Shadows (The Criterion Collection) [DVD]

If you love movies, you have to be curious. I'm well aware that it's not possible, even for the most resistant among us, to see, let's say, the whole american production of the year. So how could we find the time to admire the european, asiatic, african or south american movies presented each year ? Oh yes ! I forgot one thing. Most of us have a 50 hours working week to digest... How but how to make the right choice ? I'm pretty sure that everybody has his own answer to this question. Personally, I choose the movies I see by the name of the director. Because I'm convinced that the only movies that'll pass the test of time will be the movies shot by authors-directors.John Cassavetes was one of these authors-directors and his movies are already classics. A few weeks ago, Pioneer has presented SHADOWS, the first movie of John Cassavetes, in the DVD standard. Shot in black and white, with unknown actors, in the streets of New-York, SHADOWS is a magistral first movie. An improvisation if we have to believe the final credits.SHADOWS is the kind of movie which is going to make you love cinema once again and forget all the trashy images you have swallowed this year. It's not perfect but John Cassavetes was a movie lover and that's the only thing that matters. He was honest and he deserves respect.A scene access and a two pages essay as sole bonus features. Sound and images are below average but I don't care. I'm curious.A DVD dedicated to the independent ones.

I love cassevettes and usually am really into a directors early works but for some reason have never been able to get into this one. I understand the significance of the low budget approach as well as the on location filming, and the controversial for the time, racial themes . There is not much of any of the auterisitic signature techniques that i love from his later work like Opening Night or Woman Under the Influence.I do see Cassavettes as a true hustler of the movie business. I mean hustler in a good way in that he would do odd commercial projects to help push forward what he really wanted to do. The interesting thing about his actor projects is that as corny as some of them were they were usually very entertaining like the bad remake of The Killers.As for this early attempt as a director i am not a fan of it. I feel the same way about Too Late Blues. I feel he really found his voice with Husbands which was destroyed by Roger Ebert and has for some reason not received the recognition it deserves.The criterion box set that came out should of left out shadows and replaced it with Husbands.The main aspect of Shadows i dislike is the main character is unintentionally laughable because he looks just like late 1960's Lou Reed. I just cant take him seriously and he tries to act too tough and again it is just a bad performance. I am rarely negative in my reviews and i think Cassavettes is a true master. I do feel however that sometimes an artist just one day gets it and that with Cassavettes there is not much worth in the material that came before the enlightenment.

Great movie. I am thrilled to possess a signed copy by Lelia Goldoni....Cassavetes is like the finest...Faces remains one of my top five movies ever. Who's Afraid of Virginai Woolfe is number one, Midnight Cowboy is number two, Dr.Strangelove is clearly number three, The Best Years of Our Lives is number four, Faces is five, Catch 22 may be six, Meet John Doe number seven, Hud, What Ever Happened To Baby Jane, The Great Dictator, The Marx Brothers, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, Her Lover...one of the great pieces of art ever, Hard Days Night, Double Indemnity, Scarlet Street, The Lost Weekend, Days of Wine and Roses, The Apartment, Sleepers, To Kill a Mocking bird, Baby Doll...one of the greatest, The Last Picture Show, The Day The Earth Stood Still, In Cold Blood, Modern Times and City Lights, Petrified Forest, El Topo, To Sir With Love, The Servant, The Butcher Boy, Caberaet, With Nail and I, Magic Christian, Being There, Looking For Mr Goodbar, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Bonnie & Clyde, The Exorcist, Easy Rider, Dark Victory, Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte, Neighbors, The Jerk, The Onion Fields, All Quiet On the Western Front, Bar Fly was pretty good, Good bye Columbus, Breakfast of Champions is really a hidden gem, it is a bit crazy, The Killing Fields, The Ballade of the Green Berets is a brilliant piece of propaganda, Drug Store Cowboy, Woody Allen movies, same with Chaplin and W.C. Fields, Mae West, Marx Brothers was something that I really grew to appreciate as I got older, Blue Angel, Casablanca, It Happened One Night, Night of the Hunter...Robert Mitchem was truly disturbing in this movie, even stranger than Cape Fear, Mancherian Candidate...The Salvador Dali pieces were great, as was the rest of the movie, Kings Row, All the Kings Men, A Face In the Crowd and Network are two of the greatest, The Hairdressers Husband, Psycho...the best part is when she is in the motel room counting the money, The Birds, Streetcar Named Desire, Suddenly Last Summer, Some Like It Hot, Clockwork Orange, Lost Highways, Five Easy Pieces, Lolita, Attack of the 40 Foot Woman, Gummo is one of the best films in the past 25 years, it really captures the lower white economic class, Imitation of Life, Trainspotting, Boys In the Band.......The French films, Blue, Red and White, each being a specific movie, a number of French and Spanish movies, Conversation, this was a great Gene Hackman movie, The Snake Pit, The Misfits...a strange exit for three of the greatest, The Hill...this was a great great movie, Human Bondage, this was a great book as well as a great movie, Johnny Got His Gun was a much better book than it was a movie, but the movie is very commendable considering how difficult it must have been to translate into film...besides, Dalton Trumbo was a significant writer, as well as a real American hero (Blacklisted), A Tree Grew In Brooklyn, another important film/book, by Sherwood Anderson. There is a collection of art films from 1890 to 1940 that is great. One time in Germany I saw one of the strangest pieces of film sure to exist, it was about 90 minutes of early film clips, it was without a doubt one of the most disturbing things I have ever had the pleasure to view, glimpses of carnage, inhumanity, poverty, everyday life...it had a variety of tints to it, yellow and blue, electric rails that executed elephants, horses gasping their final breaths, humans staring into space awaiting certain death, babies smiling...it was some of the most perplexing images. I do not know what it was, I wish I owned it. It was probably filmed in the very early 20th century, if not, some of the earliest film pieces from the late 19th century.

If you enjoy film from this genre, love Jazz and appreciate Art, then you will enjoy this film. Ideal as a film you listen and glance periodically. Clever improvisation.

Perfect. As good as anything in the french new wave. Came out same year as 400 Blows and a year before Breathless. Fresh, jazzy, unstructured. Not for everyone. So much more joy, flow and vitality than any of his other films that I've seen.

Incredible, simply put. A footage run on the spot, without much rehearsal, seemingly even without a fixed story, turns into a tightly knit first class cinematic experience. As fresh now as it was nearly 60 years ago.

Not worth watching at all.

Loved it.

Beau 1er film de John Cassavetes comme réalisateur avec Prix de la critique à Venise en 1960. En blu rat.

If you are interested in how films are constructed and can come together as a process rather then a perceived finished product , then you need to watch this film .Filmaking at its raw best , amazing shots of New york , great story , totally current todays enviroment , a must watch.

WITHOUT A DOUBT A SEMINAL FILM THAT EVERYONE SHOULD SEE. DIRECTED BY THE GENIUS OF JOHN CASSAVETTES. GRAB IT WHILE YOU CAN AS COPIES GET IN SHORT SUPPLY!