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The Cinema Club
Formed in 1986, the Cinema Club was founded
with the hope of creating a deeper understanding of the development
of film as an artistic and social force. It aims to provide a
perspective into the relationship between society and the media.
At the time of its inception the Center would dedicate two days
every spring to Independent Filmmakers. Today, the film showcase
has expanded into a four-day presentation.
The Center’s goal is to expand the annual program into “Seven
Days of Indie Cinema,” a week of independent film screenings.
Although there is an emphasis on presenting the works of Greek-American
filmmakers, the Center continues to welcome non-Greek filmmakers.
The purpose of these screenings is for filmmakers, writers, actors,
and artists to interact with each other, to be introduced to the
general audience and most importantly, for their work to be recognized.
Cinema Club with Year-Round Screenings
This program includes an annual independent showcase, Greek film
series, silent movies, American Classics, and award-winning films
from international cinema. Film presentations have included a
Greek Film Celebration with the cooperation of AMMI (American
Museum of Moving Image) and outdoor summer series in coordination
with the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, at
Astoria Park. Currently, the GCC organizes an Annual Film and
Video Festival in cooperation with the Queens Museum of Art, and
outdoor summer series at Athens Square Park in association with
the NYC Department of Parks a Recreation.
FREE EVENT
AT THE
GREEK CULTURAL CENTER a TRIBUTE
TO
MODERN GREEK CINEMA
The Greek Cultural in Astoria invites
you to its annual Summer Film Festival. In our opening, Friday
July 16, Saturday 17 and Sunday 18, 2010 we celebrate
the Greek filmmaker Theo Angelopoulos and we
focus on three visual poetic films with complex tales:
”The Travelling Players”
or “Thiassos” 1975. (230 minutes. Colour)
In Greek with English subtitles.
 The
Travelling Players
Directed by : Theo Angelopoulos
Screenplay by : Theo Angelopoulos
Cinematography by : Giorgos Arvanitis
Production design by : Mikes Karapiperis
Make-up by : Giorgos Patsas
Sound by : Thanassis Arvanitis
Music by : Loukianos Kilaidonis
Choice of texts and songs by : Fotos Lambrinos
Songs performed by : Nena Mendi, Dimitris Kaberidis, Ionna Kiourtsoglou
and Costas Messaris
Edited by : Takis Davlopoulos and Giorgos Triantafillou
Produced by : Giorgos Papalios
With : Eva Kotamanidou (Electra), Aliki Georgouli (Mother), Stratos
Pachis (Father), Maria Vassiliou (Chrysohemis), Vangelis Kazan
(Aegisthus), Petros Zarkadis (Orestes), Kyriakos Kativanos (Pylades),
Yannis Firios (accordionist), Nina Papazaphiropoulou (old woman),
Alekos Boubis (old man), Kostas Stiliaris (militia leader), Grigoris
Evangelatos (Poet).
THE TRAVELLING PLAYERS is a film of epic proportions.
The action takes place during the years 1939-52 and is seen as
a series of individual, often inexplicable events or tableaux,
commentated by monologues, by slogans written on the walls, or
by songs. It reveals the period's turbulent history while focusing
on a travelling company of actors who spend those fourteen years
wandering through provinces, cities and villages, performing,
in increasingly threadbare circumstances, a 19th century pastoral
melodrama, Persiadis' Golfo the Shepherdess. They never get to
finish the play and the tranquil sheep painted on their back cloth
gaze down upon generations of anguish and bloodshed. The passage
of history reverberates in individual incidents or is summarized
in symbols. These sad, shabby, often hungry folk, whose relationship
is based on the family of the House of Atreus, are of varying
political hues - from active collaborators with the Nazis (Aegisthus),
to opportunists (Chrysothemis), to centrist Greek patriots (Agamemnon),
to the apolitical (Clytemnestra), to left-wing idealists (Electra),
to communist guerillas (Orestes). And they fill these roles as
much as they do the mythic ones of wandering general, faithless
wife, betrayer or vengeful son. As they travel amid the constant
wartime convulsions, they begin, unconsciously, to enact parallels
to Aeschylus' tragic cycle. TRAILER
«Greek people have grown up caressing dead stones. I've
tried to bring mythology down from the heights and directly to
the people.»
