George Kouvaros,
Where Does it Happen? John Cassavetes and Cinema at the Breaking Point.
Minneapolis/London: University of Minnesota Press, 2004.
ISBN: 0 8166 4330 X
264 pp
US $18.95 (pb)
(Review copy supplied by University of Minnesota Press)
Although recent writing on Cassavetes has pointed out that the director was not as critically neglected as has been suggested by his champions such as Ray Carney, it seems nevertheless true that he was also never fully embraced by film theorists in the English speaking world.
His work seemed to lend itself to a different discursive space – one where biographical detail and authorial intention was afforded primacy over broader aesthetic, social or institutional influences. That Cassavetes traversed the orbits of mainstream Hollywood and independent cinema also led to the perception that as a filmmaker he was sui generis and difficult to place and as such his films were in a sense bracketed off from the more influential currents of film theory.
The state of Cassavetes scholarship can be considered to be quite healthy these days and a recent Australian contribution, George Kouvaros’s Where Does it Happen? John Cassavetes and Cinema at the Breaking Point takes as a point of departure, connections previously at best only hinted at but never fully explored at book length, between Cassavetes work and central debates within film theory and history.
Chapter One uses Shadows (US, 1959) to situate Cassavetes’ work within a number of different theoretical and aesthetic frameworks through which his films can be understood. Kouvaros also positions the films within the context of the historical and ideological shifts in film theory. This is particularly useful as it offers an analysis that is outside the films and the iconic persona of Cassavetes himself, to explain their critical reception and evolving status.
The possibility that the answer might lie in the nature of the discourse itself and not simply the qualities inherent in the films also acknowledges that film theory and criticism have a life of their own; they are not static but possess a mutability which is sensitive to pressures. This might seem self-evident, however the way in which these currents have played out in relation to Cassavetes’ work opens up both the films and film theory to broader terms of enquiry. It poses the question of what the limits of the discipline might be when viewed in relation to unruly texts which pose a challenge to it.
Chapter Two contains perhaps the most compelling example of the links between Cassavetes’ work and other formally and ideologically motivated forms of cinema. Focusing on Faces (US, 1968),Kouvaros places Cassavetes approach within the context of Direct Cinema. This allows for an understanding of the breadth and nature of the director’s influences, as well as the unexpected ways in which his methods experimented with narrative cinema expectations.
Chapter Three returns to the familiar territory of Cassavetes and performance, however here Kouvaros links the performative aspects of Cassavetes films to what could be broadly termed theoretical explorations of excess. In doing so he also places the films in relation to oppositional modes of cinematic practice such as feminist filmmaking which also extend the boundaries of cinematic performance.
Chapter Four returns to the literal space of performance, the theatre, with readings of Killing of a Chinese Bookie (US, 1976) and Opening Night (US, 1977) and explores the configurations of time and space deployed within this setting.
The final chapter engages with the central role of alcohol, comedy and the role of the cinematic body in Cassavetes films.
Kouvaros states that his aim is to relocate Cassavetes to the centre of the key critical debates he has hitherto been at the margins of. In this book he untethers Cassavetes work solely from the ambit of the directors own stated intentions and biography and argues persuasively for its position within the theoretical project of formal investigation and play, one which exists between classical Hollywood narrative cinema and ‘something other’ (38). That Cassavetes viewed his work as an experiment is clear – speaking of Shadows he stated “It was an experiment all the way, and our main objective in making it was just to learn” (5). For Kouvarous the possibilities of this endeavour extend beyond the conscious actorly, performative experiment it is generally understood to be, to one which is also profoundly connected to other influential explorations of the end point or new beginnings of aesthetic practice.
Needeya Islam.
Sydney, Australia.
Created on: Monday, 6 December 2004 | Last Updated: 6-Dec-04