The 14th Most Influential Director of All Time (2002 MovieMaker Poll)




Born: 9-Dec-1929
Birthplace: New York City
Died: 3-Feb-1989
Location of death: Los Angeles, CA
Cause of death: Cirrhosis of the Liver


Gender: Male
Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Actor, Film Director

Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Rosemary's Baby

Mother: Katherine Cassavetes
Wife: Gena Rowlands (actress, m. 1954, until his death)
Son: Nick Cassavetes (actor)
Daughter: Alexandra Cassavetes
Daughter: Zoe R. Cassavetes

FILMOGRAPHY AS DIRECTOR
Big Trouble (30-May-1986)
Love Streams (24-Aug-1984)
Gloria (01-Oct-1980)
Opening Night (22-Dec-1977)
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (15-Feb-1976)
A Woman Under the Influence (12-Oct-1974)
Minnie and Moskowitz (22-Dec-1971)
Husbands (08-Dec-1970)
Faces (24-Nov-1968)
A Child Is Waiting (13-Feb-1963)
Shadows (11-Nov-1959)


FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
Love Streams (24-Aug-1984)
Tempest (13-Aug-1982)
The Incubus (1981)
Whose Life Is It Anyway? (1981)
Brass Target (9-Mar-1979)
The Fury (10-Mar-1978)
Opening Night (22-Dec-1977)
Mikey and Nicky (21-Dec-1976)
Two Minute Warning (12-Nov-1976)
Capone (Apr-1975)
Husbands (08-Dec-1970)
If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium (24-Apr-1969)
Rosemary's Baby (12-Jun-1968)
The Dirty Dozen (15-Jun-1967)
The Killers (07-Jul-1964)
Edge of the City (29-Jan-1957)

Quote:

---

"The director himself provided the essential key to his approach when he said, "I am more interested in the people who work with me than in the film itself, or in cinema." That's perhaps why his films are further than most from the conventions of art or entertainment, but at their very best moments are closer than most to truth, or at least to the subjective reality of its participants. Critics and audiences either love or hate Cassavetes' free-wheeling work. His films are as disturbing as they are erratic, leaving no one indifferent." - (The MacMillan International Film Encyclopedia, 1994)

"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." - John Cassavetes (Directing the Film, 1976)

"The amalgam of improvisational acting, hand-held camera work, grainy stock, loose editing, and threadbare plot give his films a texture of recreated rather than heightened reality, often imbuing them with a feeling of astonishing psychodramatic intensity as characters confront each other and lay bare their souls." - Bill Wine (The St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia, 1998)

"People who are making films today are too concerned with mechanics - technical things instead of feeling." - John Cassavetes (1980)

---