worked on the house.
CINEMAD: New filmmakers want to imitate Cassavetes'
film style, thinking all you have to do is have a handheld camera. There's the impression going around that Cassavetes didn't
care about imagery in his films, only the acting.
MICHAEL FERRIS: I wouldn't say that's true
at all. He cared about the image. It was all about images because that's the language. He didn't care about beautiful, he
didn't care about classic manufactured photography. If you walk through this house we're sitting in, you'll see pretty much
everything you need to see. The shadows fall in certain places. There's more light near the window hitting the shelf. There's
less light in the kitchen because it needs a skylight. So there's less light. When you make a classic Hollywood movie, you
are not recreating that at all. You're creating pools of beautiful light actors can look their best in. You key light and
backlight them until their eyes sparkle and hair shines. Soft fill light banishes all the shadows under their eyes so they
glow. That's the art and craft and it is time consuming, requiring a lot of hard work. It's a lot of manipulation, a lot of
teamwork. But it means when an actor enters a scene and walks around a room it looks absolutely natural that they enter into
and out of beautiful light all the time.
John didn't care
about that. Personally, I think unconsciously he was creating the absolutely right visual atmosphere for what his characters
were doing. You will notice that they're different from movie to movie. Certain things in every movie are common. For instance,
A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE, in the house, when they're surrounding Gena, when the doctor and Peter's mother are (in their
own way) witnessing her breakdown and conspiring to put her away, ...they are in harsh light. An even top light which creates
some shadows under the eyes. There's nothing beautiful about it.
When Gena comes back
she's in soft grey. Everything outside is grey and wet. When we set that scene up, we didn't know it was going to rain. A
lot of movies I have worked on since would shift the schedule unless the rain worked for the scene.
A KILLING OF A CHINESE
BOOKIE, if you look at the strippers on the stage, they're bathed in hot spotlights, as they normally would be. Our exposures
were a little hot. It brings something out in the reality of those women that you don't get from lighting them beautifully.
I won't say that John did that by design. But he knew what he liked when he saw it. Scene to scene things would change but
it was really not something he would spend a lot of time with.
CINEMAD: Another impression of Cassavetes'
is shooting on the set very fast with limited set ups and improv acting.
MICHAEL FERRIS: We did set up and we did rehearse.
Usually at John's pace. His largest focus was the actors, so he spent most of his time with them. He was, though, very aware
of where the camera went, what it was going to see, where it should be. By the time I was doing OPENING NIGHT with him, we
had done three pictures together and I knew his style, his temperament, his energy... And there was Fred Elmes, the other
operator, and Al Ruban, who shot a lot of movies with John and was producing, everybody would participate in it. Fred, who
was much more interested in the light, would become focused on that. I remember Al being very involved but also very tolerant
and letting it come from us younger guys. We were a team from the beginning. Because it was your temperament, your personality,
your character that John found. If there was a bad egg they were gone.
CINEMAD: To find those people in front of
and behind the camera to work together so well, without the usual fighting, it doesn't seem to be on purpose but it can't
be by accident.
MICHAEL FERRIS: They did argue, but like a
family. There's love going on. You've keyed on John's special gift. He was such a humanist. He was extraordinarily understanding
of human beings, he was interested in people.
I saw this happen
on OPENING NIGHT but I've seen it happen before in different forms. We're out in the street shooting a sequence under the
marquee. Tourists would walk up to John, not knowing who he is and innocently ask him what he was doing. We were all busy
doing something else, and John would drift off, 15 or 20 minutes he'd be talking to them about what we were doing. Because
they showed an interest and a desire to know. Sometimes you'd have to go find him! Don't get me wrong, he was very focused
on what he had in front of him. But people who could show human energy toward him he always responded to.
One time on a set
I was talking to someone and John walked by and whispered, "Just go along with this." He went on the stage where the actors
were. He hadn't been getting what he was looking for. He turned around and yelled, "Whoever's out there talking right now
- you can just pack it up and go home because if you don't want to be here you don't have to be here!" And he went on like
that for a minute. Just boom! Everybody stopped, listening. He finished giving some instructions to an actor - and the instructions
were usually trying to pull something out of them, not telling them fold their napkin here or raise their voice there, he
was just trying to do something for them. He finished doing that, walked back down right by me, and said, "Thanks - that worked."
