Watch Shadows For Free

The Worst Film Ever

Pretty Good

Admirable film.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

The godfather of independent cinema and one of the titans of forwarding film as a means of artistic expression, John Cassavetes is a filmmaker, I'm sorry to say, I'm just now diving into. I have been intrigued by the way in which Cassavetes went about his art, acting in films as a means to finance his own and remain independent from the studio system and every creative restriction that brings. Working as few filmmakers have the chance to, Cassavetes was able to take as long as he wanted with each of his films, shooting, editing, and reshooting until he was fully satisfied with the final product. I suppose being involved continuously in another film project coupled with the intimidation to begin watching his work; it's taken me much longer embark on a journey through Cassavetes filmography than I would have liked. In October of last year, I unreservedly fell in love with Brain De Palma's 1978 film THE FURY, and as odd as that bridge is, that film is what pushed me into seeing, at long last, the work made by Cassavetes. The gracefully imperfect feature film debut of Cassavetes' SHADOWS was, apparently, filmed twice. A nearly extinct version screened in 1957 was refilmed and replaced with the 1959 version which I watched. Completed with a minuscule budget using a crew of novice actors Cassavetes was so displeased with the audience reaction to the initial screening that he filmed the second version known today. A title card at the close of the film reveals that SHADOWS was an experiment in improvisation. The story of a family of musicians involved in the beat scene in Manhattan is told lyrically against a remarkable jazz score, flowing between the three family members brilliantly. Benny (Ben Carruthers) and Hugh (Hugh Hurd) vary in their in their commitment to their music and their belief that they can make it on their musical talents, but not in their love and protective instincts of their sister Lelia. Lelia (Lelia Goldoni) is also going through the motions of life until she meets Tony (Anthony Ray) and allows herself to believe this might be the love of her life. The prospect of beginning an inter-racial relationship scares Tony away, however, and her brothers must heal the hurt in Leila's heart. Filmed in beat to the music it is scored with; SHADOWS moves between each character in the film in Capriccio, giving the impression that each person is independent of the other, only for the ending to reveal that each is in sync with the other. Each principal has their individual motivation despite working as a unit. Leila seeks love, Benny is searching for purpose, and Hugh is pursuing confidence. Their family bond is strong, yet Cassavetes brilliantly illustrates the agency of each and their separate stories that beg to be told. The improvisational style and the nonprofessional actors lend to the realism and struggle of both racism and what it means to chase a dream. I was reminded throughout the film, especially during its opening, of Louis Malle's heavily jazz-inspired 1958 feature, ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS. The black and white photography of the light-drenched city streets with the dazzling jazz score and frenetic energy of a young filmmaker show just how radiant the debuts of two very different directors can be. Shadows may not have hit every note, but it is a film that acts as a sublime preview of the brilliance that Cassavetes' capability.

Shadows is not a common movie, it does not follows any regular pattern, just like its protagonists: amateur heroes of the Beat Generation in a clearly supposed realistic drama, therefore a social story. This film claims a literary and artistic attitude. It goes one step ahead in narrative release as if was a New Yorker-Nouvelle Vague film. It shares a nervous narration with The Beat Generation literature. Also its music, its rhythm, its aesthetics and its poetic-way. The genuine dialogues, the vague plans, the non-specific and aimless situations and the spontaneity of its Cinematography, makes a fresh and original hipster gem. An art feast. The improvisation exercise, subtly controlled, makes Shadows a vivid and unpredictable movie. Pioneering, unique and essential.