Theo Angeolopoulos
«THE TRAVELLING PLAYERS is about dramas that can never
unfold without interference, about governments that fall, revolutions
that are aborted and entire streams of history that are diverted...
It is about the world that lies just outside the viewpoint of
the drama, ever thwarting or changing it. And it is about the
transcendence of time... The form gives TRVELLING PLAYERS its
distinction; history and contemporaneity give it intensity; the
execution gives it its beauty.»
Michael Wilmington
“The Ulysses’
Gaze” or “To Vlemma tou Odyssea” 1995.
In Greek with English subtitles.
 ULYSSES'
GAZE
(Greece/France/Italy/Germany. 1995.
176 minutes. Colour)
Directed by : Theo Angelopoulos
Screenplay by : Theo Angelopoulos
with the participation of Tonino Guerra, Petros Markaris, Giorgio
Silvagni
Cinematography by : Giorgos Arvanitis
Music by : Eleni Karaindrou
Violin solo by : Kim Kashkashian
Music production : Manfred Eicher
Edited by : Yannis Tsitsopoulos
Sound engineers : Thanassis Arvanitis, Marton Jankov-Tomica, Yannis
Haralambidis
Sound Mixing : Bernard Leroux
Costumes designed by : Giorgos Ziakas
Production designed by : Giorgos Patsas and Miodrac Mile Nicolic
Executive producer : Phoebe Economopoulos
Executive producer (Paris) : Marc Soustras
Producers : Giorgio Silvagni, Eric Heumann, Dragan Ivanovic-Hevi,
Ivan Milovanovic
Production : Theo Angelopoulos Productions, Greek Film
Centre, MEGA Channel, Paradis Film, La Generale d'Images, La Sept
Cinema, with the participation of Canal +, Basic Cinematografica,
Instituto Luce, RAI, Tele-Muenchen, Concorde Films, Herbert Kloider
and in association with Channel 4.
Cast : Harvey Keitel (A), Maia Morgenstern (woman in Florina/Penelope,
Kali/Calypso, widow/Circe, Naomi Levi/Nausica), Erland Josephson
(Ivo Levy), Thanassis Vengos (taxi driver), Giorgos Michalakopoulos
(Nikos), Dora Volanaki (old lady in Albania), Mania Papadimitriou
(the mother in A's memory).
SYNOPSIS
A Greek-American filmmaker, known simply as «A», returns
to his hometown in northern Greece for a screening of his latest
controversial film. His real reason for coming back, however,
is to track down three long-missing reels of film by Greece's
pioneering Manakia brothers who in the early years of cinema traveled
through the Balkans, ignoring national and ethnic strife and recording
ordinary people, especially craftsmen, on film. Their images,
he believes, hold the key to lost innocence and essential truth,
to an understanding of Balkan history Thus he embarks on a search
that takes him across the war-torn Balkans, a landscape of spectral
figures and broken dreams, right to the heart of darkness: a damaged
film archive in Sarajevo where his quest ends. Like a latter-day
Ulysses he finds his «Ithaca», the missing, undeveloped
film and is at last united with the work of the Manakia brothers...
his gaze communes with theirs and another journey begins.
TRAILER
«Every filmmaker remembers the first time he looked
through the viewfinder of a camera. It is a moment which is not
so much the discovery of cinema but the discovery of the world.
But there comes a moment when the filmmaker begins to doubt his
own capacity to see things, when he no longer knows if his gaze
is right and innocent.»
Theo Angelopoulos
«As always, Angelopoulos and Arvanitis create magic...
As Always, their landscapes resonate with sadness and longing,
everything trapped in the gaze of hero, wanderer, filmmaker, bystander
and victim alike.»
Michael Wilmington
«Theo's great spirit and talent is to take 'The Odyssey'
and make a story that is not only relevant to our time, but is,
in fact, our time.»