Or something like that, to let me know what he was doing. He could've just yelled but he was precious about those things.
Interview with Mike Ferris, Part II.
Mike Plante/ CineMad Magazine:
He understood social atmosphere, and what’s
going on in actors’ minds as a film is being made as well as what was going on inside a character’s mind.
Michael Ferris/ John Cassavetes’ Cameraman:
I think it is unique to his personality and what
he was. I read somewhere that he had grown up in a wild and wonderful family atmosphere where there were no rules. You could
sing at the dinner table. The parents never stopped that. Ever since I read that, I though it made the most sense. It freed
him to say and do what he wanted, to be creative.
Like the spaghetti sequence in WOMAN. It was a place for a social gathering. You are going to eat but you could also
laugh, cry, scream, sing, dance. I could always see him dancing on the table. It could be wild but if there was a reason…
I got to know his mother and father, they’re in the movie. They were the most gracious, kind, interesting people. His
father was a philosopher, he was Greek. And the way he looked at life, I know, had a huge effect on his son. His mother was
full of love. The thing about becoming part of John’s family, I think I say this almost every time I talk after a film,
is you – in the audience – now that you have sat through his film, you are now part of John’s family. You
felt this, and experienced this, and that’s what he would have wanted.
I did something in the beginning that I think bonded John and me for all time. I was green, I had been working on pictures
and working my way up. You learn how to load film, you earn how to behave on the set, you learn to assist the more important
assistants. I was at the loader/second stage. I did not have a lot of experience. We had a hiccup in the first month. We had
a cameraman he didn’t like and that man went. John looked at me and said, “Mike, you and me are going to shoot
the rest of the movie.” Which was three weeks. That amazed me. Also gave me an enormous amount of drive and desire.
During that transition week, a number of big time union cameramen came in. because John was loved by everyone, they
had done HUSBANDS (1970) or one of his union pictures. We started to have problems, we were getting negative scratches on
(all the) dailies. We couldn’t figure it out. John was tearing his hair out – he was getting stuff he loved and
he couldn’t use it. This went on for days and days.
What had happened was when I took over loading Mitchells, which was a new camera to me, one of the union guys showed
me how to loop the film through. He either showed me the wrong way or I got it wrong. Whatever it was, I was loading it wrong
and was too dumb to know. After this went on for a week, I went home one night and sat down and said to myself, just make
the assumption that I’m doing something wrong. I made diagrams of everything I was doing.
Next day I walked in and I said, “Look. This is what I’m doing. Could it be something that I’m doing
that’s wrong?” They jumped up and said yeah, that’s it. John never forgot that. The fact that I was so straight
and honest. I’m just looking for a solution. John created the atmosphere
where you would do anything for him. It was painful to see his face, coming out of dailies…and not have any control
over it. I was excited to find out I was to blame. Because we could do something about it. And (the problem) was over just
like that.
MP: Did he like acting in his own films? Or was it a necessity to save money?
MF: I think he liked it. He was an actor. The thing you gotta look at, he always played the worst characters. The worst,
the meanest, the lowest. If you look at THE DIRTY DOZEN (1967), the guy he played was such a lowlife. Any good actor wants
to play bad guys because there is so much you can do. In a hero you wear a white suit and a white hat and stick out your jaw
and look heroic. Look at MINNIE AND MOSKOWITZ. (John) isn’t in it very long, but what a creep. He slaps Gena in his
first scene. In OPENING NIGHT he’s her opposite number and they’re having a relationship. Well, his character
is so self-centered, he only wants to know what she can do for him. A sleezeball! He loved being an actor. He was also an
experimentalist in life. He did what most good writer-directors do out of self-defense. So they can get their vision across
without someone else filtering it.
MIKEY AND NICKY, he’s the bad guy in that, but he’s extraordinary. Written and directed by Elaine May,
except we did a month of photography on the film for her, and he was hugely influential in that time. I’m not going
to say he directed, he wouldn’t like me to say that, but he was in control for the period of time when Elaine was in
trouble. The studio was closing down the shop on her. Elaine had a line of sight on Cassavetes stuff unlike others did. When
we talk about other people trying to do what he does, they can’t. (John and Elaine) got along very well. He helped her
out when she was in the same tough situation he was in so many times with the studios.
