Named one of the top 10 most important American filmmakers of
all time by The Hollywood Sentinel, John Cassavetes began his
career in film as an actor. He later unleashed upon the world,
his own films including: Shadows, Too Late Blues, A Child
Is Waiting, Faces, Husbands, Minnie and Moskowitz, A Woman Under
the Influence, The Killing of A Chinese Bookie, Opening Night,
Gloria, Love Streams, and Big
Trouble.
Not of the dogma school, which is a film movement that adheres to
rigid camera direction and rules, nor of the experimental, which
was more punk in aesthetic, Cassavetes was in a league by
himself. Part French New Wave, part German expressionism, part
experimental and noir, part art, and part Hollywood, Cassavetes
broke the mold of what a film could and should be. With stunning
cinematography that made each shot a painterly piece of art, with
lighting and angles that made one want to watch again and again,
Cassavetes did, before David Lynch, create film for film's sake.
And while moods and moments were surreal, his surrealism was
directed more from emotion than of form.
Watching a Cassavetes film, like watching a Godard, Truffaut, or
Fellini film, is a moment. It is not merely something to do, it
is doing. Viewing a film by the genius that was Cassavetes is
engaging in art and life itself. It is as a trip to where he
takes you and you allow yourself to be taken.
Ray Carney, in his book‘The Films of John Cassavetes:
Pragmatism, Modernism, and the Movies’ (1994), interviewed
the filmmaker who stated, "I won't call my work entertainment.
It's exploring. It's asking questions of people, constantly: How
much do you feel? How much do you know? Are you aware of this?
Can you cope with this? A good movie will ask you questions you
haven't been asked before, ones that you haven't thought about
every day of your life. Or, if you have thought about them, you
haven't had the questions posed this way. Film is an
investigation of life. What we are. What our responsibilities in
life are, if any. What we are looking for; what problems do you
have that I may have? What part of life are we both interested in
knowing more about?"
Cassavetes later stated, “The most difficult thing in the
world is to reveal yourself, to express what you have to. As an
artist, I feel that we must try many things - but above all we
must dare to fail. You must be willing to risk everything to
really express it all.”