Shadows

Before Godard’s Breathless , Cassavetes had already unveiled his dizzy vision of 1950s nervy New York neurotics through jumpy editing and free-focus camerawork in his directorial debut, widely acclaimed as launching the American independent film movement. No script, no permits for locations, and just an idea on which the actors – a light-skinned black woman and her two jazz musician brothers – are to improvise, what captured on 16mm is the free impulses, kinetic energy and tensions between a trio who navigate their identities and seedy city lives amid a moody Mingus score. Its strong influence on Scorsese’s Mean Streets is easily recognised.

Venice Film Festival: Pasinetti Award