The Crack of Dawn

Volume #484

10/10/23

Newsletter #484

The Crack of Dawn

Poster by Saul Bass.

A bit of old Hollywood wisdom is, “Never invest in your own movies.”  My feeling was, if you don’t believe in yourself enough to invest your own money, why should anyone else?  The only filmmaker I know of who ignored this “wisdom,” who put his money where his mouth was, was John Cassavetes.  John Cassavetes came into his own as an actor in the mid-1950s on live TV.  He was able to parlay his TV career into feature films with the film, Edge of the City (1957), with Sidney Portier.  Although film was well-received, it wasn’t a hit, so Cassavetes went back to TV and got his own series, Johnny Staccato (1959-60), which lasted one season.  Being 30 years old, with a truly uncertain future, and not making the kind of TV or films that he really wanted to make, John Cassavetes broke the Hollywood cardinal sin and put his own money into a movie – Shadows (1960).  

John Cassavetes in Johnny Staccato, 1959.

Shadows is considered the real beginning of the American independent film movement.  It’s a ridiculously sloppy, poorly made film, but it wasn’t like anything else, except the first Nouvelle Vague (New Wave) films just starting to come out of France, like Jean Luc Godard’s Breathless (1960).  Both films have a fresh sense of reality and freedom that had not been seen before.  Shadows was taken pretty seriously by the New York cognoscenti, but didn’t make any money.  So much for independent movies.  Cassavetes was immediately lured into directing and writing a Hollywood film (by his buddy, Bobby Darin, the film’s star) called Too Late Blues (1961).  Trying to mix his free, improvisational approach with a standard, low-budget Hollywood film didn’t work at all.  The film bombed both critically and financially, and it’s not very good.  Lancaster is miscast and Judy Garland is trying so hard, during a rocky phase, that it’s hard to watch.

Cassavetes continued acting, which was his bread and butter, but hadn’t given up on directing.  He next ended up directing a particularly odd film called A Child is Waiting (1963) for producer, Stanley Kramer.  It’s a very sincere little movie about a school for special needs kids, but it very strangely stars Burt Lancaster and Judy Garland.  Once again, Cassavetes’ loose, improvisational approach and Kramer’s standard, shoot-it-as-it’s-written Hollywood approach didn’t mesh at all.  The film totally bombed.  John Cassavetes clearly saw that he couldn’t function as a director in Hollywood, so he dropped it and went completely back to acting.  But the idea wasn’t gone.  He saw that the only time he came close to getting it right was on Shadows, which was completely and totally independent (and looks it).  Shadows wasn’t made for anyone except the people who made it.

As Roman Polanski said regarding the casting of Rosemary’s Baby (1968), they were looking for the quintessential tough, brooding, method, New York actor, and John Cassavetes was certainly that.  For the first time he got paid as a lead actor in a big Hollywood film.  And this is why he is my spiritual father – he took all that money and made his second truly independent film, Faces (1968), with John Marley and Gena Rowlands (Cassavetes’ wife).  Unlike Shadows, which was poorly shot in 16mm; Faces was well-shot in black & white 35mm, and Cassavetes was the camera operator (which he would be for the rest of his films, and he’s a particularly good camera operator).  The film was shot entirely in his and Gena Rowlands’ house.  It’s an intense, in-your-face, drama.  Everybody took it seriously.  The film was well received, made money, and was nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.  Faces is not my favorite movie, but since I saw it in 35mm at the theater, it really did get me.  Seymour Cassell is terrific.

The point was clear to John Cassavetes – if he financed his own films himself, nobody could fuck with him and he could make exactly the movies he wanted to make.  And he then proceeded to do that quite a few times, with artistically varying results, but the films were always completely his.  When I first got to Hollywood in 1976, I did several days (and nights) of extra work on John Cassavetes’ film, Opening Night (1977).  That’s a whole other story.

My Hollywood debut.

The point here is that the common “wisdom” is also bullshit.  No, you shouldn’t risk your own money if you’re afraid of losing it, which you undoubtedly will.  But if you have to make movies where nobody tells you what to do, you must put up. Face it, if you won’t even take a risk on yourself, why should anyone else? 

With that, I bid you bonne journée.