MP: You said sometimes the production would need money. He would just leave town for a month then come back with the
money.
MF: Oh yeah. The time I remember best, we closed down for a month. John took up and left, went to New York. I don’t
know what he did or who he saw, came back with two big bags of money and off we went. We picked up as if we had never stopped.
He told me at the end of OPENING NIGHT, he put his arm around me and took me up the street. He said, “Listen,
I just want to tell you personally, the next show is going to be in New York for GLORIA (1980). It’s going to be a union
show. Gena’s really tired of me putting the house up every time.” But then the last picture he did, LOVE STREAMS
(1984), was back in his house.
MP: When did you decide to get into camerawork?
MF: I’m originally from San Diego, but my dad was in the Navy. I was born during the war, in 1943. After the
war he was stationed in Brooklyn. I grew up there. Once I got into 8th grade they moved out of the city, to a town
called Manhasset on the north shore of Long Island. Incorporated in the 1600s, blue blood. Right next to it is Port Washington,
where John grew up.
In 1961 to ’65, I was in college. ’65 to ’69 I was in the Air Force. I mustered up to New York City,
lived there for two years. I was in and out of Manhasset all the time.
One day I’m driving and I look to my left and there’s a cemetery with all these limos and people. I slow
down and pull over and look. They’re making a movie in there! I had seen people shooting in New York City shooting ON
A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER (1970), big lights, police, it was fascinating. Somehow in New York City it was appropriate.
But in Port Washington? So it peaked my interest. I decided to get serious about what I always said I’d do. I’m
going to Hollywood. Now there’s a lot of luck in the things that you do. But if you point yourself in the right direction
and you’re stubborn enough and you stick to something, one foot in front of another over a period of years, chances
are you are going to do it.
When I was first on a set, I saw the camera and realized that’s where I
belonged. I wanted to be an insider in making films, be a part of it. The way it came out for me was the camera. I gritted
my teeth and I got there. Seeing the film in Port Washongton, it was just another nudge to my unconscious. I didn’t
put it together until I saw HUSBANDS that it was John filming.
MP: How did you get into underwater photography?
MF: I’ve always been a diver from when I was eight years old. I went and got a trident at a fishing store. Put
a broom handle on it. I used to bring home blowfish. One thing led to another and I became a competent diver. I bought my
first aqualung when I was 13.
When I got in the union I could have gotten in at a higher level, but I chose to stay back. I felt politically it was
a smart thing to do because it was a controlled environment and I felt I had to pay dues to the people ahead of me.
I always had a dream about how I wanted to move up to operator. In the world of being a cameraman, operator is considered
by most people on the set and the number one, best job. I’m sure some actors would disagree with you, but they understand
the value. You are literally making the movie. I had a daydream about becoming an operator. A big time Hollywood cameraman
taps me on the shoulder and takes me under his wing. The second John in my life in this business that came along and helped
me was John Alonzo. He was a father figure. He died earlier this year. He was a gift, he was great.
The first thing I did with Alonzo was a TV movie of the week called THE KID FROM NOWHERE (1982). Produced by Susan
St. James, the first thing directed by Beau Bridges. It was about a single mother with a retarded child and they cast an actual
retarded child. This was 1979 and unusual. The famous fistfight John Cassavetes
got into with (producer) Stanley Kramer was because they wouldn’t let John cast real retarded kids in A CHILD IS WAITING
(1963). Here we are, almost 20 years late, catching up to John! Every great artist is in advance of them all.
MP: Cassavetes’ acting style looks improve, so another impression is that the filmmaking was also freeform. The
audience misconception that they might be able to make the same film. But there must have been a work ethic.
MF: We didn’t re-shoot a lot of stuff. He would know on the set how things
were going. There were rehearsals of the script. Then John would say, “Let’s shoot and see where we go.”
It was true, where would they go? A lot of the blocking the actors would do. That’s where they went. You look at any
Hollywood set and the floor has twenty different colors of tape telling actors where to go, with arrows. John would never
do that.