When John Cassavetes walked on to the art scene in the late 1950's, he did something revolutionary to the art of cinema. He spent his private money, casted his personal friends, chose locations without permission, and made what was unquestionably the first independent film. To every filmmaker that led after him, they have to give him many thanks. To make extraordinary pieces of cinema out of nothing at all is something that has changed the entire process of making movies. No longer were the big Hollywood sets, and the big Hollywood executive approval needed. All you needed to do was to pick up a camera and tell a story. For Cassavetes, those stories focused on the fascinating relationships that we have with each other as friends, neighbors or lovers. How social dynamics shift and clash on occasion. It was a small undertaking, but what came of it was a genius, introspect of the American social experience within his films. His first film was "Shadows", and it got a lot of people talking. It was a poorly filmed, poorly audio recorded and uneven piece for viewers even at that time. But, has it reached its cult appreciation today? Well, not exactly. Quite frankly, I was lost, and genuinely uninterested in movie.To start off with, we already understand that Cassavetes hired his close friends to act in his first feature. Huh, really? He needed better friends. The three siblings seemed to have a shaggy, inner-city charm to them, but it's watered down by their delivery. The fact that the movie centered on their close-nit relationship, and their protective nature against the white guy that their sister Leila dates, wasn't as believable as it should've been. These three should've had a strong chemistry. They should have had a connection that made everyone believe that they were a true family, looking out for one another. Honestly, they couldn't be more apart. To say nothing of the screenplay, which encourages the use of improvisation to create character, and doesn't do a particularly good job at it. A lot of the dialogue just ends up being a lot of rambling conversation. Somehow, the main idea of the plot gets lost in the mix. To make the film so unpredictable, when it centers on race relations prior to the Civil Rights Movement, the potential power of the piece gets tarnished when the actors just decide to do what they want to do, and loosely follow the actual narrative. For example, when the two brothers are coaching each other on how to warm up the crowd at the Jazz concert, it was completely disconnecting. It didn't contribute anything profound or interesting to the story; it just seemed like a way to let the two actors riff for a little bit. The positives of the picture, though, are many. I really liked the jazzy soundtrack, as the film roars it's opening titles in the midst of a swinging nightclub. It gave the film an attitude. It also puts you right into the spirit of the urban beatnik scene of Manhattan in the late 1950's. A new, happening scene is being shown to us very realistically. That is credit to John Cassavetes's use of cinema verite to establish the environment. He does it especially well when one of the brothers is walking out the nightclub and into a 50's Time Square. It's a New York scene at it's finest. We see hundreds of working class citizens walking the streets, unknowingly being filmed, as well as the camera swooping past old-style theatre marquees and dining establishments. This is unique, because the rest of the film relies so heavily on theatrics and performance. I'd definitely consider this the marriage between Cinema Verite and the Hollywood SAG feature. It combines a strongly focused performance, while capturing the micro-actions and nuances of real urban life in the 50's. It's a balancing act that to Cassavetes's credit has done much better, later on in his career. In the end "Shadows" remains to be a unique and interesting experiment by John Cassavetes, but not one that I think has much longevity for younger audiences. It's not as fresh as it was in the late 50's, and not nearly as well made. We happen to be all sticklers for the best visuals and audio qualities, but we also like stories that capture our attention, and make us feel, and I think that this movie did neither.

In the end credits of "Shadows", after we read 'directed by John Cassavetes', some white letters on the screen can be seen: "The film you have just seen is improvised", they say. I am always pursuing the fact that words are so important in movies since filmmakers started using them because, basically, there's no film without a screenplay and many other reasons.Cassavetes pursued the same goal, and he believed in the freedom of words; "Shadows" is the perfect example. It's a film with no real main characters, with no real main plot lines; it's mostly people in different situations, talking. Yes, some of the situations are connected but Cassavetes, apparently always in a rush to get to the talking, uses a fast forward technique when the characters are going somewhere or escaping from someone and are not speaking.Appearances are everything in this movie. For example, there's a brilliant score, full of jazz influences and a lot of fantastic solos, and there's one character that says he's a jazz musician and plays the trumpet (Ben, all the characters' names are the same names the actors'). However, we never see him play the trumpet or jam with a band; he doesn't even talk about music and just wanders with his friends around the city. They do talk, a lot, and about anything that's in their minds; going from how intelligent each of them are to the hilarious analysis of a sculpture."Shadows" is funny in its intellectual references in parts like the one above, because these friends are not cultured. The only important female character in the film (Lelia), though, wants to be an intellectual. But again, she has one very interesting conversation with an older man at a party, about a book she's trying to write, and about how to confront reality; but nothing to do with being intellectual. At that same party, a woman is actually making an intellectual statement, full of complexity, and asks a guy beside her: "Do you agree?". "Yes", he says, but you can tell he doesn't know what she's talking about.Another character, a singer (Hugh), talks about his glory days in occasions, and we see him perform only once; but no references to the musical industry there. The focus of Cassavetes is the singer's relationship with his manager (Rupert), which most of the time involves chats about trivial stuff and not real 'musical' talks. So the trumpet player's important deal in "Shadows" is the time he spends with his friends; the intellectual wannabe girl's is her way of handling romantic relationships (one of the movie's strong points) and the singer's is the bond with his manager…Appearances.The reason why performances are not important in this movie is simple. Cassavetes needed people who could master improvisation, without mattering if they were actually good. I believe some of them aren't, but they surely know how to improvise in a scene, and you can notice how well they do it. "Shadows" is not about performers; it's about a way of making cinema, based on the magic of conversation; and there you could say that performances mean something.That's why in every conversation the camera is like a stalker, constantly on the eyes of every character, constantly looking for the expressions that come with natural speech. There's a scene where the trumpet player and his friends are trying to pick up some girls. They are three, so each of them sits beside one girl (the girls are three two) in three different tables. They all talk at the same time and the camera shoots through the table, and sometimes the friends look at each other, while they say whatever they are saying…It's natural.