250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

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manicsounds
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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#226 Post by manicsounds » Wed Nov 06, 2013 10:30 am

Black Hat wrote:Is there anything missing from the dvd on the blu?
Lighting and Shooting the Film, an on-screen essay by Al Ruban, illustrated with video clips, that discusses the techniques and equipment used on Faces (DVD only)
Biographical sketches of the actors Cassavetes frequently cast in his films, written by Tom Chartity (John Cassavetes: Lifeworks) (DVD only)

The Ruban essay has been upgraded into a new video piece on the BD.
The DVD set had quite a few easter egg interviews. Are these carried over via blue button?

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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#227 Post by wattsup32 » Wed Nov 06, 2013 11:09 am

manicsounds wrote:
Black Hat wrote:Is there anything missing from the dvd on the blu?
Lighting and Shooting the Film, an on-screen essay by Al Ruban, illustrated with video clips, that discusses the techniques and equipment used on Faces (DVD only)
Biographical sketches of the actors Cassavetes frequently cast in his films, written by Tom Chartity (John Cassavetes: Lifeworks) (DVD only)

The Ruban essay has been upgraded into a new video piece on the BD.
The DVD set had quite a few easter egg interviews. Are these carried over via blue button?
Based on this information, does anyone want to make a recommendation as to whether or not upgrading to the blu (and getting rid of the dvds) during the BN sale--especially if one were to limit his budget for the sale to $200 or so?

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PfR73
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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#228 Post by PfR73 » Wed Nov 06, 2013 3:07 pm

If you combine the 50% off sale + 10% member discount + 20% member mail coupon you drop the cost from $124.99 SRP to $44.99. That's a hefty drop. Seems like you should be able to sell the DVD set for a good chunk of that.

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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#229 Post by PfR73 » Fri Nov 08, 2013 10:40 pm

manicsounds wrote:
Black Hat wrote: The DVD set had quite a few easter egg interviews. Are these carried over via blue button?
The Falk/Rowlands discussion of John Sayles is an easter egg on the Blu-Ray of A Woman Under The Influence. The DVD of The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie had an easter egg that was a trailer. The Blu-Ray now has a trailer as a standard supplement. I'm not aware of any other easter eggs that were on the original DVD set.

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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#230 Post by movielocke » Sat Feb 08, 2014 3:05 pm

I'm finally cracking into this set, and just watched Shadows. It's a stunning piece for an indy first film. The content is vital and vibrant that makes it feel contemporary, as though it could have been made yesterday. Fantastic acting, and the rough aesthetics of some of the editing and sound work wind up only adding to the charm of the whole film. I particularly liked the low/high counterpoint of making fun of the statue's ass to the woman complaining about someone else not understanding existentialism: sort of shakespearean in effect. Terrific.

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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#231 Post by movielocke » Tue Feb 11, 2014 6:48 pm

So, while Shadows was vital, freeform and vibrant; Faces is tepid, formless and dull. But at least the hours of agonized inanity is finally at an end. What a let down.

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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#232 Post by domino harvey » Tue Feb 11, 2014 6:50 pm

Reverse it

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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#233 Post by warren oates » Tue Feb 11, 2014 6:53 pm

Ditto what domino said.

To movielocke: Say what? Not to get too personal, but how old are you movielocke? Ever had a serious long term relationship go bad? A dream die? Ever put too many of those expectations that the world would make it up to you on one big night out?

Hard to see how anyone could see Faces as anything but Cassavetes' first truly great film.

Btw, the last time I watched it was a totally inspired lucky double feature with Billy Wilder's The Apartment and I was stunned by how much the two films had in common beneath their superficial differences in visual and narrative style.

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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#234 Post by Zot! » Tue Feb 11, 2014 7:12 pm

More importantly if you hate Faces, I think the rest of the box might be a slog.

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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#235 Post by movielocke » Thu Feb 13, 2014 9:59 pm

warren oates wrote:Ditto what domino said.

To movielocke: Say what? Not to get too personal, but how old are you movielocke? Ever had a serious long term relationship go bad? A dream die? Ever put too many of those expectations that the world would make it up to you on one big night out?

Hard to see how anyone could see Faces as anything but Cassavetes' first truly great film.