Harvey Keitel
“Trilogy: The Weeping
Medow” or “Trilogia: To Livadi pou Dakryzei”
2004
 TRILOGY:
THE WEEPING MEADOW
(170 minutes. Color )
Director : Theo Angelopoulos
Script by : Theo Angelopoulos
in collaboration with : Tonino Guerra, Petros Markaris, Giorgio
Silvagni
Cinematography : Andreas Sinanos
Music : Eleni Karaindrou
Sets : Giorgos Patsas, Costas Dimitriadis
Costumes : Ioulia Stavridou
Editing : Giorgos Triantafyllou
Sound : Marinos Athanassopoulos
Producer : Phoebe Economopoulos
Production Managers : Costas Lambropoulos, Nikos Sekeris
Cast : Alexandra Aidini, Nikos Poursanidis, Giorgos Armenis, Vassilis
Kolovos Eva Kotamanidou, Toula Stathopoulou, Michalis Yannatos,
Thalia Argyriou, Grigoris Evangelatos
Production : Theo Angelopoulos, Greek Film Centre, Hellenic Broadcasting
Corporation ERT S.A., Attica Art Productions (Athens), BAC Films
S.A., Intermedias S.A., Arte France with the participation of
: Canal + (Paris), Classic SRL, Istituto Luce SpA
with the participation of : RAI CINEMA (Rome), NETWORK MOVIE Reinhold
Elschot Peter Nadermann, ZDF/ARTE Meinolf Zurhorst With the support
of the EURIMAGES Fund of the Council of Europe
Synopsis
In 2004, Angelopoulos unveiled the first film in a new trilogy.
Through references to the Thebaid cycle the three films that make
up TRILOGY follow the destiny of Hellenism as recorded in the
relationship of two people who first meet as children in 1919
during the flight of the Greeks from Odessa only to lose each
other and find each other again in different time periods in different
parts of the world, living through the great historic events of
the 20th century and the turn of the 21st.
He described that new cycle as " A poetic summing up of the
century that just ended and a visionary relationship with the
century we are now traversing through a love affair that challenges
time. Three films that are, however, autonomous. A story that
begins in Odessa in 1919 with the entry of the Red Army into the
city and ends in present-day New York. Exile, separation, wandering,
the end of ideologies and the constant trials of history. The
titles of the three films could be: Kingdom and Exile, The end
of Utopia, and the Eternal Return. Perhaps. I preferred three
more down-to-earth titles: The Weeping Meadow. The Third Wing.
Return."
"THE WEEPING MEADOW" the first of
the three films, is but the root of the myth. One will recognize
traces from 'Oedipus Rex' and 'Seven Against Thebes' in the course
of a love affair and the fate of a woman. It is the first time
since 'Reconstruction' in 1970 that the pivotal figure in a film
of mine is a woman. A child who knows exile and death, a love-struck
adolescent, a mother, a solitary woman. From innocence to tragic
passion. More than at any other time before, an elegy on human
fate. The Helen (Eleni) of myth, the Helen of all myths claims,
and is claimed by, the absolute of love. Her dead husband's last
letter from the battlefront at Okinawa in the South Pacific in
1945 ends with a dream:“… you bent down and spread
your hand on the wet grass. When you raised it, a few drops trickled
and dripped. Like tears on the earth…”
The second film is entitled "THE DUST OF TIME" (THE
THIRD WING) and unfolds in the former Soviet Union, the Austrian-Hungarian
borders, Italy and New York between 1953 and 1974, from the eve
of Stalin's death to Nixon's resignation in the United States
and the fall of the Greek junta. The Dust of Time was released
in Europe and Asia in 2009. It has yet to be distributed in the
U.S.
TRAILER
About Theo
Angelopoulos
 Born
in Athens in 1936 to a family of merchants, he studied law at
the University of Athens. After completing his military service,
he went to Paris to attend the Sorbonne and then enrolled to study
film in the prestigious French film school, IDHEC. He worked for
a time at the Musee de I'Homme under the tutelage of Jean Rouch,
the ethnographer and pioneer of cinema verite film. He returned
to Athens in 1964 and, until 1967, was a film critic for the leftist
paper "Democratic Change".
He began to make films at around 1965, an attempt at a full length
feature film entitled THE FORMINX STORY which he never completed
after a disagreement with the producers and then a short film
BROADCAST and in 1970 his first full-length feature film RECONSTRUCTION.
Since then his films have participated in countless international
festivals and have won numerous awards that have established his
reputation as one of the most influential directors in contemporary
cinema.
a TRIBUTE
TO
MODERN GREEK AMERICAN CINEMA
July
23,24 and 25 at 7:00pm,
we heading for a weekend with John Cassavetes
films. He is one among the notable pioneers of American Independent
filmmakers. His films are noted for their use of improvisation
and a realistic cinéma vérité style.
