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Nayman reviews Accidental Genius: How John Cassavetes Invented the American Independent Film by Marshall Fine.
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Accidental Genius: How John Cassavetes Invented the American Independent Film by Marshall Fine Miramax Books, $27.95
Restating the case for Cassavetes, celebrating global difference, and Hollywood's elder statesmen speak
To write with unchecked admiration is a dangerous gambit: the gulf between biography and hagiography is treacherously narrow. Marshall Fine's Accidental Genius, a life-and-times account of the late American independent filmmaker and actor John Cassavetes, is a book that starts in the hole and slowly climbs its way out.
At first it feels as if it's going to be tough slogging. The early chapters are structured as cliffhangers, and the young Cassavetes keeps coming out on top, belting out nothing's-gonna-stop-me-now speeches to his college pals and devising elaborate pranks to rankle the stuffed shirts at the Actors Studio in New York. (Your imagination supplies Lee Strasberg's miffed reaction shot.) The tone in these passages is so heroic that you can make out distant trumpets. Perhaps Gena Rowlands really did fancy her future husband a genius after their second date, but Fine's summation of her love-struck reaction reads as mawkish and contrived.
Things improve, however, as the author begins to analyze Cassavetes' work. Fine's observations about such seminal efforts as Shadows (59) and Husbands (70) go well beyond appreciation: he's able to pinpoint key moments within the films-like Tony Ray's awkward, silent rejection of Leila Goldoni in Shadows-and discuss them in both a historical and an aesthetic context. And while the John-and-Gena anecdotes become repetitive as we move through the glory period of the Seventies (they snipe, they cling, they habitually reinvent the diary-of-a-mad-hausfrau subgenre), we do get a riotous blow-by-blow of Dick Cavett getting punk'd on his talk show by Cassavetes, Peter FaIk, and Ben Gazzara.
Finally, the argument that's being advanced in Accidental Genius was settled a long time ago: no one is going to question Cassavetes' contributions to American independent film or quibble with his place in the DIY canon. Fine doesn't take up any new positions, but his impressively researched and ultimately persuasive book does well by its reiterations.-Adam Nayman
Copyright Film Society of Lincoln Center Mar/Apr 2006