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
Ricardo Montalban is to improvisational acting what Mount Rushmore is to animation.
You can defeat fear through humor, through pain, through honesty, bravery, intuition, and through love in the truest sense.
We only have two hours to change people's lives.
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.
My films are expressive of a culture that has had the possibility of attaining material fulfillment while at the same time finding itself unable to accomplish the simple business of conducting human lives. We have been sold a bill of goods as a substitute for life. What is needed is reassurance in human emotions; a re-evaluation of our emotional capacities.
I’m very worried about the depiction of women on the screen. It’s gotten worse than ever and it’s related to their being either high- or low-class concubines, and the only question is when or where they will go to bed, with whom, and how many. There’s nothing to do with the dreams of women, or of woman as the dream, nothing to do with the quirky part of her, the wonder of her.
You can fail in films because you don't have the talent, or you have too much humility, or you lack ferociousness. I'm a gangster. If I want something, I'll grab it.
To me there is a name for each person. I think it’s marvelous to have a name. A woman is not a woman. It’s either Gena or my mother or some other person.
I have the confidence that I can take anybody and have them give a good performance, because I don't think there's anything to acting except expressing, being able to converse. So if I can just convince somebody not to clean themselves up, and not to be someone that they're not, and just be what they are in given circumstances, that's all that acting is to me, and I don't think it's very difficult.
(Acting) is an extension of life. How you're capable of performing in your life, that's how you're capable of performing on screen.
During the actual filming, I’m not really listening to dialogue. I’m watching to see if the actors are communicating something and expressing something. I’m just watching a conversation. You’re not aware of exactly what people are saying. You are aware of what they are INTENDING and what kind of feeling is going on in that scene.
Filmmaking is exploring. Why would I want to make a film about something I already understand?
People who are making films today are too concerned with mechanics - technical things instead of feeling.