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Filmmaking was always personal. Shadows was a reflection on the uncertainties of his own youth; Faces and Husbands were ways of working through questions about middle age. Almost everything Richard and Freddie say and do is anchored in Cassavetes’ real-life relationship with Fred Draper, whom he kn…

The most interesting acting Cassavetes did during this entire period (and arguably one of the two or three most interesting performances he ever turned in in anyone else’s work) was in a now-forgotten piece: a one-act play by Charles Cohen titled Flip Side, taped in Toronto on 28 September 1963 by …

You have to fight every day to stop censoring yourself. And you never have anyone else to blame when you do. What happens to artists is that it’s not that somebody’s standing in their way, it’s that their own selves are standing in their way. There is a compromise made if you work on a commercial f…

Look, I admit it. I was difficult. I love to be liked, but I’ll fight anybody who tries to stop me from doing what I want to do. I’m a bigmouth. A troublemaker. Temperamental. I only care about people who care about their work. Sure, Kramer and I are now enemies. But it was good for my self-respect…

If a man gets paid, say, $300,000 for directing a picture, it is hard for him not to compromise. When you work in a major studio, when the studio owns the story, you have to be very clear in your own mind why you are there. If you are there primarily to make money, then compromise is all right, in …