Actors: Benny Carruthers, Lelia Goldoni
Director: John Cassavetes
I have seen three John Cassavetes films within the last few months, and I can say this about him: His films are very distinctive and very hit or miss. At his best, Cassavetes' 'realistic' techniques bring out actions and emotions that other films simply cannot. At his worst, his scenes play like self-indulgent acting exercises rather than a movie. Shadows sticks mostly to the former, and its 81 minute running time means that no scene is drawn out well past its welcome.
A particularly brilliant scene in Shadows shows racial tension without the high theatrics and casual use of racial slurs of Hollywood films. Cassavetes shows that racism is often merely in a glance, in the way a thing is said; my Hollywood-trained mind kept waiting for an explosion that never quite came.
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awesome, i'll check it out. the only film of his i've seen is a woman under the influence, and i thought it was pretty amazing.
ReplyDeleteyeah, this is a good one. i also liked faces, but i think this one's better. i'll have to check out woman under the influence sometime - damned randomizer just finds cassavetes right away.
ReplyDeletesidenote which i probably should've put in the original entry:
it's odd, but i think cassavetes movies work much better on a big screen. even though they're very talky movies, the talk isn't like normal movies, it's not always interesting or relevant (or even trying to be) - between that and the camera work, the goal of the movie, more than most, is to try to put you right in the middle; it's queerly like an action film in this regard. however these films are always full of lulls, and i'll start thinking about how i need to clean my apartment or about the betting line on the giants game - it needs the big screen to bludgeon my attention span.
I'm surprised you'd give movie 4 stars if it makes you think about cleaning your apartment. I generally have a very short attention span, but I feel like a really good movie should be able to keep me involved.
ReplyDeletehave you ever seen a cassavetes movie, jtg? the plot is usually pretty skeletal and the dialogue is often improvised. sometimes a scene outright sucks and i'm like, 'end already, nothing's happening'.
ReplyDeletebut then there are other times where there's an amazingly good scene, really captivating and interesting and intense. shadows has way more captivating scenes than bullshit go-nowhere scenes - hence the 4 stars.
I haven't, but I've been planning to watch The Killing of a Chinese Bookie for a while. I'll bump it to the top of the mental queue.
ReplyDeletei will warn you that while 'the killing of a chinese bookie' is quite possibly the coolest title in the history of movies, it is the least favorite of the cassavetes movies i have seen.
ReplyDeletedude forget all that. killing of a bookie is a great movie. just watch it and decide for yourself. this movie is also good, but its shoe-string
ReplyDelete