John Cassavetes
John Cassavetes
John Nicholas Cassaveteswas an American actor, film director, and screenwriter. Cassavetes was a pioneer of American independent film, writing and directing over a dozen movies, which he partially self-financed, and pioneered the use of improvisation and a realistic cinéma vérité style. He also acted in many Hollywood films, notably Rosemary's Babyand The Dirty Dozen. He studied acting with Don Richardson, using an acting technique based on muscle memory. Cassavetes considered directing to be a full-timehobby and himself an amateur filmmaker...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionActor
Date of Birth9 December 1929
CountryUnited States of America
We don't take the time to be vulnerable with each other
You can defeat fear through humor, through pain, through honesty, bravery, intuition, and through love in the truest sense.
Art films aren't necessarily photography. It's feeling. If we can capture a feeling of a people, of a way of life, then we made a good picture.
I'm not good at comparing and contrasting. I take what's in front of me for what it is, although I guess there's something about Paul's realistic writing that is like Cassavetes.
The camera is the slave to the actor.
There's a difference between ad-libbing and improvising. And there's a difference between not knowing what to do and just saying something. Or making choices as an actor. As a writer also, as a person who's making a film, as a cameraman, everything is a choice. And it seems to me I don't really have to direct anyone or write down that somebody's getting drunk; all I have to do is say that there's a bottle there and put a bottle there and then they're going to get drunk.
I have a one-track mind. That's all that I'm interested in - love. And the lack of it. When it stops.
The most difficult thing in the world is to reveal yourself, to express what you have to.
I'm a great believer in spontaneity because I think planning is the most destructive thing in the world.
Everyone who makes a film is at the major distributors' mercy.
My mother and father were never frightened of anything. They always felt that they should go through life happily and without fear, and they did that. And it was a great boon to my brother and myself.
I would put my pictures up against anybody's in this world. Certainly in my own day I bow to no one. I don't think there's another director in the world who works harder to make better films than I do.
There is no reason why a serious film, one about life, can't be enjoyable, maybe even fun. Emotions can be very entertaining, you know. I try to use them generously in my films.
I won't call my work entertainment. It's exploring. It's asking questions of people, constantly. 'How much do you feel? How much do you know? Are you aware of this? Can you cope with this?' A good movie will ask you questions you don't already know the answers to. Why would I want to make a film about something I already understand?