Shadows
I discovered John Cassavetes’ movies at a retrospective at the Belcourt back in the 1990s, when Watkins film students were managing the place. When I got to the box office, the Cassavetes screenings appeared to have been arranged in pairs. I asked the freshman/filmmaker/ticket-taker if they were showing double features. She replied, “If you can sit through the first one, I’ll let you watch the second one for free.”
The cinema of Cassavetes is at turns controversial and contradictory, passionate and pretentious, impulsive and implosive. The Belcourt Theatre is spotlighting the patron saint of independent filmmakers with its latest repertory series, the fantastically titled Dare to Fail: Cassavetes at 90. For a time I was obsessed with Cassavetes, but here’s the thing: I was pretty sure I hated the director’s extreme dramatics, actorly indulgences and sometimes-grinding monotony. Or did I? Cassavetes’ movies feature some of the most unhinged, anxious stuff you’ll find, but he idolized Frank Capra: Both directors told stories about the desperate lives of regular people, and the loving bonds between families, friends and communities. The drama between lovers, artists, comrades and enemies in Cassavetes’ films can be downright harrowing, but just like Capra, Cassavetes never lets us forget that it’s a wild, weird and wonderful life.
The series opened last weekend with Cassavetes’ first masterpiece, Faces (1968). That film features transcendent performances by Cassavetes’ wife and muse, Gena Rowlands, as well as his regular Seymour Cassel. Lyn Carlin was working as a secretary for Robert Altman when Cassavetes cast her here in her first film role as a bored middle-class housewife. Carlin’s and Cassel’s performances and Cassavetes’ script were all nominated for Oscars. Visit Belcourt's site for a full list of showtimes.
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, May 11-12
With 1976’s The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, Cassavetes stepped away from domestic dramas to take on the crime-film genre. The results are predictably wacky. Just as Robert Altman deconstructed the American Western with McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), Cassavetes flips the table on gangland flicks by transforming a pulp fiction about a gambling nightclub owner into a fable about an artist tilting against the corruptions of commerce. Read more on this one in our Critics’ Picks on p. 21.
Minnie and Moskowitz, May 18-19
Minnie and Moskowitz was one of a handful of low-budget films Universal Studios rolled out in the early 1970s in an attempt to repeat the success of Easy Rider. This 1971 odd-couple love story pairs a single art curator named Minnie (Gena Rowlands) with a ragamuffin hippie named Seymour Moskowitz (Seymour Cassel). Cassavetes takes on timeless romantic-comedy fodder here and twists, drags and wrestles tired tropes and clunky clichés into something strange, idiosyncratic, passionate and intensely intimate. This entry is also one of the most actorly films in Cassavetes’ relentlessly actorly oeuvre.
A Woman Under the Influence, May 25 & 29
A Woman Under the Influence is Cassavetes’ second masterpiece and his greatest movie. This 1974 story about a family struggling to create a stable life in the midst of one woman’s mental breakdown is also the director’s most focused character study. It’s an unforgettable film illuminated by an iconic performance from Rowlands in the role of a lifetime as Mabel Longhetti. Peter Falk colors way outside the lines in a fantastic performance as Mabel’s loving but lost husband Nick. Rowlands and Cassavetes both earned Academy Award nominations for this gem.
Opening Night, Sunday May 26, 30
Gena Rowlands stars in 1977’s Opening Night as Myrtle Gordon, a famous actress struggling with age and alcoholism before the death of a young fan puts her over the edge. The debut of a new play looms as Myrtle struggles to maintain her health, sanity and career. Rowlands shines again here, and Opening Night’s theatrical setting serves as the perfect playground for Cassavetes’ love of no-limits acting.
Shadows, June 3
Cassavetes’ first feature, released in 1958, grew out of improv exercises at an actors’ workshop he taught in 1950s New York. This edgy exploration of love and race was remarkably insightful and prescient way back in its day, and today Shadows is recognized as a watershed film in American independent cinema.
