Accidental Genius: How John Cassavetes Invented the Independent Film [Paperback]

Marshall Fine (Author)

Book Description

Release date: December 13, 2006

In the world of independent filmmaking, John Cassavetes became the prototypical outsider fighting the system for much of his career. 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 Women Under the Influence and Husbands.

Film critic Marshall Fine has been hailed by the New York Times for this "first full life of Cassavetes." The Minneapolis Star Tribune said, "Accidental Genius is as thoroughly researched as an academic study but reads like a pop biography minus the fawning." Fine reveals the passion and singularity that characterized Cassavetes and his lasting influence on filmmaking.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

To most film junkies, the late actor and director John Cassavetes (Faces, A Woman Under the Influence) is an independent film icon. To everyone else, he's either the evil husband in Rosemary's Baby or the guy who directed wife Gena Rowlands in Gloria. And that is Fine's motivation: "I wanted to write the book that I longed to read...the one that explained to a mainstream audience why they should know and care about the work of John Cassavetes." The good news is, the book is not an impenetrable academic tome. Rather than engage in esoteric film criticism, Fine gives us a blow-by-blow account of how Cassavetes's fierce will led to the birth of independent film. The director's desire to go against the grain is highlighted throughout, such as when he told higher ups at the Actors Studio: "Screw you. I don't want any part of you. I've got my own school and I'll drive yours out of town." For a Cassavetes devotee, this is manna. But if Fine's goal is to convert the uninitiated, he's missed the mark by taking it for granted that the reader will be as enamored of his subject as he is. And Fine's fetishistic description of every Cassavetes project progresses at a merciless grind so tedious that the merely curious would do better to rent a Cassavetes film.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Fine stints on critical analysis yet convincingly argues that mainstream moviegoers ought to care about maverick director Cassavetes (1929-89) as the progenitor of today's American independent film movement. Cassavetes stumbled into making his groundbreaking first film, Shadows, which evolved out of workshops he conducted as a young actor in late-1950s New York. Other challenging, uncompromising works followed over the next decades, including Faces, Husbands, and A Woman under the Influence. Fine details Cassavetes' struggles to finance and distribute his resolutely noncommercial films, which he funded largely from his earnings as a performer in others' movies, such as The Dirty Dozen and Rosemary's Baby. The loose, sometimes messy nature of his own films led many to believe they were improvised. All derived from tight scripts, though Cassavetes espoused spontaneity and called planning "the most destructive thing in the world." Fine talked with members of Cassavetes' inner circle (though not with his wife and frequent collaborator, Gena Rowlands) as well as other directors, such as Martin Scorsese, who were influenced by his approach. Gordon Flagg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 496 pages
• Publisher: Miramax; paperback / softback edition (December 13, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1401360130
• ISBN-13: 978-1401360139
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 1.4 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #773,317 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #16 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( M ) > Marshall, John

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Reverential Biography of the Film Auteur Who Gave Rise to Independent American Cinema-Verité August 13, 2006

By Ed Uyeshima HALL OF FAMETOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

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.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars FASCINATING ACCOUNT OF A DYNAMIC MAN May 23, 2006

By Gail Cooke HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

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

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A must for independent film makers January 27, 2006

By budman27

Format:Hardcover

Marshall Fine is on to something here. Anyone who has aspirations to make an independent film owes it to themselves to read this book. Part inspiration, part determination and a huge dose of humanity, Accidental Genius delivers more than a look at Cassavetes the man. This is a "how to" masterpiece in a biographical wrapping. I loved it and am giving copies to all of my film-loving friends.