'This is my last film! Shot in real real realism!' (1 Viewer)

[Nate Champion]

Yeah. You guessed it. The daddy, the mammy, the king, the high priest,the everything that ever mattered about American cinema and so much more besides, John Cassavetes is getting a full director's retorspective in the ifi this July. Every single film as director.

Unfortunately they don't have the full roster up on their website at www.ifi.ie.

But it begins tomorrow with this

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]FACES[/FONT]

WITH ALMOST TEN YEARS SEPARATING IT FROM SHADOWS, CASSAVETES’ SECOND INDEPENDENT FEATURE IS, AMONG OTHER THINGS, A DOCUMENTARY ON THE CHANGES THAT HAD TAKEN PLACE IN HIS OWN LIFE. He had moved from New York to California and his career as a Hollywood professional had given him a comfortable material life. The central story of Faces, the break-up of the marriage of a middle-aged businessman (John Marley) and his wife (Lynn Carlin), takes place in a rambling, gleaming modern home. The glassy fixtures and fittings, and their failure to make the bourgeois characters who rattle around in them happy, may suggest a very ’60s tale of alienation; but Cassavetes saw himself, if not as the champion of these people, at least as their spokesman. Their drunken misery and flings at adultery may seem a long way from the anarchic bonhomie of Shadows, but in the end it’s just another expression of everyday unhappiness and the pressures of time and mortality.

a once off showing at 13.45.

This guy is one of the most influential filmmakers of all time, influencing all the key American directors to have emmerged in his aftermath from Scorese to Sayles. Ah, his impact his pretty universal, apparent also in Alan Clarke's and Mike Leigh's work too.

and...

and...

and Gena Rowlands.

 

[ball*istic]

Possibly the last American film maker before the nerds took over. Opening Night is great stuff as well.

 

[Goodbye]

His kid is the baldy fella from Face Off what made a film with his ma in it.
I know filums me.

 

[nlgbbbblth]

amazing director.

are they going to show the documentary, A Constant Forge?
Over 200 minutes along and extremely informative. It turned up on the Criterion Cassavetes box set.

Would love to see Husbands again. Seems to be overlooked.

 

[Nate Champion]

amazing director.

are they going to show the documentary, A Constant Forge?
Over 200 minutes along and extremely informative. It turned up on the Criterion Cassavetes box set.

Would love to see Husbands again. Seems to be overlooked.

No show for A Constant Forge. Husbands is on Friday week around 6ish. Just the once. You should come up - it's a 140 minute edit of it.
My memory of reading Cassavetes on Cassavetes is that there are a few different versions of at least a few of his films. Rowlands owns the rights to all the films. Unfortunately she prefers the studio cut of Husbands. Most of the films are on new 35mm print which makes the whole thing sweeter. I've been waiting four years for the fuckers to show a full retrospective of this guy's significant work. One of my few obsessions, his whole attitude is embedded in me.
Particularily looking forward to Husbands and Love Streams because I haven't seen either.
Really poor turnout on Monday evening for Faces. The people I brought to see it were all really bummed out. They didn't really twig the Cassell character as this joie de vivre romantic. They just thought he was crazy. *sigh* It's still his most gruelling film in my lousy opinion: the relationship insights probably don't outweigh the awkward tedium that permeates throughout. They all agreed that the acting was exceptional, which was enough validation for me. One of the original versions of Faces was 4 hours long. Robert Aldrich told him he should release this version of it, because he was always gonna have trouble with the studios.

trivia : Cassavetes was good drinking buddies with Lee Marvin and Anthony Quinn and initially was set to make Husbands with them. It never happened because Marvin and Quinn couldn't stand each other!

 

[nlgbbbblth]

wonder which version of Killing... they'll show?

will check out times for Husbands...

 

[oh shit]

They didn't really twig the Cassell character as this joie de vivre romantic. They just thought he was crazy. *sigh* It's still his most gruelling film in my lousy opinion: the relationship insights probably don't outweigh the awkward tedium that permeates throughout.

apparently he made cassell jump off that roof like 35 times even though they got it in the first two takes, just for badness.
great film.

complete control for cassavetes!

 

[Mitchum]

Mark O'Halloran is introducing 'Shadows' on Sunday.

Looking forward to catching Minnie and Moskowitz on the 16th.

The last print the IFI had of 'Killing Of...' was atrocious.

 

[Dktr. Faustus]

Only noticed this when I got the new IFI newsletter, missed Faces but got my long overdue Cassavetes-directorial introduction with Shadows yesterday. It was great, 50s NYC looks so amazing & grim. About 10 years ahead of its time, and a cool Mingus' score, wow!

 

[Nate Champion]

yeah Shadows was perfect for that Sunday matinee slot. Still feels fresh. Great buzz off it. Ben Carruthers is just drop dead cool.

here's the full timetable www.irishfilm.ie/cinema/season2_07.asp?SID=130

 

[hermie]

will i need to book tickets for husbands tonight or should i be grand showing up at 5:50, ye reckon?

 

[Nate Champion]

will i need to book tickets for husbands tonight or should i be grand showing up at 5:50, ye reckon?