You know (the character) Dr. Zepp in A WOMAN? He wasn’t an actor, he was a taxi driver. (Producer and longtime
Cassavetes friend) Sam Shaw’s brother. John didn’t tell him what to do. The dialogue was there but where he wanted
to go and what he wanted to do. He would talk to Gena and sort of drift over to her. Catherine [Cassavetes’ mother,
who plays the mother in WOMAN], I always thought, instinctively stood near the kids, to protect them. But you don’t
think about these things until you’re more experienced and better at being analytical. The actors found those places
themselves. That came out of the freedom John gave them, saying, “Don’t ask me. You know what to do.” In
that sense it was very improvisational.
Zepp is a perfect example. Doctors are supposed to have authority, presence and save lives. Zepp didn’t have
authority at all. He was scary, like a vampire. Which Gena used, making the cross with her fingers. He moved slow. He might
have been frightened. Who knows? His performance is haunting. John created the atmosphere for that to happen.
John Huston said it a hundred times – I worked with Huston on OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND – the hardest work
is writing the script. You’re really done if you do the casting right. Your job is to sit back and watch. I think that
actors want guidance, to know they’re headed in the right direction. Certain directors will offer ideas that are helpful.
Mostly actors want a feeling of confidence that the director knows where he’s headed with all this, knows what he wants,
they want to feel safe, to be able to expose their inner selves.
John Cassavetes wouldn’t give that to them. He did this not out of perversity but out of a requirement that they
find whatever it was themselves. If you fought for input he would fight back. When they return from the hospital scene, Gena
asked John for a little bit, what would Mabel do here? John would say, “You know the answer to that, don’t ask
me again.” Whatever her mood was, they got in to it. It was a family on the set. I don’t know if you’ve
ever seen your parents argue, it’s just like that. “If I had a knife I’d put it through your heart right
now.” She didn’t mean that, she loved him, it was theatrical. She was so angry. Gena Rowlands is one of the true
ladies of the screen and the nicest you’ll ever meet in your life. Not just a lady of the theater or movies, she is
a woman of great charm and grace.
John was just true to his vision. You can’t copycat that. It comes out through his soul and in his characters.
All photos courtesy Michael Ferris.
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MIKE PLANTE CINEMAD MAG Publisher (and short
programmer at Sundance, and CineVegas):
By putting "MAN NOT MYTH" on the cover, I do not mean to imply that you
can do what Cassavetes did. He was a genius. And he was human. His films didn't come easy for anybody involved - it was cold,
hard work. Now his name is thrown around as a style, which means he will be dismissed later as a fad. Do ot forget the actual
films he made. Watch more than one. Watch more than two. It's not about shaky camerawork or simply having a ton of dialogue.
It's about what one man made in a body of work with a lot of emotion. It came from a real place.
You cannot separate the filmmaker from the work.
Or the building from its architect and construction crew. The novel from its writer. The worl is affected not only by intelligence
but by emotion and the world around them. How much they drank or had sex daily. How quickly they finished because they needed
to get the check. How long it took because there was only one result for the work desired. It had to be done a certain way.
Of course, the best get past trivial bullshit.
You have to drive in traffic. You have to wear what the weather calls for. You have to work with
other people. And you have to fight for what you want within these boundaries.
I don't agree with the idea that since a film
is big-budget then it it more professional and just glides along during the production. A 'big' movie today has so many quick
edits that marginal camerawork can get by. So-so acting is never put on screen long enough to be criticized. The story has
nowhere to go, so stretch it out with pointless shots. That isn't professional, that's being afraid to have your work checked,
in case someone finds out they're cheating. What's left to direct? Just the big budget. I think film crews from 30,
40, 50 years ago would be embarrassed of the way movies talk about the money first and the craft second. (You know, I should
include crews of today.)
I liked Cassavetes as an actor. Somewhere down
the line I learned that he directed films and checked them out. A public awareness for his work came around in the 1990s.
Here was a filmmaker that would not take it anymore. His work was hard to find even though he had a huge interview in Life
magazine and the cover image when HUSBANDS was released in 1970. A gulf of publicity formed. I was already far removed
from the true source by the years. Now there is even more in the way. It becomes more about the search. Everyone knows what
his footprint looks like, but how many have actually seen Sasquatch?
During a recent Cassavetes retrospective (much
thanks to Gabriella Bregman and Mario Luza for making it happen) I was lucky to meet some of the people who worked with
Cassavetes and heard many stories, some of which are included here from Ray Carney and the very generous Michael Ferris.
