John Cassavetes
FilmmakerKnown for: Shadows (1959), A Woman Under the Influence (1974)
John Cassavetes financed his films by acting in studio productions, using the money to fund personal works made with collaborators over extended periods. Shadows (1959) — improvised with non-professional actors and shot on 16mm — is considered a founding document of the American independent cinema tradition. He directed eleven features, all characterized by an extreme intimacy with performance developed through lengthy rehearsal and improvisation.
Gear & Materials(1)
Bolex
The Bolex H16 is a spring-wound 16mm film camera first produced in the 1930s and manufactured in Sainte-Croix, Switzerland for decades. Its mechanical simplicity, reliability, and optical quality made it the instrument of choice for avant-garde and experimental filmmakers. Jonas Mekas used one for decades of diary films; Stan Brakhage made most of his works with one.
“Cassavetes shot Shadows (1959) on 16mm film with a Bolex camera, a choice driven by budget and the freedom of handheld operation; documented in Ray Carney's study Cassavetes on Cassavetes (2001) and in retrospective accounts of the production.”
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