Cassavetes Directs

In 1983 visionary director John Cassavetes asked journalist Michael Ventura to write a unique film study—an on-set diary of the making of his film Love Streams. Cassavetes laid out his expectations. He wanted "a daring book, a tough book". In Ventura’s words, "All I had to do for ‘daring’ and ‘tough’ was transcribe this man’s audacity day by day." Full of insight into not only the filmmaker but his actors and his Hollywood peers, the resulting book describes the creation of Love Streams shot by shot, crisis by crisis. During production, the director learned that he was seriously ill, that this film might, as it tragically turned out, be his last. Starring alongside actress and wife Gena Rowlands, Cassavetes shot in sequence, reconceiving and revising his film almost nightly, in order that Love Streams could stand as his final statement. Both an intimate portrait of the man and an insight into his unique filmmaking philosophy, this important text for all movielovers and film historians documents a heroic moment in the life of a great artist.

Michael Ventura is writer and director of the documentary I’m Almost Not Crazy: John Cassavetes, the Man and His Work, and was curator of the Sundance Festival’s 1989 Cassavetes retrospective. He has published three novels and several books of non-fiction.