An
excerpt from my book GARAGE
MOVIE: MY ADVENTURES MAKING WEIRD FILMS. In this excerpt, I talk about
how I first got interested in the films of John Cassavetes and also when I
first crossed paths with Cassavetes
on Cassavetes author Ray Carney:
...
FLASH
BACK TO: a couple months before the Tracey Jacobs rejection. It was
Christmas of 2004 and Santa Claus gifted me with a Criterion Collection box set
of John Cassavetes films. This was, in all seriousness, a life-changing moment.
I popped Cassavetes’ first film Shadows into my DVD player and
I never looked back. Faces, A Woman Under the Influence, The Killing of
a Chinese Bookie, Opening Night—I watched each of John’s films over and
over again. I was obsessed.
On
eBay, I managed to find rare VHS copies of both Minnie and Moskowitz and
Cassavetes’ last film Love Streams. I watched those over and over
as well. It was like entering a new dimension, locking myself in my room at
night, turning out the lights and escaping into the world of a Cassavetes movie.
Cassavetes’
films were so different from what I was used to. Most Hollywood movies were
“plot-driven”, but Cassavetes’ films were the most character-driven works one
could ever find. In fact, ‘character-driven’ isn’t quite the correct term. I
would say his films were more like ‘human-driven’, which was a radical
departure from Hollywood where the “humans” in movies are more like dehumanized pawns
strategically used to tell a good story…or, in other words, a means to an end.
Cassavetes, however, didn’t give a damn about entertaining an audience with a
good story. All he cared about was capturing human behavior in its purest form.
Now,
there is a misconception that Cassavetes’ films were “improvised”, but the fact
is that they were all scripted and well-structured in their own unique,
non-Hollywood way. They seemed improvised because Cassavetes
was so talented at capturing real human behavior on the written page. Of
course, his scripts weren’t etched in stone by any means. Actors—with the
guidance of the director—were free to explore the complexities of their
characters and alter their dialogue or actions as they saw fit. The script was
always subject to changes and was never bound by a tight plot. In fact, ‘plot’
was a dirty word. Reality was more important than plot, the latter of which, if
you think about it, is really the opposite of reality; it’s un-reality.
Indeed,
Cassavetes’ main interest lied in non-contrived reality while Hollywood was
more interested in contrived character arcs, plot beats, Acts, well-established
character conflicts, clear-cut character goals etc., all of which are elements
of a false reality. Cassavetes wanted to deliver audiences from this
Hollywood-induced unreality and reintroduce them to reality.
As
for me, I apparently craved this reality. For a period of several months,
Cassavetes’ films were my addiction. I literally could watch nothing BUT
Cassavetes. Hollywood movies were suddenly so stupid to me, with
one-dimensional characters or ‘types’ with canned emotions, Hollywood feeling,
not real human feelings that you would experience in everyday
life.
The
Killing of a Chinese Bookie was probably my favorite of all Cassavetes
films. The Criterion Collection contained two different versions of the film
and I watched both versions multiple times. Again, Cassavetes didn’t just write
a script, shoot it and end up with the same vision he had from the outset. His
filmmaking was more explorational and his vision was in a constant state of
flux throughout the process of shooting a film and even throughout the process
of editing it. If the editing process took him in a different direction from
what he had in the script, well, he would simply go with it and pleasantly
surprise himself with an end-product different from anything he had initially
envisioned. If he wanted to explore two different creative pathways and end up
with two versions of his films? Well, why not? Hollywood, of course, wouldn’t
approve of this explorative process; they would want one version of the film
finished on deadline, then they would promote the film, distribute the film,
hope to make a lot of money off the film and on to the next. Cassavetes,
however, liked to take his time and the filmmaking process was more interesting
to him than making an end-product that would hopefully be a “hit” (i.e. a
financially successful movie). In this sense, he was the epitome of the
anti-Hollywood filmmaker. His filmmaking style was unprecedented at the time,
especially in America. He completely subverted the Hollywood model of what a
movie should be.
Anyway,
it sounds sappy, but I watched so many Cassavetes films over the course of
about a year that it felt as though Cassavetes himself was holding my hand the
entire time, functioning as a kind of spirit guide, walking me through the
spiritual experience of a lifetime.
