John Nicholas Cassavetes

Now I may as well entitle this piece 'Hero Worship', 
and as to all those protocols and rules regarding journalistic objectivity, well, it's time to completely bypass them and toss them out the proverbial window. Today I feel I have just the right amount of chutzpah to scribble about this momentous man who, for me, (told you, no objectivity this time) is one of the most indispensable assets of cinema as we know it.

In my latest work, I touched on the topic of one of John's brethren, with speak of the Hellenic helmsman; Michael Cacoyannis, and yes while  Cacoyannis certainly  brought his blend of optical magic, it was Mister Cassavetes who would seriously deliver it.

                       A heated scene from Shadows (1959)



In the late 1950s,  Cassavetes who was already an established thespian, ( in fact, even today if you mention the name Cassavetes, more than likely, people will remember him for the stint he did as a murderous musical maverick, on the second season of Columbo,(Etude In Black, 1972) than to realize he was an auteur of epic proportions. It would be at this juncture that he would spread his wealth of knowledge.  teaching a specialized acting class; on the art of improvisation. Teaching this class would prove fateful, it was this which would propel him to shoot his first feature in 1959, and off he went, with a bang the16mm and retro-scripted route with the veritesque Shadows, this film boasted some implosive incidentals, contemporaneous to the Beat era, as well as being set to the controversial topic of racial divide, ideologically reminiscent of Samuel Fuller's earlier entries  - in this case, the social caste system, the unspoken hierarchy of light and dark complected black people - and the trials and judgments they endured and are unfairly privy to based on the nuances of skin tone. An understandable highly sensitive subject, that like Fuller before him, Cassavetes was able to address in earnest.

                         I counted 10 clam notes



Cassavetes would then embark on his journey to the other side of the filmic tracks, and would try his hand with more mainstream Hollywood direction. In 1961, John would release the jazzy Too Late Blues, that starred crooning sensation Bobby Darin, befittingly as disillusioned musician John 'Ghost' Wakefield.

                                  Judy, Judy, Judy!


In 1963, another  attempt would ensue,this time it was a major studio release,  with his accalimed effort A Child Is Waiting which would star a heavyweight Burt Lancaster and would be the penultimate film appearance of legend Judy Garland.  As with most of Cassavetes canon, the themes in A Child Is Waiting are charged, and here what would be depicted was a
tender subject that centered on one of the first boarding schools for mentally disabled children.

                          Face to Face


Cassavetes still yenned for his earlier unfettered moments and would soon return to his trusted 16mm drawing board. In 1968, he would cast his otherworldly talent of a  wife, Gena Rowlands as  tender-hearted temptress Jeannie Rapp in 1968's Faces. One of John's finest moments improvised, this one focuses on a middle class and sexually repressed collection of suburban people. Sleeper actor Seymour Cassel, who would be one of Cassavetes loyal staples in his subsequent releases stars as the transient 'Chet' who saves the life of pill-popping mama - Maria (the lovable and lovely Lynn Carlin), after a night of abandon and passion goes wrong; while her hubby Richard (John Marley) is having his own abandon and passion time with Jeannie Rapp and does not come to her emotional rescue.

                                     The 'tree Wise Men.



And now that he was back to that place where he once belonged, in 1970 we find a full throttle Cassavetes saying it proud and loud with Husbands, one of his more dismissed efforts that starred real life comrades Ben Gazzara and Peter Falk - this one tells the tale of three alpha-males, that go on a serious post-funeral bender ,where the party does not end (nearly) - and the trio make their way to merry ol' Blighty, where they all simultaneously have mid-life crises, ironically before they have actually even entered into their mid-live years. 

                                  A couple of swells



Following this absorber, came 1971's Minnie and Moskowitz, a decidedly more romantic jaunt, relatively speaking - romantic as Cassavetes does -  with Rowlands and Seymour Cassel as the very apotheosis of opposites attracting. She's a museum curator and he's the parking attendant that kinda-sorta loves her. In 1974, where we find Gena as a housewife on the cuspid of madness with her incomparable performance as the tormented Mabel Longhetti in A Woman Under the Influence, Cassavetes had yet another Sgt Peppers moment, and nearly transformed the 'nervous breakdown,' into a fashion statement.

                               I've had it up to here with this place


It would be in 1976 that he would churn a veritable hagiography with The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, a cinematic allegory of what Cassavetes' was exposed to in his youth (local gang violence) Ben Gazzara is forced to remit a debt, but in lieu of coughing up all those fivers, he was coerced into the job of temporary hitman.

                                         These are La Croix, darling            

Gazzara would be back to his Cassavetes haunts again, as would Rowlands, and only an actress of her gravity could make it look so simple to be so complex, in the play wrapped up in a play of an enigma, Opening Night (1977). This no punch-puller demystified, just what occurs in theatre after those obligatory curtains come down. 

               



It would not be until the year 1984, when Cassavetes would finally, finally play lead opposite his wife, with the dramatic comedy Love Streams. They would not appear as a couple, but as siblings; Sarah Lawson and her troubled writer brother Robert Harmon.


And naturally, I will emote, loudly and proudly now that Mister John Nicholas Cassavetes is now, and will forever be my rock of cinematic Gibraltar. 




I refuse to believe he is actually not among the living, so no obituary this time...Really! You will just have to take the Filmographer's word for it - He's only just taking an extended holiday...