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If truth be told, it wasn’t entirely Polanski’s problem. Cassavetes was extremely difficult to direct. Everyone who worked with him testified to the fact, even directors who personally liked him and enjoyed his performances. Don Siegel, who was the closest of personal friends and almost always resp…

[...] Cassavetes had a falling out with him. Although at that point McEndree had devoted more than two years of his life to Faces, leaving his own family on a farm in Kansas while he worked on the film day and night, first in Los Angeles and subsequently in London (while Cassavetes acted in Rosemar…

The amateur has no preconceived notions of how it should be done; the professional has: he’s gone to school, learned techniques, knows what will work – his choices, his selections, are usually better. The amateur has no selection: it’s a very pure thing. So the professional gets a little jealous wh…

The truth of actors’ feelings was used to test the truth of the work. John Marley and Seymour Cassel, in effect, helped to ‘write’ Faces’ ending. As was usual, the final scenes were not worked out until the shoot was almost done. Cassavetes told Cassel he wanted him to ‘squeeze by Marley’ on the st…

People talk about improvisation as if I say, ‘Everybody does what they want,’ and I take a camera and a movie comes out. It doesn’t work that way. Anybody who knows anything about film knows that’s crazy. Unless you’re shooting a war maybe, and even there you have to look for action. There are no a…