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Accidental Genius: How John Cassavetes Invented the Independent Film
by Marshall Fine
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Miramax (2006-01-25)
ISBN: 1401352499
EAN: 9781401352493
Dewy Decimal #: 791.43023092
Hardcover: 496 pages
Release Date: 2006-01-25
SKU: T070746-4981
Condition: Very Good
Comments: Very good + overall condition. No writing, very tight binding. Ships same day or next in a bubble mailer. Enjoy.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
In the world of independent film making John Cassavetes stands apart. Among filmmakers and film buffs, Cassavetes is revered, almost as a god. A major star of live television and a serious actor, he stumbled into making his first film, Shadows, and created a template for working outside the Hollywood system that would produce some of the most piercing and human films of the last thirty years including A Woman Under the Influence and Husbands. He became the prototypical outsider fighting the system for much of his career. Film critic Marshall Fine had unprecendented access to Cassavetes' wife, Gena Rowlands, and other members of their inner circle, as well as industry insiders who worked with Cassavetes -- some speaking publicly for the first time. Together, they tell his daring, tumultuous, and compelling story.
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Customer Reviews
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Any film library needs this.
Rating  (5)
Date: 2007-02-09
The rise of independent film in Hollywood is an event which boils down to the efforts of one man: John Cassavetes. ACCIDENTAL GENIUS: HOW JOHN CASSAVETES INVENTED THE AMERICAN INDEPENDENT FILM is thus a biography any film buff will want: it holds an essential key to understanding the foundations and evolution of independent film as a whole, revealing his life and work in context of the evolving Hollywood industry. Any film library needs this.
Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch
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snooozer
Rating  (1)
Date: 2006-12-17
0 out of 11 customers found this reveiw helpful
Not sure why I picked this book up. Knowing next to nothing about Cassavetes before attempting this book, I decided halfway through it, that I don't care who Cassevetes is. Not my cup of tea at all.
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Reverential Biography of the Film Auteur Who Gave Rise to Independent American Cinema-Verité
Rating  (4)
Date: 2006-08-14
4 out of 5 customers found this reveiw helpful
I just saw one of John Cassavetes' early films as a director, 1963's "A Child Is Waiting", which he apparently disowned once producer Stanley Kramer edited it to make the story of mentally disabled children in a state-run institution a more sentimental movie. Despite Cassavetes' misgivings about the finished product, what remains has some truly unexpected moments of emotional honesty. Author Marshall Fine, film and TV critic for Star Magazine, has written a thorough, sometimes effusive biography of the film auteur who died in 1989. Cassavetes is most definitely a worthy subject for a comprehensive book, as he was a groundbreaking filmmaker who made gritty, low-budget independent films well before Sundance.
His style was polarizing, but there is no getting around the fact that he dared to go to places other filmmakers feared, primarily the dark spaces where self-pity and hurtful actions were predominant. Even though his favorite director was ironically the supreme optimist Frank Capra, Cassavetes liked exposing the chaotic nature of life among the middle classes and refused to tie up loose ends for the sake of a happy ending. Fine does an illuminating job of showing the filmmaker's psyche at work and how he kept the focus constantly on the actors, especially as he created an intimate environment where spontaneity was encouraged and prized. Lacking the desire for a more formal process, Cassavetes employed a hand-held, semi-documentary style to elicit the naturalism he wanted to capture even when it meant constant script rewrites.
The author also explores the downside of the filmmaker's work techniques: his quick temper, his megalomania, his lack of savvy in dealing with studio bosses. More importantly, Fine takes us behind the scenes on each of Cassavetes' films beginning with 1959's jazz-infused "Shadows" of which he did two versions. From there, we see him at work on such acknowledged classics as "Faces" and "A Woman Under the Influence" all the way through the end of his life when he took over from Andrew Bergman on 1989's "Big Trouble" as he was dying of cirrhosis of the liver. Recollections are meticulously detailed but do not feel extraneous. It's a fascinating career well documented by Fine, though I wish he could have been more critical on the finished films and more interested in letting us know who is carrying on Cassavetes' legacy.
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FASCINATING ACCOUNT OF A DYNAMIC MAN
Rating (5)
Date: 2006-05-23
3 out of 4 customers found this reveiw helpful
Biographer Marshall Fine (Harvey Keitel and The Life and Times of Sam Peckinpah) introduces us to John Cassavetes by describing a 1954 night on a deserted New York street when the actor frightened away four thugs by "pretending to be a madman having a full-blown psychotic episode."
From this incident we learn as many would later discover that Cassavetes was someone who enjoyed turning things around, he loved spontaneity. Later he would become known as a gifted actor, an innovative director, the man whom many consider to be the father of independent films.
Although she declined to be interviewed, responding as she always did that John did not want a biography, Cassavetes' widow, Gina Rowlands, did give Fine her approval and access to many of the actor's close friends and associates. Thus, we are rewarded with an intimate portrait of this enigmatic individual who so changed the way we view and think of movies today.
After success as a star in 1950s television, Cassavetes began his highly acclaimed motion work work and made his first film, Shadows (1959). It was while he was serving as director of an acting workshop that he came up with a blueprint for films other than the ones made inside the then accepted system. In order to do this he tackled subjects other film makers wouldn't touch - race relations in America, marital relationships.
Faces, which many consider to be one of his finest works, received three Academy Award nominations, one of which was for best screenplay by Cassavetes. Later, Woman Under The Influence garnered an Oscar nomination for Gina Rowlands as best actress in a leading role and Cassavetes was nominated Best Director. Those were not his only accolades - as an actor he won an Oscar nomination as best supporting actor for The Dirty Dozen.
Much of the richness in this extensive bio is found in the recollections of Cassavetes' close friends, such as Peter Falk and Ben Gazarra. Accidental Genius is a fascinating account of a dynamic and driven man who said, "It is not so important that people like your films. It's only important that you make something you like."
Highly recommended.
- Gail Cooke
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Someone FINALLY Got it Right!!
Rating (5)
Date: 2006-04-18
3 out of 4 customers found this reveiw helpful
After years of either being forgotten by the genral public or written about in the most pretentious, yawn-inducing dirges, author Marshall Fine finally got it right in his bio of actor/director John Cassavetes. The author's style is accesible, his subject fascinating and the theme is undeniable. Cassavetes is to independent cinema what Elvis Presley was to Rock and Roll: Neither one invented their respected venues but they definitely created the way in which they are percieved today.
Not only does the author give the man his due, but the freshly recounted anecdotes of Cassavetes' cohorts certainly brings the man back to life. No, it's not like having him in the room with you -- it's more like being at the Irish wake in which friends recount with a glass held high what it was that made the man so great.
To the naysayers who have already written about this book, what did you guys read?? Fine does not state that Cassavetes 'created' independent American films but is the progenitor, as in laying down the groundwork that others have followed. Before Ruth Orkin and Morris Engels, there was also independent black filmmaker Oscar Michenaux and Kenneth Anger, and countless others but the original consistency of effort and undeniable style belonged to Cassavetes alone. All hail the Acciental Genuis!!
One quibble: Why no index? It makes looking up remebered moments MUCH eaiser to find.
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