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Shadows 11 October 04

Section: article

Categories: Film / in-a-cinema

This Cassavetes first film doesn’t work at all, but it has a very raw, rich, confused energy—an energy that becomes more coherent in his later film, A Woman Under the Influence. Shadows really does have a certain beauty to it, with all of its coarsely lit, shaky, sometimes out-of-focus shots. And it does try to deal with the subject of interracial relationships. At the end, a title states that the film was all improvised; but in fact he reworked and re-shot much of the film two years after the first improvised effort. One strong element throughout much of the film is the score by Charlie Mingus, which was largely why I went to see it. This is part of a jazz series this month at the Filmmuseum: films either about jazz culture, like this one, or with jazz soundtracks like Les Liaisons dangereuses.

Title: Shadows

Written and directed by: John Cassavetes

With: Ben Carruthers, Lelia Goldoni, Hugh Hurd and Anthony Ray

Year: 1959

Cinema: Deutsches Filmmuseum, Frankfurt

  • Title: Shadows