Btw, the last time I watched it was a totally inspired lucky double feature with Billy Wilder's The Apartment and I was stunned by how much the two films had in common beneath their superficial differences in visual and narrative style.
Cassavetes, to me, feels like jazz, and for whatever reason, I wasn't digging the meandering self involved grooves of Faces. Which is fine, I'm completely on board with everything he does in Shadows and A Woman Under the Influence, but Faces didn't do it for me. I'm in my thirties, and yeah I've had relationships go bad before, but I didn't find much point of reference to my sour relationships in Faces--excepting the phenomenal final minute just sitting on the stairs, which rang all too true. And actually, probably the biggest knock done drag out imploding/exploding relationship I had fall apart on me was with a woman teetering on the edge of... something. So naturally I found Woman under the Influence to possess that same vitality I so dug in Shadows. Gena Rowlands and Peter Falk give stunning performances, and even when verging on going 'full retard' the film nor the performances never cross the line, though they press right up to it with the unhinged intensity of their work.

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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#236 Post by Gregory » Thu Feb 13, 2014 11:16 pm

movielocke wrote:...even when verging on going 'full retard' the film nor the performances never cross the line, though they press right up to it with the unhinged intensity of their work.
I really wish I hadn't read that.

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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#237 Post by movielocke » Sat Feb 22, 2014 5:34 pm

Killing of a Chinese Bookie was a cute little noir with a nice centerpiece titular sequence. The sideshow story of the burlesque singer was oddly situated by effective, none the less. Opening Night managed to stretch a short film idea into two and a half hours, there's a lot of excellence in the film, particularly the performances, and I really like the central idea; but that excellence is mixed in with excessive and repetitive hammering of the exact same notes--the same tiresome repetitive hammering of Faces. That's somewhat true of A Woman Under the Influence, but that film manages to work in spite of the intense sledgehammer variants of the same scene.

So for the box set set, three out of five ain't bad.

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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#238 Post by The Elegant Dandy Fop » Sat Feb 22, 2014 9:00 pm

movielocke wrote:Killing of a Chinese Bookie was a cute little noir with a nice centerpiece titular sequence. The sideshow story of the burlesque singer was oddly situated by effective, none the less. Opening Night managed to stretch a short film idea into two and a half hours, there's a lot of excellence in the film, particularly the performances, and I really like the central idea; but that excellence is mixed in with excessive and repetitive hammering of the exact same notes--the same tiresome repetitive hammering of Faces. That's somewhat true of A Woman Under the Influence, but that film manages to work in spite of the intense sledgehammer variants of the same scene.
What the fuck are you talking about? "Cute little noir"? The film is barely a noir. The only thing noir about the film might be the "bad guys" and the couple of guns you see. The film is about the man who runs the stripclub, the community born from it and the sacrifices he makes for it and his mistakes. It's obviously his life's work and you see how Ben Gazzara has to control every aspect of the club like in the telephone booth. If you want a 70s neo-noir, go watch The Driver or Night Moves. If you want a character drama about mistakes and what you go through to maintain your life and your life's work, watch this.

And what makes Opening Night a good short film? It's a two and a half hour epic about female neurosis, aging and the creative process. It goes beyond easy portrayals and Hollywood examples of self-destructiveness, and even in her downfall and low points, Gena Rowlands manage to redeem her portrayal on stage.

And I'm sorry, but your comparison to Cassavetes and jazz is silly. Did you just read a bad review for the films that referred to him as "jazzy"?

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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#239 Post by Gregory » Sun Feb 23, 2014 3:34 am

Opening Night is a slightly odd one for me because I think it's an amazing, unique film that I can watch over and over, yet there are a couple of flaws that keep it from being among Cassavetes's very best films.
The film could have been better if the conflict and tension had been more fully realized between Myrtle (Rowlands) and Sarah (Blondell), probably the most crucial relationship in the film. Cassavetes had wanted to get Bette Davis for the part of Sarah, but she turned the role down. Blondell seems intimidated in the role or the production and, given the opportunity to decide for herself how her character would respond to how Myrtle handles her play, ends up being a little more kind, patient, and passive than what was needed. I think Cassavetes meant for there to be more friction there.
Another strange part for me is the ambiguity of the final part of the film due to all the laughter—was the performance a disaster or did the actors snatch victory from the jaws of defeat?—due to Cassavetes giving over control of that outcome to let a real audience react to the performance in whatever way they wished. And of course with laughter being contagious, audiences will often seem to predominantly find something a lot funnier than it actually is. That's what it seemed like happened at the filming of that concluding part of Opening Night—because Cassavetes wanted the audience response to be real, which I can certainly respect—but that meant Myrtle's drunken debacle ended up as a big success. If that audience had been composed of paying theatre patrons who had a much more set idea of what they were there to see, rather than people who showed up for something free with virtually no expectations, would they have found it so delightful? I doubt it. Still a great film, though.
My source of information for some of the above is Cassavetes on Cassavetes.

