Shadows

A part of this view­ing list: Cri­te­ri­on Col­lec­tion Spine #251: John Cas­savetes’ Shad­ows.

I said I was dread­ing the Cas­savetes films that I was going to have to watch as a part of my some­what man­ic deter­mi­na­tion to watch all of the films in the Cri­te­ri­on Col­lec­tion, so, of course, I ordered the two I’ve already seen from the library. I must admit that I don’t hate Shad­ows any­more, maybe in the 6 years since last I saw it, I’ve grown to under­stand it bet­ter, or I have more expe­ri­ence with which to rub it against; whichev­er, I now like this movie. I still ful­ly expect to still hate Faces when I watch it lat­er tonight though.

Shad­ows, like most of Cas­savetes films is an impro­vi­sa­tion. This is remark­able, espe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing the qual­i­ty of the per­for­mances. What is also remark­able was the price tag, a fea­ture length film made for $40,000, shot main­ly on loca­tion in Man­hat­tan, and some­thing that, by today’s stan­dards, seems much more real than real­i­ty tele­vi­sion. There isn’t tru­ly a plot, but there is a large event that the lives of the char­ac­ters orbit. The three main char­ac­ters are Ben, Lelia and Hugh, broth­ers and a sis­ter, black or mixed, lov­ing each oth­er though fight­ing often. Lelia and Ben could and can pass as white in most instances and for the view­er this is even more the case, since Cas­savetes’ choice of high con­trast cin­e­matog­ra­phy height­ens this appear­ance. Hugh’s back­ground is read­i­ly appar­ent how­ev­er. Ben is a jazz trum­pet play­er and Hugh a jazz singer.

Lelia is a doe-eyed beau­ty and all kinds of men are after her. She is deft­ly manip­u­lat­ed into los­ing her vir­gin­i­ty to this guy named Tony who, when he meets her dark-skinned broth­er and finds out she’s not Whitey, gets a lit­tle nau­se­at­ed and bails like a buck­et. Leli­a’s bereft and depressed and look­ing to avenge her­self on some dude as a result of the bad sex. Ben and Hugh, in addi­tion to doing their own thing, try to make her feel bet­ter.

I feel sor­ry for Hugh, he’s strug­gling as a singer but is the only one to bring in any mon­ey for the fam­i­ly. Ben­nie stays out all night and in all day, and his entire com­port­ment is a mix between mis­an­thropy and self-con­scious­ness. He nev­er plays his trum­pet on-screen, but he prob­a­bly bends that thing around his soul. Lelia spends all day hang­ing out with suit­ors or mop­ing. I’m kind of mak­ing her out to be a rather unsym­pa­thet­ic char­ac­ter, but she’s not. Her actions in film-time cen­ter around a trau­mat­ic expe­ri­ence, but it is obvi­ous from her man­ner of recov­ery that she is as strong as the bond between the fam­i­ly under­neath.

All of the char­ac­ters are fight­ing for some­thing. Lelia to regain her bal­ance after her inno­cence is destroyed, Ben­nie to come to grips with his place in a world he does­n’t like, and Hugh to reclaim a dream that has slipped from his grasp. Their strug­gles ring true, in dynam­ic coun­ter­point to the soul­less dis­cus­sions about Sartre and exis­ten­tial­ism that take place at a “lit­er­ary par­ty” in the first third of the film. In the end Cas­savetes has cre­at­ed a pol­y­se­mous snap­shot of spe­cif­ic peo­ple with spe­cif­ic trou­bles and made their lives applic­a­ble, under­stand­able and real to those that watch it. I fig­ure that’s a pret­ty good accom­plish­ment with only $40,000 to work with.

• Cri­te­ri­on Essay by Gary Gid­dins
• Excerpts from Cas­savetes on Cas­savetes on the mak­ing of Shad­ows.
• More Ray Car­ney on Cas­savetes and Shad­ows.
• Dan Schnei­der review of the film.
• A minute of footage from the begin­ning of the film on YouTube.