Cassavetes' films have a feeling of realism
and I'm trying to investigate all the parts, but don't get totally stuck on whether it was scripted or improvised, what was
re-edited, where the lost versions are, etc. It is interesting to see all the viewpoints, how things are interpreted, and
it's necessary. Please remember it all came from somewhere real.
Realism as the theme of this issue is completely
on accident - but pretty cool. We always wanted to write about Cassavetes, it just became possible this time.
Pics of cameraman Mike Ferris' party towards the end of the retrospective. Also present
were two other Cassavetes cameramen, Mike Stringer, and Gary Graver, and of course FACES, MINNIE AND MOSKOWITZ and LOVE STREAMS'
actor Seymour Cassel, and SHADOWS' lead actress Lelia Goldoni, the latter two also making it to every single screening for
talks afterwards.
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Professor Ray Carney (Film Dept. Boston University),
Author of "Cassavetes on Cassavetes", "Shadows" (part of the British Film Institute Pocket Series) and "John Cassavetes,The
Adventure of Insecurity; A Pocket Guide to the Films" (available at cassavetes.com), in an email to me: Great news that things
are progressing apace on the Fest! Love to see whatever you have put together... I hereby give you permission to quote from
"Cass on Cass" too... but do whatever works. ... On my part, if any journalist calls me from L.A. to cover the book during
the time of your fest., I shall tell them about what you're doing. ... Well, thanks again for the good words about "Cassavetes
on Cassavetes". Keep on truckin'.
For more info. on John Cassavetes, read this book, the best
film book ever, period. Visit also Ray Carney's website cassavetes.com, for more of a short but still thorough primer
on Cassavetes' vision check out my site hungryartistdvdmedia, but most of all watch his films, all of'em, and watch them
basically one after another, like one every night or so, to get the full scope of the, in my opinion, greatest American filmmaker
ever.
In Praise of Impurity
Thinking about Film, John Cassavetes, and the
Awfulness of
Most Film Critism ---
Best film surveys and textbooks
invariably list CITIZEN KANE and BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN as 'the greatest films ever made.' These two films' popular priority
has more to do with their formal and technical influence and a predisposition for accurate, academic dissection than any relevance
to actual, human experience. In contrast, to the mutual extent his work is popularly unrecognized, John Cassavetes' films
defy categorization and constitute an extremely important body of work.
John Cassavetes' creative medium
is life itself. His films record the awkward and indefinable reality of people learning to live with each other. This is not
hack psychology with crazy camera angles or political propaganda with Marxist match-cuts. What's most important in his films
are not technical innovations or plot tricks but unspoken emotions. Cassavetes is relevant above and beyond the context of
any scolastic study of film history or criticism. His films relate to real life, and a true study of his work can never be
an exclusively academic excercise.
Enter Ray Carney, a premiere proponent
of American independent cinema. With Cassavetes on Cassavetes (Faber and Faber, August 2001), Carney has spent over
eleven years collecting and editing John Cassavetes' creative biography from interviews discussions, first-hand accounts and
personal conversations. This book is comprised of Cassavetes' own words: his observations, insights, questions and ideas on
filmmaking, cinema, art and America. The book isn't just interesting, it's an inspiration to anyone who cares about film as
art.
In this book we witness Cassavetes'
character in-the-round: his quirks, compromises, doubts and his persistence, intensity and loyalty without any pretense to
criticism or deification. His complex biography is presented in meticulous detail. And the book is replete with his eloquent
and encouraging words for other artists who struggle to make something honest and true in the face of incomprehension and
indifference. I think this book is as full of elation and despair, insight and inspiration, as Cassavetes could have wished.
Carney is also publishing
two other books at the same time: a behind-the-scenes study of the making of Cassavetes' first film, SHADOWS and a viewer's
guide to his work, John Cassavetes: The Adventure of Insecurity. (See www.cassavetes.com for more info)---Jake Mahaffy
Sportsmans Films, a title I used with Mario Luza, a former theatre worker himself, became
the banner under which we'd actively aim the Retrospective at filmmakers, specifically young ones, aspiring ones, independent
ones, sensitive ones whom John once described as becoming "possibly lost", "dying emotionally at 21 because of society's inability
to educate in terms of love beyond a given point", people not unlike ourselves I realize more clearly now that the Retrospective's long
over. And so we went all over town and told everyone who wanted to hear about or not, and shoved flyers in their hands, under
their doors, on their cork boards, college film departments, acting studios, stage theatres, art houses, coffee shops, book
stores, the Academy?! I made more friends and enemies in twelve weeks than in a life time, because once you stand for something,
that's it, neutrality's out the window.
