When, in 1957, American actor John Cassavetes got the idea for his debut feature, Shadows, he conceived of an entirely improvised piece made quickly using actors from his acting workshop and money hawked from a few friends. Despite not running exactly to plan, the end result is considered to be the birth of American independent cinema.
Screening as the first film in Close Up’s June retrospective of Cassavetes work, Shadows focuses on the self-destructive lives of three African American siblings living in New York. There is Ben (Ben Caruthers) an aimless Beatnik youth who spends his time drinking, failing to score women and fighting. Older brother Hugh (Hugh Hurd), a struggling jazz singer who is blind to his own mediocrity, and along with his friend and manager Rupert, is trapped in a dangerous rut, which they will never escape until they admit their individual and collective shortcomings. Finally there is Lelia (Lelia Goldoni), who spends her time being courted by the art scene and loses her virginity to white writer Tony, who does not realise she is black until later: a revelation that exposes instinctive racist tendencies in him and provides the emotional crux of the piece. African American failures were not the preserve of cinema at that time. Indeed, America was only interested in Sidney Poitier’s black white men: the success stories to put it bluntly. So, Cassavetes was exploring virgin territory.
However, it was the way in which he did this that was truly groundbreaking. Devoid of a conventional plot or neat story arc, his concern is not for getting the technically perfect or most beautiful shot. Instead he is concerned with conveying the human element and capturing authenticity, which he largely does. Shot almost entirely on hand-held camera, so much of the action is conveyed in long, lingering close-ups, as Cassavetes is interested in the kind of action that is within people and these shots help convey an emotional honesty. He uses snapshots of the characters’ lives to create a far greater whole.
In this way, Shadows is very much a Beat film, as that movement was determined to betray convention and thus reveal truth. The film ends with a claim that it was all improvised. Famously though, this has been exposed as a lie. Shot in ’57, it took two years to hit the cinemas. During that time Cassavetes filmed most of it again, with a script he wrote himself. Most of the improvised scenes that remain are wordless remnants from the first attempt. Just like Jack Kerouac’s editing and re-writing of his stream-of-consciousness for On The Road’s publication, Cassavetes cannot escape the paradox inherent to much of Beat art. Its claims to truth are often compromised by the artifice of the medium that conveys it.
Also, the romanticised nature of the Beatnik lifestyle is somewhat laid bare by Cassavetes, as Ben admits he does not know why he does what he does. With this admission the Beatnik becomes less about being true to oneself and more about being unsure what to do with oneself.
Despite the serious themes and aims of the film, Shadows is also a very amusing film. Its minimalist situation humour has clearly influenced the early films of Jim Jarmusch and when Lelia goes to a literary party, the seeds of Woody Allen’s humour are visible. Yet for all its positives, it should be regarded as an important film rather than a great one.