It's in cinema 1 so I don't think there's a fear of it selling out. Do you have membership Richie? - you can use mine if you want. The turnout for the first two was poor enough but this is a Friday evening show, so you never know.

 

[hermie]

It's in cinema 1 so I don't think there's a fear of it selling out. Do you have membership Richie? - you can use mine if you want. The turnout for the first two was poor enough but this is a Friday evening show, so you never know.

yea it's a pity most have been on during the day so far.i have a membership but will be coming straight from work.can i book without a credit/laser card if i'm a member?

 

[Nate Champion]

yea it's a pity most have been on during the day so far.i have a membership but will be coming straight from work.can i book without a credit/laser card if i'm a member?

Don't think so.

Pointless reply!

 

[oh shit]

so husbands... fuckin hell. what a trip. i was a bit shocked by some of the audience response to the domestic violence and the sexual assault. but then that's what cassavetes does. lets you decide. genius, alcoholic, misogynist?

anyone know why it's unreleased ?

 

[Nate Champion]

so husbands... fuckin hell. what a trip. i was a bit shocked by some of the audience response to the domestic violence and the sexual assault. but then that's what cassavetes does. lets you decide. genius, alcoholic, misogynist?

anyone know why it's unreleased ?

hey, you were at this?

It could be unreleased because Rowlands mightn't want it to be...probably several different versions...can't honestly say.

I thought it was just wonderful. I had weird feeling it was gonna be awful. It was a lot like a Hal Ashby film except more brutal, indulgent, spontaneous. The acting was so alive. Definitely the best acting I've seen Cassavetes do himself and the best representative for his own approach, I suppose that acting is fun above everything else. People seem to associate him with the method, but anything from 1950s American cinema will inadvertantly have some of that influence in there. But Cassavetes abhorred the method (he once played a cruel audition trick on Lee Strasberg) and the method is introverted and fundamentally undramatic because it cuts the actor off from the scene and into his own neurosis. I know, all of his characters are complete neurotics!

Sorry, got off the point there...The only problem I might have with Husbands was maybe there wasn't enough of Falk's character. His point of view and motivations seemed to be muddled in there.



Gazzara - "unreal! unreal!" An exceptional actor.

 

[nlgbbbblth]

Husbands costs around $50 for a used VHS copy.

Ray Carney's book vs Cassavetes on Cassavetes?

never finished the latter. had to give it back to the library.

 

[oh shit]

hey, you were at this?

It could be unreleased because Rowlands mightn't want it to be...probably several different versions...can't honestly say.

I thought it was just wonderful. I had weird feeling it was gonna be awful. It was a lot like a Hal Ashby film except more brutal, indulgent, spontaneous. The acting was so alive. Definitely the best acting I've seen Cassavetes do himself and the best representative for his own approach, I suppose that acting is fun above everything else. People seem to associate him with the method, but anything from 1950s American cinema will inadvertantly have some of that influence in there. But Cassavetes abhorred the method (he once played a cruel audition trick on Lee Strasberg) and the method is introverted and fundamentally undramatic because it cuts the actor off from the scene and into his own neurosis. I know, all of his characters are complete neurotics!

Sorry, got off the point there...The only problem I might have with Husbands was maybe there wasn't enough of Falk's character. His point of view and motivations seemed to be muddled in there.



Gazzara - "unreal! unreal!" An exceptional actor.

haha you sound like my friend
yeah i loved it. it was incredible.

 

[hermie]

so husbands... fuckin hell. what a trip. i was a bit shocked by some of the audience response to the domestic violence and the sexual assault. but then that's what cassavetes does. lets you decide. genius, alcoholic, misogynist?

what shocked you about the audience response? it was a weird one alright. the film is explicitly labelled a comedy from the outset in the opening credits.and for the most part it is just that (if a tad on the insane side). so when those scenes appeared on screen there was stifled laughter and people were audibly shuffling in their seats.

was a huge fan of the film though.the energy created by the 3 leads was rivetting.although i agree with Nate that Falk's character could've been a little more fleshed out.

 

[oh shit]

what shocked you about the audience response? it was a weird one alright. the film is explicitly labelled a comedy from the outset in the opening credits.and for the most part it is just that (if a tad on the insane side). so when those scenes appeared on screen there was stifled laughter and people were audibly shuffling in their seats.

was a huge fan of the film though.the energy created by the 3 leads was rivetting.although i agree with Nate that Falk's character could've been a little more fleshed out.

just because something's labelled a comedy doesn't mean that everything therein is somehow rendered abstract and meaningless. i love cassavetes films for the space, the challenge to the audience to decide for themselves how to respond. but i was still surprised that people were pretty much laughing through ben gazzara smacking his wife and her mother around, or cassavetes drunkenly forcing himself onto a girl. especially as the latter scene was one long, excruciating close up on her face. it was fucking horrible, and his wisecracks weren't funny to me, but they were very real.

i thought the biggest comedy was in gazzara ending up as the only one who wasn't just bravado, who really got free, who didn't go back to his real life.