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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#240 Post by colinr0380 » Sun Feb 23, 2014 10:13 am

Agreed Gregory, plus I've often wondered what the filming of a performance does to an audience. If they suddenly know their reactions are going to be in a film, do they 'over' react in a contagious fashion to make every silly gesture by the actors up on stage seem like the most magnificent performance any audience has ever been witness to? And what effect does simply the goodwill towards familiar faces such as Cassavetes and Rowlands (I presume an audience going to the play would have some idea of what they were going to get from the two actors, especially if they want Rowlands to 'play crazy' again, as in her previous Oscar nominated role) have on an audience's reaction to whatever they do up there on stage?

And how much of it is nervous "I have no idea what these actors are doing" laughter? Which perhaps fits in with Cassavetes' own reactions on stage himself!

I do like Opening Night a lot, but I must admit to much preferring the first half of the film to the rather meandering and inconclusive second (although I find the final performance scene a little disturbing and depressing for kind of exposing the hollowness of performance - of how little difference 'great' or 'important' writing or themes or structure is to a production than just 'vitality' and 'energy'), as the first half does set up all of those interesting crises and subplots that sort of get half-heartedly dealt with or seem to be swept away from the film as irrelevancies at the mid-point as the film narrows its focus down into recording staged performances.

And I agree that Blondell's character seems surprisingly passive for a well-established playwright seeing their diva leading lady wrecking every aspect of their play because they think it is completely unrealistic! The big unanswered question hanging over the entire film is why the hell Myrtle signed up to do the play in the first place if she finds it impossible to perform convincingly! Although that question was perhaps one that would have answered in a film more about the pressures of acting from external sources (agents, exs, fans and so on, i.e. all those characters from the first half of the film) rather than one such as this that is focused on internal, almost inexpressible by the person going through it themselves, crises. (Which makes Opening Night strangely closer to Woman Under The Influence in the conflict its central character is going through that drags those orbiting around her into sharing her pain. Even the names Myrtle/Mabel are similar!)

I wonder though how much this has to do with my preference for having a clear structure and goals set up that can then be destroyed or manipulated (I think this plays into why I like The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie the best out of all the Cassavetes films in this set). Myrtle's artistic and moral crises are much more powerful when she has a death to feel responsible for or an actual play with lines and staging (and other actors!) that she is undermining with her drinking, pauses and improvisations. However I think that might be exactly what Cassavetes would not want, as in that first half of the film Myrtle comes across as pretty selfish and thinking only of herself and her own issues, rather than what everyone else is going through having to try and accommodate their star (even the death of the fan, which nobody else but Myrtle seems to care about, is seen only through the effect it has on Myrtle's own well being - I think this kind of theme gets tackled much more powerfully in The Headless Woman. I've also wondered whether the initial death of the son in Almodovar's All About My Mother is meant to play as a little homage to Opening Night)! If the film continued in that style I think it would lead to a more coherent film but that we might also lose all sympathy for Myrtle. I still lose a bit of sympathy for her, but I wonder if Cassavetes wanted that second half to be set up to show that improvised acting (even actors bullied into improvisation in front of a live audience! And I find it highly amusing that Cassavetes takes on that role of upset, wary and unsure actor suddenly being forced into realising the joy of 'pure acting' here!) can be just as profitable as any constructed play. I don't really believe it results in a better play at all, but I suppose the reaction of the audience never lies!

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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#241 Post by Gregory » Sun Feb 23, 2014 2:04 pm

Good post, Colin, a lot to think about. Another reason the aging issue came out somewhat weakened and perhaps a little confused was that Rowlands was virtually as uneasy about it as her character was. If she objected to the way she was being asked to play a scene, she would fight and refuse. The ways in which Cassavetes and Rowlands both worked seemed to allow for a great degree of negotiation and flexibility, not to mention having an extremely different kind of connection to one another than the usual writer-director and actor. And he knew that it was a painful thing to deal with and not only didn't want to subject Rowlands to that but said "I didn't want the film to be too destructive," so he softened the way the aging issue played out in the film. That likely had a lot to do with the way the Myrtle/Sarah Goode relationship ended up.

As for why Myrtle would agree to take on the role in the first place, I did find it believable that an actor would start out saying "I can do this" and thinking of the role as not being so much about herself personally, and then being not just unwilling but unable to do it due to a personal crisis. The role becomes something real, and a stage slap becomes a real attack.

