'I have such admiration for people who can recount their lives in
autobiography, because the connections are so complicated. I would never
be able to straighten it out.'
The above quote from John Cassavetes, who since his untimely death in 1989
has enjoyed a reputation as the spiritual father of American independent
filmmaking and the most important American director since Orson Welles,
opens Ray Carney's affectionately edited tome. The latest addition to
Faber & Faber's increasingly impressive 'Directors On' series, Cassavetes
on Cassavetes is certainly one of the best and one of the most
anticipated.
Described as the autobiography Cassavetes never lived to write, it's a
lovingly crafted, elegiac affair and a fitting epitaph to a man of
ferocious integrity, determined to dictate the conditions in which he
creatively toiled with scant regard for the conventions of Hollywood
studio feature production.
Widely regarded as the leading authority on Cassavetes and a personal
confidante of the director, editor Ray Carney (the author of three other
works on the director) spent some eleven years bringing the book to
fruition. In so doing he has collected the personal reminisces of
Cassavetes himself and worked closely with those that were nearest to him
- including Sam Shaw, long-time Cassavetes producer and artistic advisor
and, perhaps most tellingly, Cassavetes' widow and muse, actress Gena
Rowlands.
Eschewing the narrative ellipticism for which Cassavetes was famed, the
result of these labours is an exhaustive and thrillingly comprehensive
peek into the life and work of the man. Renowned for his legendary ability
to discourse expansively on all manner of topics - although the duplicity
of Hollywood was a subject especially close to his heart - the books
unwinds chronologically from Cassavetes' relatively inauspicious
beginnings as the son of Greek immigrants and years as a struggling actor
in B-studio pictures to his death at fifty-nine from cirrhosis of the
liver.
The films are of course covered in rich detail with entire chapters
designated to each. A telling anecdote sees Cassavetes going to see a war
picture and hating it, then seeing it some twenty times further simply
because it got under his skin (yet complaining to the theatre manager on
every visit). This sets the seal for his own approach to counter-cinema.
To this end, Cassavetes' working methodology is revealed down to the
tiniest detail and what soon becomes evident is the absolute conviction
with which he worked - the struggle to finance Faces (1968) after burning
his Hollywood bridges following his falling-out with Stanley Kramer being
particularly riveting. The obvious affection and loyalty he inspired from
his regular collaborators is also detailed and there are worthwhile
contributions from the likes of Peter Falk and Ben Gazzara.
In his own lifetime Cassavetes received relatively short shrift not only
from the industry. He had to fight for every marketing penny for his films
and would often, especially on the much-maligned Opening Night (1977), tie
himself into punishing publicity schedules in an effort to convince a wary
American public of the validity of his work. Yet the book's final chapters
reveal a mellower Cassavetes, surprisingly sanguine at the treatment he
received and in fine old humour. Convinced that he would not be remembered
as a director at all (right up until the end he rejected the notion that
an artist's work should be rated in financial terms, taking solace from
the pride he felt at what his work had achieved) but only as an actor,
Cassavetes claimed with self-deprecation that 'my work has influenced a
few television commercials'. Thankfully time has proven the maverick
genius to be, at least in one area, seriously misguided.
Reviewed by Jason Wood