July
23 Shadows(1959) Direction and screenplay:
John Cassavetes
Benny's a hipster, moving in and out of Manhattan's
beat scene, aimless, maybe close to trouble. His sister Lelia,
who looks less African-American than White, is vulnerable and
about to fall in love. Hugh, their older brother, is a struggling
singer whose agent, Rupert, may be the only person with faith
in his talent. The story moves back and forth, like jazz, among
the three of them and what seems at first to be separate lives.
Lelia meets Tony, and lets herself hope this is true love. Then
he meets Hugh and prejudice gives Tony an excuse to cut and run.
Can family and friendship bring solace for her hurt, purpose for
Benny, and belief in Hugh? Is life more than shadows? TRAILER
July
24 Faces (1968) Direction
and screenplay: John Cassavetes
Cast: John Marley, Gena Rowlands, Lynn Carlin, Fred Draper, Seymour
Cassel, Val Avery
)
Richard Forst has grown old. One night, he leaves
his wife for Jeannie Rapp, a young woman who does not like friendship.
Meanwhile, Richard's wife, Maria, is seduced by Chet, a kind young
man from Detroit... A film about the meaningless of life for a
certain kind of wealthy middle-aged people.TRAILER
July
25 A Woman Under The Influence (1974)
Direction
and screenplay: John Cassavetes
Cast: Gena Rowlands, Peter Falk, Fred Draper, Lady Rowlands, Katherine
Cassavetes, Eddie Shaw
Nick Longhetti is a blue collar man trying to deal
with his wife's mental instability. He fights to keep a semblance
of normality in the face of her bizarre behavior, but when her
actions affect their children, he has her committed. TRAILER
John Cassavetes
Biography
Early life
Cassavetes was born in New York City, the son of Katherine Cassavetes
(who was to feature in some of his films) and Nicholas John Cassavetes,
Greek immigrants to the U.S. His early years were spent with his
family in Greece; when he returned, at the age of seven, he spoke
no English. He grew up on Long Island, New York. He attended Port
Washington High School from 1945 to 1947, participating in Port
Weekly (the school paper), Red Domino (interclass play), football,
and the Port Light (yearbook). Next to his photo on page 55 of
his 1947 year book is written: "'Cassy' is always ready with
a wisecrack, but he does have a serious side. A 'sensational'
personality. Drives his 'heap' all over." Cassavetes also
attended high school at Blair Academy in New Jersey before spending
a year at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York, before transferring
to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. After graduating in
1950, he continued acting in the theater, took small parts in
films and began working on television in anthology series such
as Alcoa Theatre.
The middle years
Acting workshop and Shadows
By 1956, Cassavetes had begun teaching method acting in his own
workshop in New York City. An improvisation exercise in his workshop
inspired the idea for his writing and directorial debut, Shadows
(1959; first version 1957). Cassavetes raised the funds for production
from friends and family, as well as listeners to Jean Shepherd's
late-night radio talk show Night People. His stated purpose was
to make a film about little people, different from Hollywood studio
productions.
Cassavetes was unable to gain American distribution of Shadows,
but it won the Critics Award at the Venice Film Festival. European
distributors later released the movie in the United States as
an import. Although the box office of Shadows in the United States
was slight, it did gain attention from the Hollywood studios.
Television and acting jobs
Cassavetes played in bit parts in B-pictures and in television
serials, until his first starring role in a feature film, Edge
of the City (1957), which co-starred Sidney Poitier. In the late
1950s, Cassavetes played Johnny Staccato the title character in
a television series about a jazz pianist who also worked as a
detective. It was broadcast on NBC between September 1959 and
March 1960, when it was acquired by ABC. Although critically acclaimed,
the series was cancelled in September 1960. Cassavetes also appeared
on the NBC interview program Here's Hollywood. Cassavetes directed
two movies for Hollywood in the early 1960s — Too Late Blues
and A Child is Waiting. In the 1962-1963 season, Cassavetes guest-starred
on the CBS anthology series, The Lloyd Bridges Show, and directed
two episodes, including "A Pair of Boots", in which
his friend Seymour Cassel guest starred. In the 1963-1964 season,
Cassavetes appeared in Jason Evers's ABC drama about college life,
Channing. That same season, he appeared in the ABC medical drama
about psychiatry, Breaking Point. In 1965, he appeared on ABC's
western series, The Legend of Jesse James. The same year he also
guest starred in the World War II series Combat! in the episode
"S.I.W.".