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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#242 Post by warren oates » Sun Feb 23, 2014 2:42 pm

Gregory wrote:As for why Myrtle would agree to take on the role in the first place, I did find it believable that an actor would start out saying "I can do this" and thinking of the role as not being so much about herself personally, and then being not just unwilling but unable to do it due to a personal crisis. The role becomes something real, and a stage slap becomes a real attack.
For me, one of the key moments in the film between Myrtle and Sarah comes early in one rehearsal, where the problems are just beginning to come to a head. Myrtle keeps complaining that it's not working, that Sarah's writing is missing something. And the playwright responds by asking Myrtle point blank just what it is that the play is lacking. Myrtle doesn't skip a beat: "Hope."

What's fascinating to me is how differently I've interpreted that line each time I've seen Opening Night over the years. The first time, I sided with Myrtle kind of unquestioningly (Duh, the play's a lifeless straightjacket of a narrative that's totally untrue to her character and that denies the authentic realities of a woman of her age.). On subsequent viewings, I've realized there's really no evidence for this reading, none either way, really, on how good or bad a play it is, or how authentically its limning Myrtle's character or women of her age in general. Because Cassavetes deliberately withholds the bulk of the play from us. And I've begun to think of this exchange as a means for Myrtle to define the existential stakes not just of her own present and personal crisis but also of the relationship of all actors to a given text. In a way, even in the most deeply felt, honestly written and accomplished writing, it's not really the author's job to give anyone "hope," especially the actors. They have to make that for themselves in the course of creating their performance.

Acting is a calling and an art. For some, like Cassavetes, it's even close to a spiritual practice (as his father reminded him when he took on the career in the first place). But it's also very much a job. And the diciest aspect of the hard work that goes into each role an actor commits to is the negotiation that happens between being true to the text and true to themselves, finding a way to honestly own what they bring uniquely to each character, to channel the essence of that made-up soul through themselves and to find some hope for us all.

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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#243 Post by colinr0380 » Sun Feb 23, 2014 3:51 pm

Fascinating comments. I think that gets at the core of the film regarding the push and pull between interpretation, collaboration and staying true to the author's vision, the play's staging and not varying from the proscribed actions. I think there is also that issue of putting on a particular production of a play being tackled in there too - the idea that the emphemeral nature of a stage production results in the text being interpreted and negotiated by the actors according to current issues going on (in their lives, in just that particular night of that particular performance) that can be pulled in and used.

You know, this a silly personal aside but I don't know if it is just becoming more familiar with issues around acting from thinking about films in general (I've never wanted to be an actor myself and remember having stage fright in school nativity productions! So I've never really considered the issues too deeply), but these days I can feel that a lot of the issues of acting can be applied to 'real world' situations too. I can see myself often involved in 'negotiations' in work life, family life and so on in which there are conflicting responsibilities in having to understand what other people want me to be in a particular role that they see me in and want me to fulfil, and the need to (very occasionally!) fight against that to stand up for things that I may feel are important in those roles too. Am I being selfish on the occasions when I think of myself rather than the wider good? Probably! Or does it show investment that there can be such a strong investment into a role, rather than just cashing the paycheque and doing the role as written? Probably that too! In a way I sometimes feel that I've come to appreciate some of those kind of issues much more through having an interest in film, and it is great to see films such as this one that tackle that conflict head on.

It seems that all of the various sub-issues of the film eventually funnel down into that core conflict of what you 'should do' against what you 'feel needs to be done', from the financial practicalities of putting on a production, to the usefulness or not of having the playwright present and an active participant in rehearsals when that really should be the time that the actor and director take over (perhaps the reason why the playwright character doesn't come into such conflict with Myrtle is a way of acknowledging Myrtle's role that she has to play). To the role or pressures that fandom plays from setting up expectations and pressures about suitable material, to building up an actor as a role models, aspects that all can place their own restrictions on expression.

On Gregory's comment about aging, I think that is interesting that there are still elements of that theme in the way that Myrtle is positioned as the middle age of the three main actresses. With the youngest woman, the fan (the audience, the appreciator) dead within the first five minutes, all that potential (from adulation to future collaboration with the younger generation who might grow from viewer to creator themselves) suddenly wasted. All that attention on an actress and her latest role becoming a cause of death rather than a celebration of life. That probably plays its own part in causing Myrtle to want to reject the older playwright's 'hopeless' play and create some hope for the characters, even if it isn't particularly coherent, artistically or intellectually rigorous. Or particularly stable, given it takes place hopping on one leg dependant on another!