Sportsmans Films' goal was to make new filmmakers more aware of John Cassavetes' personal films and innovative working methods, his approach to challenge actors to reach emotional truth, instead of restricting themselves around more established film
ethics such as scene blocking, carefully plotted scripts, storyboards, coverage shots, etc.
John Cassavetes' wife and lead actress Gena Rowlands did a two-part interview with Venice Magazine, conducted by Gary Oldman, at her house, and an interview with film critic Chuck
Wilson for The LA Weekly, (besides showing up for the WOMAN Q & A, bringing Peter Falk along, and doing an on the spot
book signing of Carney's bio in the lobby!) all to promote the retrospective specifically.
Gena Rowlands, as quoted in The LA Weekly:
Chuck Wilson; "As thrilling as it is that you've agreed to talk about John and the movies you
made together, it feels funny, as if we're pulling you back to a place you've moved on from."
Gena Rowlands: "You're right. I don't do this very often, because it would be too hard emotionally.
But I'm so delighted these pictures are going to come out and that people will see them, especially kids who haven't seen
any of John's work. I know that a lot of people have seen them on television, but for them to see it on the screen that it
was made for and actually sit with other people in a dark room and watch it. I'm delighted."
Venice Magazine, Editor's Note: On the even of a two-month film series entitled "GENA AND JOHN:
A CASSAVETES RETROSPECTIVE", Venice Magazine had the honor of interviewing Gena Rowlands, whose three decades of work with
her husband, writer/ director/ actor John Cassavetes, has given us some of the most uncomromising, heart-wrenching moments
ever to be captured on film. Self-described Cassavetes junkie Gary Oldman spoke with Gena in the living room of FACES, and
LOVE STREAMS.
Last month we began an exploration into the words and work of master filmmaker John Cassavetes
through "Cassavetes on Cassavetes", Ray Carney's book that took more than a decade to write and resulted from hundreds of
interviews with Cassavetes, his friends and cohorts like Peter Falk, Ben Gazarra, and Elaine May. ... Now in the second wildly
successful month of a ten week series; "GENA AND JOHN: A CASSAVETES RETROSPECTIVE".
Xan Cassavetes, at the DVD signing of her fascinating documentary "Z-Channel; A Magnificant Obsession" (about the uniquely original '80 cable channel Z-Channel, forerunner to channels like IFC and Sundance, and its' programmer Jerry Harvey, responsible for the wide variety of line-ups, and the first to champion
director's cuts and such), in casual conversation: "Thank you for doing this for my father".
Filmmaker Charles Kiselyak, of "A Constant Forge; An Exploration Of the Life and Art of
John Cassavetes", now part of the Cassavetes DVD Box Set, in an email: "I look forward to hearing about your film."
Robert Laemmle (owner of the L.A. art house chain The Laemmle Theatres: "Good luck with your film, if you ever need a shooting location..." and running into him and his co-owner son Gregory
(also part of film distribution company Laemmle Zeller Films) at the Los Angeles Film Festival: "How's your film coming
along? You're gonna show it to us, right?"
Producer Fred Caruso, Production Manager on
Cassavetes' HUSBANDS and present at the Q & A, (as well as co-producer on John Schlessinger's "Midnight Cowboy", Sidney
Lumet's "Network", Sergio Leone's "Once Upon a Time in America", and many others), in an email to me: "I read, with great
pleasure, the treatment and long version of "SCENES". Your characters and story line are deep and engaging. I like it. Are
you planning to write the screenplay? Will you direct the film? Please keep me up to date as you progress to the next step."
("SCENES", the script now complete, is one part of the Trilogy "SCENES OF IDOLATRY
AND RESENTMENT", of which the DVD "SHORT DAY" is also part of, and which attracted interest from online DVD rental company
GreenCine, greencine.com)
Every one mentioned THANKS FOR MAKING IT HAPPEN
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