Watch I Knew It Was You: Rediscovering John Cazale For Free

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Like the man's life, this doc is too short (I thought for some reason it was going to be a feature). The material is the basic stuff of a retrospective and tribute with interviews by collaborators and fans (and certainly some names you probably heard of: Pacino, De Niro, Streep, Sam Rockwell, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Sidney Lumet, uh, Brett Ratner, sure why not) that go into what this man was like as they knew him from being in person (Streep was married to him for a brief time, she's actually his widow) and from simply watching the Godfather parts 1 and 2 five hundred times.But, man, what an actor and what a career! Sometimes in those luckiest windows of time and in opportunity (don't forget the luck part of it), quality trumps quantity, and in this case Cazale had one of the major careers in 70's American cinema. It must be akin to one of those early rock and rollers from the 50's (Buddy Holly or the Big Bopper or whoever) who you know when listening to their music it's so pure and raw and emotional and that so many others have borrowed from them, and it's a true tragedy from the abyss of nothingness that they're taken so young.Good stuff though, again, I wish it was a little longer, like even a short feature instead of this long-short film stuff. But some wonderful breakdowns of these scenes he had as Fredo and the long-haired WTF in Dog Day Afternoon and even the sadness he brought to his small role in The Conversation. A lot of time actors try to go big or go home, or take on roles that will show off what they can DO on CAMERA. Cazale never did that, and one wonders this man in dramas in the 80's and 90's and beyond.

Unfortunately this one here was fairly short just like Cazale's life. Actually, in terms of minutes, it's almost than the age that he had in years when he succumbed to his cancer. The director is Richard Shepard and he won an Emmy and DGA award for directing the pilot episode of "Ugly Betty". Right now, he is mostly working on "Girls". So with female central characters in these two, this documentary is exactly the opposite. It tells us about the great late actor John Cazale, who would have turned 80 this year. I like that there is no real narration in this documentary, but that we get basically all the information from interviewees. And there is a healthy mix too. Some of these are people who worked with Cazale in his films, such as De Niro, Pacino, Hackman, Coppola... and of course Meryl Streep who was his girlfriend back in the 1970s. Others are actors who did not, but who were greatly inspired by his talent, such as Steve Buscemi, who always reminded me a bit of Cazale, and Sam Rockwell. Some people say Cazale has the most perfect body of work in film history and that's certainly a possibility. There is no real flaw in everything he acted. Another thing that is very good in this documentary is that it is not a problem if you haven't seen all his classics. There are no real spoilers in here, so you can enjoy this documentary nonetheless. And I hope you will enjoy it was much as I did. Highly recommended.

This is a must-see for any fan of 70s movies, or anyone who, like me, grew up in 70s and saw Cazale's films when they first opened. The walk down memory lane provided by the footage of the Godfather films, The Conversation, Dog Day Afternoon and Deer Hunter alone make it worthwhile. But the real treasure, of course, is the chance to revisit Cazale's performances. It sounds clichéd, but there really is no actor like him. It's also marvelous to see the host of the mega-talented actors and directors, including every luminary he worked with, participate & pay tribute to this singular talent. It's a shame there isn't more footage of him, and that he apparently never did a recorded interview. We only see Cazale through the lens of his characters - we never get to see him as just himself.

In the days before the internet a popular question to film magazines was: 'Whatever happened to John Cazale?'People who first saw him in The Godfather films and then saw him pop up in Dog Day Afternoon, The Conversation and The Deer Hunter were flummoxed that this brilliant, distinctive looking actor came out from nowhere, appeared in the great films of the 1970s and promptly disappeared.If John Cazale were still alive now he would be a celebrated actor and likely to have Oscar and Tony awards under his belt.Unfortunately Cazale died of cancer in 1978. He left a legacy in movie history of five performances in five films that were all nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, three of them actually winning the Best Picture Oscar.Actors, friends, family, collaborators discuss John Cazale, his life on screen and stage where he was also a celebrated performer. For the first time you get to find out a little more of John Cazale the man and performer. Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and for his first appearance on screen in several years, Gene Hackman all reminiscence about him.