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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#244 Post by warren oates » Sun Feb 23, 2014 4:57 pm

One small point: In theatre, generally -- though especially with a new work by a living writer -- playwrights are relatively powerful and central to the process of rehearsal and production. It's not like film and TV where the norm is that they go away and leave it to the director and the actors. Not sure if you're implying that Sarah's only there because of this convention, but I'd say it's pretty difficult to tell from the film itself. The director and the other actors don't seem bothered by her presence. She herself seems to feel that her on-going participation is a necessary part of the work. Which is to say that in most cases, including for most of the characters in Opening Night, theatre productions find it quite useful to have the playwright around, rather than merely tolerating the writer's presence out of some kind of respect or contractual obligation.

Colin, what you say about acting in everyday life puts me in mind of social psychology experiments like the Stanford Prison Study but also of de Certeau's The Practice of Everyday Life. Then there's one of the better books I've read about acting, Keith Johnstone's Impro, which has as one of its central theses that we all learn how to act and construct stories from the role-defining, role-jockeying and role-shifting we take part in every day. And, of course, there's Holy Motors.

Anyway, kudos to Gregory and Colin for their comments. One of my favorite things about this board is how a glib dismissal (lord knows I've been guilty of those myself) can still spark such a great discussion.

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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#245 Post by AnamorphicWidescreen » Sun Jun 14, 2015 1:53 am

Re-watched TKOACB, and have to say this is my favorite Cassavetes film. Enjoyed the storyline & the urban, late-night '70's scenery. I would definitely classify this as a neo-noir.

Like all of Cassavetes' films, TKOACB truly brought to mind a documentary, not a film - and I mean that as a compliment. The scene that especially impressed me was when the gangsters came to Cosmo's nightclub & "persuaded" him to come with them so they could explain the "job" they wanted him to do. This seemed quite authentic...

I also felt the uncertain ending was great -
SpoilerShow
presumably, Cosmo would die from his wound (since he didn't want to go to the hospital) - however, since we didn't actually see him die we don't know for sure what happened....
I only saw the 1976 original cut (135 minutes), not the shorter '78 cut. To me, the '76 cut was perfect - this longer cut was necessary to show all of the film's nuances, character development, etc. I only really like director's cuts of films if scenes are added, not taken away.

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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#246 Post by tenia » Sun Jun 14, 2015 5:22 am

Chinese bookie is certainly not my favourite Cassavetes, but you're right, there's still this "documentary" feeling about how the movie plays, how it is shot and how the actors are directed. However, I always felt Faces and A Woman under the Influence to be much more impactful.

About the ending,
SpoilerShow
I believe Cosmo dying is probably the best answer, but true, it's left open so who knows ? But thematically speaking, I think it'd make more sense to think Cosmo will die from his wounds.

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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#247 Post by oh yeah » Sun Jun 14, 2015 7:28 am

Killing of a Chinese Bookie is easily my favorite Cassavetes, and I admit that part of the reason is that it's the only film of his where there's not only a gritty documentary-like realism to it but also a surprisingly rich and stylized overarching visual/aural aesthetic. Think of how the warm red-pink lights of the Crazy Horse envelop the viewer like a comforting womb -- mirroring Cosmo's own feelings, as his club is the only safe haven he has in an otherwise corrupt world run on mafia logic.

This ties into why I very much prefer the shorter '78 cut, despite some strong stuff in the '76 cut (mostly the opening scenes). It's because the '78 cut doesn't simply make the film more compact; it essentially alters the whole POV and style and thus meaning of the film. Whereas the '76 version plays as a much more "objective," external view of events, the '78 cut is like a fever-dream straight from Cosmo's mind -- where logic isn't always in play, emotions and situations and places appears oddly heightened and surreal, and Cosmo himself now magically seems like the hero of the story instead of the sorry schmuck that the '76 cut depicts. The end result is that the '78 film, in addition to being more tightly-edited than the original, has a certain Expressionistic flavor which strikes me as quite different from anything else Cassavetes ever directed.

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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#248 Post by Rayon Vert » Sat Mar 12, 2016 5:20 pm

I don't know if this is the thread to bring this up (I didn't find a Cassavetes thread in the filmmakers' section), but I'm about to view his oeuvre for the first time and I'm looking a companion book. I'll likely get Cassavetes on Cassavetes, but what would people suggest in addition to that? The Carney book sounds like it's required reading, but at the same time maybe esoteric (??). How does the Kouvaros compare? I'm looking for an introduction and analysis to his films, not a biography. Thanks in advance for any suggestions or comments!

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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#249 Post by Stefan Andersson » Mon Jul 13, 2020 12:26 pm

A review of Charles Mingus´ score for Shadows on CD:
http://recordcollectornews.com/2016/09/ ... es-mingus/

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