Shadows

N.p. Lion International, 1959. Vintage studio still photograph from the 1959 film.

The first film by Cassavetes, for which he raised the entirety of the production budget himself, the story of three African American siblings in Harlem, two of whom often pass for white. Begun as an acting exercise in a workshop Cassavetes was conducting with Burt Lane, the story was originally filmed in 1958 with completely improvised dialogue and action based on scene outlines created by Cassavetes.

After the film was poorly received at its three initial screening by just about everyone Cassavetes knew, he reworked the ideas into a more traditional script with screenwriter Robert Alan Arthur, and reshot the film, replacing between half and two thirds of the original footage and dramatically altering the story. Released in 1959, this version better reflected his vision for the film, and received a critics award when shown at the Venice Film Festival the following year.

A watershed moment in American independent films, heralding not just the arrival of a new, iconoclastic director, but the birth of an entire movement.

Shot on location in New York.

8 x 10 inches. Near Fine.

[Book #141014]