Last week, the Shanghai International Film Festival announced the fourth film master of this year's "Tribute to the Master" section, John Casavetti, although this American film master has a profound influence on directors such as Martin Scorsese and Wong Kar-wai, it is relatively unfamiliar to domestic audiences. The seven films screened in this Casavetti retrospective basically cover his important works at each stage of creation, and the audience can see his style establishment and transformation at once, including his stunning debut and real posthumous works.
John Cassavetti and wife Gina Rowlands
shadow
Shadows
- 1958 -
Casaveti made his directorial debut. Deeply influenced by Italian neorealism, the film tells the story of three brothers and sisters of a black ethnic family who face their career, love and life difficulties, reflecting the lives of the underclass in New York. The film's famous long shots and unprecedented real sound effects and other breakthrough achievements in film history are due to the simplicity and accident of production: because they cannot pay the outdoor shooting permit fee, they have to carry out "illegal shooting", in order to avoid patrolling, almost all outdoor scenes are under the sentry of friends, using "guerrilla-style" operation methods to sneak in open-air environments such as streets and windows. After the first version of the film was filmed, it was almost completely abandoned due to technical problems, and the following year, after summarizing the lessons learned, the second version was made with the same actors to restart the stove, which is the popular version that was awarded the grand prize by the parallel section of the Venice Film Festival.
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Even if there is no money, the camera cannot be stopped
face
Faces
- 1968 -
Casaveti's landmark work. Casaveti, despite opposition, paid $220,000 out of his own pocket and spent four years with a volunteer team to complete the production. He puts his life inspiration into the film, and each male character has his own shadow. The film spies on the social pathologies of the cold marriage of the middle class in the United States by telling the story of a middle-class couple who both cheated on each other due to family conflicts. The film was shot at night at the home of Casaveti and his mother-in-law with two 16mm cameras, with a total of 115 hours of footage, and the team used their spare time to cut out 130 minutes of finished film. During the period also encountered audio track failures, limited funds they spent two months, hard frame by frame to manually repair the audio track to complete. Spielberg, then 18, worked as Casaveti's personal assistant for three days during filming. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Screenplay, and won two awards at the Venice Film Festival, including Best Actor.
Low-cost production of big winners
husband
Husbands
- 1970 -
The film is an "accessory to The Face", which was conceived when Casaveti was raising funds for the filming of The Face. Casaveti prepared more than 400 pages of notes for the pre-film, spent a year supplementing the story, revising no less than five versions of the draft, and working with the two lead actors, Peter Fark and Ben Gozzana, to complete the script in a collective discussion. The film is narrated in a two-part narrative style, telling the story of three husbands who, due to the sudden death of their partners, are determined to temporarily abandon their wives and children and take a short trip together. His opposition to a detailed plan in which the actors improvise to express real emotions in a given story outline makes the film a full expression of Casavetti's collective creative spirit. The film was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay for its unique screenwriting approach of semi-documentary and semi-fiction.
Trip hangover notes
Affected woman
A Woman Under the Influence
- 1974 -
Casaveti and his wife's highest achievement work. The film was tailor-made by Casavetti for his wife, Gina Rolands, for which both the couple were nominated for Oscars (Best Director and Best Actress). The film tells the story of a mentally ill mother who cannot handle the social interpersonal relationships of the family, and her husband endures the pain of sending her to a mental hospital for treatment. Under the pressure of Casaveti, Rowlands shows the pain of contemporary American women in distress with a contrasting performance. Casaveti also mortgaged the house for the filming of the film, invited friends and family to star together, and spent more than a year to complete post-production. With no release, Casaveti lobbied for a year before it was finally released in commercial theaters.
Premiere night
Opening Night
- 1977 -
Casaveti's most proud personal work. Inspired by Comet Beauty (1950) and A Star Is Born (1954), the film was co-written and performed by Casavetti and Rolands in a dispute, and is a portrayal of their real-life experiences. The film pours out Rowlands' understanding of acting, in a play-within-a-play and dual personality way, telling the story of a middle-aged actress who is on the verge of collapse by witnessing the scene of a fan's car accident. Casaveti experienced the biggest challenge and torture of his filming career, lacking funds to support the huge cast and crew, and had to go around to earn remuneration and supplement production. The film is a mixture of thriller and surrealism, changing Casavetti's old documentary style, and Rolands won the Berlin Film Festival Silver Bear Award for Best Actress for her exquisite acting skills.
The surreal experience of a women's midlife crisis
Female Grely
Gloria
- 1980 -
Casaveti's most commercially successful work. With a budget of $4 million, Cassavetti has ever had the highest production cost and most mature production team. With a shooting period of two and a half months, Casavetti uses the slum neighborhood of New York as a backdrop, through the road film structure, to tell the story of Glory who is entrusted by the dying couple to escape from the mafia with their child Phil. This film opens up a new model of gangster genre film theme and is the inspiration for "This Killer Is Not Too Cold". Gloria, played by Lolands, has become a classic female figure on the screen, and Lin Qingxia's character modeling in "Chongqing Forest" directly pays tribute to her. The film won the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival, and Rowlands was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for the second time for this film.
Casaveti's innovative gangster film
The torrent of love
Love Streams
- 1984 -
Casaveti's real posthumous work. Adapted from Canadian writer Ted Alan's screenplay I've Seen You Cut Lemons, the film tells the story of a pair of siblings in their own family who support each other for a while. This film can be regarded as The Autobiography of Casaveti, whose grief for the death of his parents pervades the film and devotes unprecedented poetry and dreams to it. Casavetti was an alcoholic during filming, knowing that his time was short, and his lonely one-man show at the end of the film seemed to be saying goodbye to life, the audience and art in advance, weaving his own "The Tempest", and contributing one of the most classic and moving acting skills to film history. The film won the Golden Bear for Best Film at the Berlin International Film Festival and the Fabizi Critics Award.
Casaveti's real posthumous work
Casaveti's films always incorporate his own view of life, and his films present the most authentic side of life. Watching his movies, you will feel the cramped oppression wrapped in the whirlpool of life, and the painful stirring of love. He once said: "I believe many people mistakenly think that life is sweet. Life is not actually sweet, it is hard, it is irritating. "I hope that the audience can have a new understanding of the film and life through this Casaveti retrospective exhibition."
Stay tuned to us and get the blockbuster list of the 22nd Shanghai International Film Festival for the first time.
Note: In case of change in the film schedule, the actual schedule shall prevail.
The 22nd Shanghai International Film Festival film list summary
Tribute to the Master 丨 Angelopoulos
Broadcast | Rebuild | Hunter | Beekeeper | Scenery in the fog | Crying Prairie | The dust of time
Tribute to the Master| Bresson
Death Row Jailbreak 丨 Pickpocket 丨 Gentle Woman 丨 Dreamer Four Nights 丨 Samurai Lan Shino 丨 Money
Diary of a Village Priest | The Judgment of Joan of Arc | Donkey Batsa | Mushet
Tribute to the Master 丨 Frederick Wiseman
Monrovia in Indiana 丨Titica Disorder Chronicle 丨 In Berkeley 丨 National Gallery丨 Dance: Ballet at the Paris Opera
Tribute to the Master 丨 Casaveti
Shadow 丨 Face 丨 Husband Jun 丨 Affected Woman 丨 Premiere Night 丨 Female Gloria 丨 Love Torrent
SIFF classic 丨 film history recommended
Pandora's Box
SIFF animation 丨 Akira