- Gena Rowlands owns
only five of the twelve movies made by her
husband: "A Woman Under the Influence" (1974), "Shadows" (1957), "Faces" (1968), "Opening Night" (1977) and "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie" (1976)
- Jean Luc Godard dedicated to him his movie
"Detective", 1985 and the second
of his Histoires du Cinema
- John Cassavetes remains the
greatest explorer of American maleness with Faces,
Husbands, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie
and Love Streams; family ties with Faces, A Woman
Under the Influence and Minnie
& Moskowitz (basic
couple with/without children), Too
Late Blues, The
Killing of a Chinese Bookie and Opening Night (business
company), Husbands (friends), A
Child is Waiting (school),
Gloria
(family on the run) and women with Shadows (Lelia),
Faces (Lynn), Minnie & Moskowitz (Minnie), A
Woman Under the Influence (Mabel), Opening Night
(Myrtle), Gloria (Gloria) and Love Streams (Sarah).
[My only regrets is that he has never played
the husband - guess what could have been She's So
Lovely with Gena Rowlands and John Cassavetes and
Peter Falk]
- Many people consider John
Cassavetes an European director transplanted in
the States. John Cassavetes was American head to
toes and America was a vital ingredient of his
cinema. No one has came as close to middle class
as he did.
- Al Ruban refers to John
Cassavetes as having "brass balls", a
slang expression for no fear of being hurt, the
courage to go ahead in tough times
- John Cassavetes grave is at Westwood Memorial Park, Los Angeles, California, USA -
Specific Interment Location: Lot 308
- Regarding not being
appreciated by the critic: after a showing of
Dreyer's Gertrude, most of the public and critic
had left the room and those who stayed started
booed. Dreyer himself walked on the stage and
made an obscene gesture (reported by John, who
was there)
- An interesting thing is the
distribution of Cassavetes' movies in Italy: Too
Late Blues, A Child is Waiting and Faces were
never distributed; Husbands (with the horrible
title of The Wild Husbands), A Woman Under the
Influence, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie and
Opening Night has been distributed in '78/'79
dubbed (heresy!!!!!!!!!!!!); Husbands and
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie heavily
edited. Minnie & Moskowitz was the only one
treated well, released with subtitles (most of
the movies were distributed by Angiolo Stella's
Impegno Cinematografico company)
- When he came to Italy to shot
Gli Intoccabili, Giuliano Montaldo (the director) asked him if he was
"communist", he replied that he was
only "humanist"
- Is it possible to draw a
judgment of John Cassavetes as an actor? Maybe.
He studied at AADA, so very academic, the following
Workshop and his early TV works confirm his Method
influences, but you don't notice any affectation,
any effort, tension or a forced research for
posture or manner. He set himself far away from Brando
in A Streetcar named Desire or James Dean in Rebel without a Cause. He prefers the half-tone, the edge,
the anxiety, with sobriety, modesty. He refuses
to attract attention by the cool, scripted,
revealed cleverness. Many of his character are
rebels (with or without a cause), unhappy and
lonely. He decides to exalt the "man within"
with the flaws and merits, avoiding to put too
much reflectors on the "protagonist outside"
- Tom Charity defines John Cassavetes as "intuitive
anarchist, uncompromising individualist,
exasperatingly bloody-minded trouble-maker, the
only film-maker I've heard of who was capable of
recutting his movies because preview audiences
enjoyed them too much"
- True to his public image of
"wild one" he seemed very confident,
but he had more than one insecurities: he said to
be "tone-deaf", but he was very
conscious of his singing ability; he was
unconfortable with his lack of education so he
made up the story of Colgate college and for all
of his life apologized with interviewers for
being not particularly articulated; he use to
dress in a very slobby way when he was young and
his mother used to remark it, so he became elgant
to a fault in public and even more slobby in
private
- John Cassavetes used to dictate his scripts
to an assistant (Elaine Goren from Husbands to A Woman Under the
Influence and Carole Smith and Helen Caldwell later). He did all
the parts, gesturing and miming. Then, grabbing the first person
available and read the script to him/her to see the reaction. Most
of the time, before writing, the story was talked.
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