For a long time John Cassavetes will be known as an actor, but it is obviously the filmmaker that comes across in this portrait. We meet him when he had already made three films: Shadows, an independent film made in New York, Too Late Blues and A Child Is Waiting, two Hollywood experiences that he judged disastrous. He was finishing shooting Faces, which took three years to edit. This film was the real start of the filmmaker we are presenting. Three years later Faces was finished, and John Cassavetes stayed in Paris on his way to the Venice Film Festival. He is no longer the same man, but a mature man who stops to reflect and glean the lessons from his experience. A man who talks about America, the making of Shadows – an adolescent film of hope – and Faces, a mature film of disenchantment.

André S. Labarthe