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Book Cover
Book
Author Carney, Raymond.

Title The films of John Cassavetes : pragmatism, modernism, and the movies / Ray Carney ; photographs by Sam Shaw and Larry Shaw
Published Cambridge [England] ; New York, NY, USA : Cambridge University Press, 1994

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Location Call no. Vol. Availability
 MELB  791.43028092 Cassav Car/Foj  AVAILABLE
Description x, 322 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm
Series Cambridge film classics.
Contents Machine derived contents note: Acknowledgments -- Introduction: thinking in space, time and the body -- 1. Selves in the making (Shadows) -- 2. Noncontemplative art (Faces) -- 3. Beating the system (Minnie and Moskowitz) -- 4. An artist of the ordinary (A Woman Under the Influence) -- 5. The path of greatest resistance (The Killing of a Chinese Bookie) -- 6. Compositions and decompositions (Love Streams) -- Epilogue: The religion of doing -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Filmography -- Index
Summary Cassavetes' films are provocatively linked to the philosophical writing of Ralph Waldo Emerson, William James, and John Dewey both as an illustration of the artistic consequences of a pragmatic aesthetic and as an example of the challenges and rewards of a life lived pragmatically. Cassavetes' work is shown to reveal stimulating new ways of knowing, feeling, and being in the world
This iconoclastic, interdisciplinary study challenges many accepted notions in film history and aesthetics. Ray Carney argues that Cassavetes' films participate in a previously unrecognized form of pragmatic American modernism that, in its ebullient affirmation of life, not only goes against the world-weariness and despair of many twentieth-century works of art, but also places his work at odds with the assumptions and methods of most contemporary film criticism
Through words and pictures, Cassavetes is shown to have been a deeply thoughtful and self-aware artist and a profound commentator on the American experience
With the help of almost fifty previously unpublished photographs from the private collections of Sam Shaw and Larry Shaw, and excerpts from interviews with the filmmaker and many of his closest friends, the reader is taken behind the scenes to watch the maverick independent at work: writing his scripts, rehearsing his actors, blocking their movements, shooting his scenes, and editing them
The Films of John Cassavetes tells the inside story of the making of six of Cassavetes' most important works: Shadows, Faces, Minnie and Moskowitz, A Woman Under the Influence, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, and Love Streams
Analysis Cinema Films (Motion pictures) Directing
United States
Notes Filmography: p. 313-315
Includes bibliographical references (p. 308-311)
Bibliography Filmography: pages 313-315
Includes bibliographical references (pages 308-311)
Subject Cassavetes, John, 1929-1989 -- Criticism and interpretation.
Motion picture producers and directors.
LC no. 93004474
ISBN 0521381193 (hardback)
0521388155 (paperback)