Actor and director John Cassavetes, director maudit, the “father of American independent cinema” and patron saint of Martin Scorsese,  died prematurely at age 59.  The cause was long term cirrhosis brought on by longer term alcoholism  or “hobnailed liver” as career drunks grimly call it.  His death by bottle throws a dark and enigmatic shadow over the films he made. And the question: was drink the active ingredient in Cassavetes’ genius?  Would a sober Cassavetes, an artist who wasn’t (to paraphrase one of his titles) “under the influence”, have been a less great, or an even greater film-maker? Did drink damage his talent, or burnish it? It’s a conundrum. 

He was famously a non-conformist. He was Hollywood’s drunken child.  He hated the tyranny of “screenplay”, “script”, “crews”, and “star system”.  His name recognition which he enjoyed in his lifetime came from supporting roles in macho romps such as Robert Aldrich’s The Dirty Dozen (which earned his only Oscar nomination), Rosemary’s Baby, or that small Don Siegel masterpiece The Killers (Ronald Reagan’s last movie).  

His friend and fellow actor Peter Falks  said: “Cassavetes was the most fervent man I ever met, and he didn’t have a copy-cat bone in his body.”"Every Cassavetes film is always about the same thing. Somebody said  ’Man is God in ruins’ and John saw the ruins with a clarity that you and I could not tolerate.”

Some films he directed: A Child Is Waiting (1963), Faces (1968) , Gloria (1980), A Woman Under the Influence (1974), Husbands  (1970), If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium (1969), Opening Night (1977) and one movie made for TV: Columbo: Etude in Black  (1972) (TV)

Did his drinking enhance his genuis?  What do you think?

The Guardian