John Cassavetes Quotes

Commercial movies have no feeling, no sensitivity. Most people tell me people won't understand films with feeling. But everyone can feel.

I think I probably have the philosophy of a poor man. You know, like maybe I'd steal the pennies off a dead man's eyes.

I hate entertainment.

Ricardo Montalban is to improvisational acting what Mount Rushmore is to animation.

We don't take the time to be vulnerable with each other

The greatest location in the world is the human face.

I think I'm probably one of the worst directors around, but I do have an interest in my fellow man.

I'm a great believer in spontaneity because I think planning is the most destructive thing in the world.

I've never seen an exploding helicopter. I've never seen anybody go and blow somebody's head off. So why should I make films about them? But I have seen people destroy themselves in the smallest way, I've seen people withdraw, I've seen people hide behind political ideas, behind dope, behind the sexual revolution, behind fascism, behind hypocrisy, and I've myself done all these things. So I can understand them. What we are saying is so gentle. It's gentleness. We have problems, terrible problems, but our problems are human problems.

People who are making films today are too concerned with mechanics - technical things instead of feeling.

I'm not good at comparing and contrasting. I take what's in front of me for what it is, although I guess there's something about Paul's realistic writing that is like Cassavetes.

No matter how old you get, if you can keep the desire to be creative, you're keeping the man-child alive.

We only have two hours to change people's lives.

I won't make shorthand films, because I don't want to manipulate audiences into assuming quick, manufactured truths.

I have the confidence that I can take anybody and have them give a good performance, because I don't think there's anything to acting except expressing, being able to converse. So if I can just convince somebody not to clean themselves up, and not to be someone that they're not, and just be what they are in given circumstances, that's all that acting is to me, and I don't think it's very difficult.

'Faces' became more than a film. It became a way of life, a film against the authorities and the powers that prevent people from expressing themselves the way they want to, something that can't be done in America, that can't be done without money.

As an artist, I feel that we must try many things - but above all we must dare to fail.

These days, everybody is supposed to be so intelligent: 'Isn't it terrible about Nixon getting elected?' 'Did you hear about the earthquake in Peru?' And you're supposed to have all the answers. But when it gets down to the nitty-gritty, like, 'What is bugging you, mister? Why can't you make it with your wife? Why do you lie awake all night staring at the ceiling? Why, why, why do you refuse to recognize you have problems and deal with them?'
The answer is that people have forgotten how to relate or respond. In this day of mass communications and instant communications, there is no communication between people. Instead it's long-winded stories or hostile bits, or laughter. But nobody's really laughing. It's more an hysterical, joyless kind of sound.
Translation: 'I am here and I don't know why.

My films are expressive of a culture that has had the possibility of attaining material fulfillment while at the same time finding itself unable to accomplish the simple business of conducting human lives. We have been sold a bill of goods as a substitute for life. What is needed is reassurance in human emotions; a re-evaluation of our emotional capacities.

I have a one-track mind. That's all that I'm interested in - love. And the lack of it. When it stops.

I won't call my work entertainment. It's exploring. It's asking questions of people, constantly. 'How much do you feel? How much do you know? Are you aware of this? Can you cope with this?' A good movie will ask you questions you don't already know the answers to. Why would I want to make a film about something I already understand?

During the actual filming, I'm not really listening to dialogue. I'm watching to see if the actors are communicating something and expressing something. I'm just watching a conversation. You're not aware of exactly what people are saying. You are aware of what they are INTENDING and what kind of feeling is going on in that scene.

I don't care about being on top, about being No. 1. I just make movies for a few suckers in the audience, anyway.

By the age of 50, I would like to know that I'm not dead - that there's some continuity to my life.

Films today show only a dream world and have lost touch with the way people really are ... In this country, people die at 21. They die emotionally at 21, maybe younger ... My responsibility as an artist is to help people get past 21 ... The films are a roadmap through emotional and intellectual terrain that provides a solution on how to save pain.

My mother and father were never frightened of anything. They always felt that they should go through life happily and without fear, and they did that. And it was a great boon to my brother and myself.

I like to act in films, I like to shoot 'em, I like to direct 'em, I like to be around 'em. I like the feel of it and it's something I respect. It doesn't make any difference whether it's a crappy film or a good film. Anyone who can make a film, I already love. But I feel sorry if they don't put any thought in it because then they missed the boat.

People have said that my films are very difficult to watch, that they're experiences you are put through rather than ones you enjoy, and it's true.

I would put my pictures up against anybody's in this world. Certainly in my own day I bow to no one. I don't think there's another director in the world who works harder to make better films than I do.

To me there is a name for each person. I think it's marvelous to have a name. A woman is not a woman. It's either Gena or my mother or some other person.

The idea of love as a mysterious, undiscovered world has come to have no place in our innermost imagination.

(Acting) is an extension of life. How you're capable of performing in your life, that's how you're capable of performing on screen.

Most people don't know what they want or feel. And for everyone, myself included, It's very difficult to say what you mean when what you mean is painful. The most difficult thing in the world is to reveal yourself, to express what you have to ... As an artist, I feel that we must try many things - but above all, we must dare to fail. You must have the courage to be bad - to be willing to risk everything to really express it all.

You can fail in films because you don't have the talent, or you have too much humility, or you lack ferociousness. I'm a gangster. If I want something, I'll grab it.