John Cassavetes

A New Yorker of Greek ancestry, John Cassavetes was born on December 9, 1929, but he did not reach the age of 60. Cirrhosis took his life in 1989: he liked to drink, and it didn’t affect him… apparently. His liver suffered the punishment, and he had to say goodbye early to his wife of a lifetime, the actress Gena Rowlands , with whom he made ten films, and to their three children, who followed in his film footsteps with greater or lesser success, Nick, Alexandra and Zoe.

With early acting concerns, Cassavetes studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. His solid training for the stage earned him small roles in theater and television throughout the 1950s. These tasks were combined with giving acting classes to aspiring actors. Precisely from an improvisation exercise with his students, carried out in his apartment, his first film as a director was born: Shadows (1959), a banner of independent cinema, made with few means but with a lot of desire, and that by painting everyday characters and their conflicts with a torn realism rarely seen to date, it was close to ‘cinéma verité’. Cassavetes would never abandon his facet as an actor. Just like Orson WellesTaking part in a film by acting provided him with the necessary financing for the films he directed. And he delivered performances in popular films, the most striking undoubtedly Underworld Code (1964), The Dirty Dozen (1967) – which earned him an Oscar nomination – and Rosemary ‘s Baby (1968).

The filmmaker’s experiences of directing for a studio proved unsatisfying. Too Late Blues (1962) and Angels without Paradise (1963) left him with a bitter aftertaste, he lacked freedom of movement. The second, for example, led to disagreements with the producer, Stanley Kramer , who traced it back to his liking. From that moment on, the commitment to independent cinema was a complete reality, and the scripts would be written by him.

The ‘casual’ feel of his films contributed to the legend that Cassavetes’ films were improvised. It was not true. As Peter Falk said , who repeated in five of his films: “Who the hell can improvise such good lines?” The filmmaker was working on a script, and most of the lines were his own, but it had the aspect of life itself, so penetrating was his analysis of human psychology, and that’s why some passages seemed spontaneous, as if the camera were watching them. I would have caught by chance.

In Faces (1968) he painted a decomposing marriage, and the compensation each spouse seeks outside of their relationship. This earned him an Oscar nomination for the script, plus another two for supporting actors. Husbands (1970) showed a human group affected by the death of a friend; It was the first film that he, in addition to writing and directing, co-starred in. He insisted on the analysis of love relationships in Thus speaks love (1971). The way was ripe for a woman under the influence(1974), one of her most solid works, about a marriage that has to get ahead, with their children, despite her madness; In this film, the nominations for the golden statuette appeared in the categories of director and actress, extraordinary Gena Rowlands.

Less interesting was the thriller The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976), where Ben Gazzara , another Cassavetes regular, took the lead in six of his films. On the other hand , Opening Night (1977), an exciting exploration of the human soul in the world of theater, and which slept on a shelf for almost ten years due to lack of a distributor, is one of the great films of its author, to which filmmakers such as Pedro Almodóvar and his start from All About My Mother .

Gloria (1980) was conceived as a commercial plot, which Cassavetes proposed to his friend Peter Bogdanovich . He finally directed it himself. A realistic thriller about a boy who witnesses the murder of her family, and protected by a negligent neighbor, the film had strength, Gena Rowlands deserved her second Oscar nomination. Trying his luck in theatrical direction gave rise to Corrientes de amor (1984), while the comedy A man in trouble, his last film, he took it on as a favor for his good friend Peter Falk. Precisely, he made a perfect summary of Cassavetes’ cinematographic interests: “Each of his films always deals with the same thing. Someone said ‘Man is God in ruins’, and John saw the ruins with a clarity that you and I could not bear.”