John. Casaveti is a pioneer of independent cinema in the United States, and he is famous for his writing, directing, and acting triathlon films. However, his work was grossly underrated due to its high degree of non-mainstream and personalization, and for a long time it was only circulated in film schools and independent film fans.
Film is a highly divided technical work, and people who can write and direct a hand are usually the darlings of the critics. For example Woody. Allen, before the scandal of sexually assaulting adopted daughters broke out, was the golden boy of American independent films. In contrast, Casaveti has surpassed Woody. Alan's talent, no Woody. Allen's liking was repeatedly snubbed by film critics in his time.
John. Casaveti first debuted as an actor, inspired by the Russian theater master Stanislavsky, who opened a workshop on Methodist acting in New York in the 1950s. An impromptu acting training inspired him to "make his own film", he raised funds from friends, worked out the script with the workshop students, and made "Shadow", which won the jury prize at the Venice Film Festival. As everyone knows, this shot, with the difficult filming mode of the workshop, has pushed open the door of American independent films.
As a director, Casaveti valued team camaraderie and sat on an equal footing with the actors, so he gathered a team of die-hards. As an actor in other people's films, he has a lot of opinions and loves to raise the bar with the director. In 1968, while filming Rosemary's Baby, he was working with Roman. Poles genetically disagreed, and the two fell out. At that time, Polanski was the most powerful director in Hollywood, and his status was like that of Spielberg now, and offending him was equivalent to not mixing in the industry. Polanski hated the actor for pointing fingers at his approach to directing, criticizing Kasavic as "what kind of director?" Just made a few movies, anyone can make a movie like Shadow with a camera! ”
John. Casaveti didn't dump any of this at all, and he thought that since he was not willing to compromise, he would later devote himself more to making his own films. In fact, the production assistant of Casaveti's second film "The Face" was Spielberg, who was not unknown at the time, and he learned a lot of filmmaking from the experience of working with Kasavich, and still regards Casavetti as a genius.
From 1970 to 1980 it was John F. Kennedy. During Cassaveti's golden age, he gradually established his own signature, that is, "improvisation". In the history of film, it is very rare for directors to have an immediate impact on a large number of improvisations, and the film authors we know, looking around, are not resistant to improvisation, Hitchcock, Kubrick, Bergman, Akira Kurosawa... etc., are all studio tyrants who oppose the provision of improvisation space for actors, and they are not willing to add to the change of filming, weakening the absolute dominance of creation, this difference just highlights the uniqueness of Casavetti.
"Improvisation" as an element of the film, in short, it carries a playful attitude of "try it, wait, maybe strange chemical effects will happen next", and the creator can enjoy the "out of tune" or "unexpected" results. Improvisation emphasizes the achievement of a natural and real dramatic effect through a state of mental relaxation.
In Casaveti's films, eclectic and flexible brushstrokes can be seen everywhere, the actors do not know whether they are acting or presenting their true colors, the crazy emotions and the smell of alcohol are overflowing, but behind the dizzy and chaotic, they always see the pearls. In fact, Most of Casavetti's scripts are co-working with the actors during rehearsals, setting the tone of dialogue and positioning, and then pulling to the scene for shooting, and sometimes modifying on the spot. It turned out that the cunning Casavitti always knew what he wanted.
Below, four of his later classics are recommended:
"Premiere Night"
Casaveti is recognized as a masterpiece. A large-scale drama performance that is about to be released, the lead actress fell into serious self-doubt because of the accidental death of a fan, she could only drink every day, anesthetize her life, the rehearsal was missing, watching the premiere night slowly approaching, the completion of the whole play was still confused, and the troupe was facing an unprecedented crisis of opening the skylight.
Actress Gina. Rowlands' performance in the film is natural and vivid, and he exudes the charm of the character. She has been with Casaveti in love and career since she was young, and is the muse of Casavetti's works. The last part of the movie is full of excellent tacit understanding and full of improvisational energy, which can be called the classic teaching material of Chinese drama.
Another classic clip is when Gina. Rolands drunkenly walked from the backstage to the stage with a crooked step, and an old employee looked at her back with admiration and slowly spat out a sentence: "I have never seen anyone so drunk, and there is a way to stand on stage and perform." ”
Murder of the Underground Boss
The film is set against the backdrop of a strip bar in Las Vegas. The barrunner, a gambler who returned from the Korean War, employs a group of men and women who live on the edge of the bottom and stage absurd air shows to eat at night. Later, he was designed by gang members to owe a huge sum of money, who violently coerced him to assassinate the Chinese boss of another gang to offset gambling debts.
The highlight of the film shines on the male protagonist Bengozana, who lives with the marginalized people, and the light of energy flows through the small theater of the dance hall. In particular, there is a scene where he wakes up during the day and walks to the coffee shop on the corner, where a young waitress offers to apply for a dancing job, and then the two walk back to a dark bar. He turned on the pink magnesium lamp, soft music played in the room, poured himself a glass of whiskey, and then pulled a wooden chair and sat under the stage. The girl who was ready on the stage began to swing shyly, he looked at the girl, the indescribable heart marks slowly calmed down, and the expression at that moment should be the most profound presentation of the complex heart of a middle-aged man in the history of the film.
"Husband Jun"
Casaveti's version of The Hangover, the alcoholic's "On the Road". In the film, the three men are drunk from the beginning to the end, pretending to leave home for a legitimate reason to drink wildly, which is definitely a strange piece of drinking.
One of the most classic scenes is that these three men found more than a dozen elderly uncles and aunts in the restaurant bar, and kept talking, pouring wine, singing, and singing themselves to force the old man to sing, and this picture alone was ten minutes long, completely inexplicable. Not to mention the three of them' next wandering and debauched journey.
"The Torrent of Love"
This is Casaveti's last feature film. In real life, because of long-term alcoholism, Casavitti died of cirrhosis before the age of sixty, and this film can be said to be a review of his life's mood. In the film, the protagonist is closed at home and does not want to go out, and when he wakes up leisurely during the day, he begins to drink bitterly, and at night he looks for a female companion to warm up, and the family contract has no meaning to him. Once in a while, when I found that my son had grown up, I began to guide him to taste wine, drinking and sighing: "I only like two kinds of people in the world, one is an old man, the other is a child, do you know why?" Because they want nothing else. ”
Five years before Casaveti's death, creation was largely shelved. He danced with alcohol and smoke all his life and was reluctant to deal with insiders. In his posthumous work "The Torrent of Love", he plays a genius writer with insight into the nature of life, who is arrogant and willful, never asking to be understood, only to pin his feelings on the work, so as to show the direction of the heart.
The words and phrases that surround the passages in his films lie in the darkness and wait for the lonely guests who understand the heart.
Taiwan Amao | Selection Guide
The Husband, 1970
Murder of the Underground Boss, 1976
The Night of the Premiere, 1977
The Torrent of Love, 1984