Assisting
with this “spiritual experience” were Ray Carney’s books on Cassavetes, my
reading of which coincided with my viewing of the films. I re-read much
of Cassavetes
on Cassavetes, but I also read Carney’s book The
Films of John Cassavetes: Pragmatism, Modernism and the Movies, a
British Film Institute (BFI) published book called Shadows,
and a self-published book called John
Cassavetes: The Adventure of Insecurity. Both the films of John
Cassavetes and the writing of Ray Carney went hand-in-hand. Carney’s books were
almost like an extension of the films themselves, meaning you got way more out
of the viewing experience with his writing complementing them. Or, in other
words, I guess what I’m saying is that Cassavetes and Carney were a package
deal and many Cassavetes fans are in denial of this; in fact, many fans don’t
even like Carney. Personally, I think they’re envious trolls, most of which are
critics who could only dream of writing the masterpiece that is Cassavetes
on Cassavetes. I thought and still think Carney is brilliant. He’s a bit of
a controversial figure and he’s made several people upset in his passion for
artistic truth, but I will always see him as nothing more than absolutely
brilliant. Even if he tore new assholes in each frame of my own films, I would
still think he was brilliant.
The
amazing thing (and what-I-deemed serendipitous) was that Carney literally lived
a mere five minutes away from me. One day in March 2005, I was out walking my
Bassett Hound Anthony just down the street from my house and I saw this man
rolling down the street on his bike. As he came closer, he started looking
familiar and then he waved, smiled and said ‘hello’. I suddenly realized, holy
shit, that was just Ray Carney! At the time, I had been drowning myself in all
things Cassavetes, reading all things Carney as a kind of study aide to the
films, and then, boom, there was the man himself riding right past me on his
bike. It was so surreal. Too surreal. Serendipitous for sure. I felt a strong
pull to contact Mr. Carney.
The
next day, I wrote Ray a letter and sent him a VHS copy of my short film Sympathy
for Hitler’s Soul. A few days later, I received an email from him thanking
me for the letter. He said he enjoyed the film and, more specifically, he said,
“You leave people thinking.” Wow, I couldn’t believe what I heard. Ray Carney
thought my film was thought-provoking? It was very difficult getting a
compliment from a guy like Ray and I received (what I saw as) a compliment.
That made my day.
I
emailed Ray back and forth and probably bothered the hell out of him because he
was such a busy man, but he eventually invited me to sit in on his American
Independent Film class at BU. I told him, yes, I would love to sit in on his
class! Of course! I was honored by such an invitation.
So
back to BU I went as a non-student and sat in on Carney’s class. He
showed a film called Human Remains by an experimental
filmmaker named Jay Rosenblatt. This film was about past world dictators, like
Hitler and Stalin, and explored Hannah Arendt’s concept “the banality of evil”.
It was quite brilliant and you can tell it was brilliant because I said “quite”
and that’s a word smart people use. The film used what-is-called “found
footage” of the dictators, so no actual “filmmaking” was necessary at all. Just
editing of “found footage”. And voice-over done by actors.
After
the class, my plan was to introduce myself to Carney, but he darted out of the
room very quickly and I didn’t have a chance. I figured I would shoot him an
email later, so I exited the classroom, walked out into the hall, but then I
saw him coming back my way with a teacher’s assistant by his side. I gave him a
wave, he took notice, and I told him who I was. He said, “Oh, I saw you [in the
classroom]! Glad you came!” And then he told his assistant, “This is a very
good filmmaker right here!” referring to me. I gave him an “Oh, shucks” look,
but hearing those words certainly made my day. No, not my day; they made my
week…month…year…lifetime…my entire stardust existence! Ray Carney, the
mastermind who brought us Cassavetes on Cassavetes, thought I
was a “very good filmmaker”. This was surreal.
The
next day I sent Carney another email with my reaction to the Rosenblatt film. I
quickly received a reply saying, “Wow! How deep! And how much I agree with
you!” Then I went and sat in on his next class and he read my response aloud to
the entire class like it was the most brilliant thing ever written. I couldn’t believe
what was happening. Was I dreaming? This was Ray Carney, a super-difficult dude
to impress, perhaps one of the most difficult men to impress in the entire
world. And I was impressing him?
Thus
ensued a period of a couple months where I would sit in on Carney’s classes,
have email correspondence with him and very often cross paths with the film
scholar while he was biking. He would post several of my emails on his website
(it was cassavetes.com back then), I guess because he deemed them deep enough and
worthy enough.
The
connection with Ray was meant to be. For what? Perhaps for nothing else but
validation from somebody I respected. But it was definitely meant to be. I
realize that Ray Carney is a controversial figure in the film criticism world,
no doubt about that. And, boy, the administration at Boston University does NOT
like him in the least, mainly because their visions of what the BU film program
should be differ so greatly. But I will say this and only this: with what
limited interaction I’ve had with Ray, I have only seen him to be an extremely
kind and brilliant man. He has an anti-Hollywood persona, there’s no doubt
about that. And he’s no bullshit, pure truth, and this comes off as abrasive to
people, probably because they’re so used to bullshit in our society. But I
would vouch for Ray any day. Maybe I’m just saying this because he was
supportive to me and my work, but, again, Ray was never anything but kind when
I interacted with him and nothing less than brilliant.
…