It was with the payment for his work on television, as well as
a handful of film acting jobs, that he was able to relocate to
California and to make his subsequent films independent of any
studio, as Shadows had been. The films he acted in with this intention
include: Don Siegel's The Killers; the motorcycle gang movie Devil's
Angels (1967); The Dirty Dozen (1967), in a role for which he
was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor as
Victor R. Franko; Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby (1968), and
The Fury (1978).
The Faces International films
Faces (1968) was the second film to be both directed
and independently financed by Cassavetes. The film starred Cassavetes'
wife Gena Rowlands, whom he had married during his struggling
actor days, John Marley, Seymour Cassel and Val Avery, as well
as several first time actors, such as lead actress Lynn Carlin.
It depicts the slow disintegration of a contemporary marriage.
The film reportedly took three years to make, and was made largely
in the Cassavetes home. Faces was nominated for three Academy
Awards (Best Original Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor and Best
Supporting Actress). Around this time, Cassavetes formed "Faces
International" as a distribution company to handle all of
his films.
In 1970, Cassavetes directed and acted in Husbands, with actors
Peter Falk and Ben Gazzara. They played a trio of married men
on a spree in New York and London after the funeral of one of
their best friends. Minnie and Moskowitz (1971), about two unlikely
lovers, had Rowlands with Seymour Cassel.
In 1972, Cassavetes played opposite Peter Falk again and Blythe
Danner in the Columbo episode Etude in Black, playing the symphony
conductor and murderer Alex Benedict.
A Woman Under the Influence (1974) stars Rowlands
as an increasingly troubled housewife named Mabel. Rowlands received
a Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, while Cassavetes
was nominated for Best Director.
In The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976), Ben
Gazzara plays Cosmo Vitelli, a small-time strip-club owner with
an out-of-control gambling habit, pressured by mobsters to commit
a murder to pay off his debt.
Opening Night (1977) has Gena Rowlands as lead
actress with Cassavetes, Ben Gazzara, and Joan Blondell. Rowlands
portrays an aging film star named Myrtle Gordon working in the
theater and suffering a personal crisis. Alone and unloved by
her colleagues, in fear of age and always at a remove from others
on account of her stardom, she succumbs to alcohol and hallucinations
after witnessing the accidental death of a young fan. Ultimately,
she fights through this, delivering the performance of her life
in a play.
Last years
Cassavetes directed the film Gloria (1980), featuring
Rowlands as a Mob moll who tries to protect an orphan boy whom
the Mob wants to kill. Rowlands earned another best-actress nomination
for it. In 1982, Cassavetes starred in Paul Mazursky's Tempest,
which costarred Rowlands, Susan Sarandon, Molly Ringwald, and
Raúl Juliá.
After receiving the prognosis from his doctor that he had six
months to live, Cassavetes made Love Streams (1984) which
featured himself as an aging playboy who suffers the overbearing
affection of his recently divorced sister. The film is often considered
Cassavetes' true "last film", in that it brought together
many aspects of his previous films, and, also in that he despised
the film he made afterwards. Big Trouble (1986),
was taken over during filming from Andrew Bergman, who wrote the
original screenplay. Cassavetes came to refer to the film as "the
aptly titled 'Big Trouble'", since the studio vetoed many
of his decisions for the film and eventually edited most of the
film in a way which Cassavetes disagreed with.
In January 1987, Cassavetes facing multiple health problems but
having outlasted his doctor's prognosis, wrote the three-act play,
Woman of Mystery, and secured it to be presented in May and June
at the Court Theater, which it successfully was.
Cassavetes worked during the last year of his life to produce
a last film which was to be titled She's Delovely. He was in talks
with Sean Penn to star, though legal and financial hurdles proved
insurmountable and the project was forgotten about until after
Cassavetes death, when it was finally made as She's So Lovely.
Death and legacy
An alcoholic, Cassavetes died from cirrhosis of the liver in 1989
at the age of 59. He was survived by Rowlands and three children
(Nick, Alexandra and Zoe).
At the time of his death, Cassavetes had amassed a collection
of more than forty unproduced screenplays, as well as a novel
of Husbands.
Cassavetes is the subject of several books about the actor/filmmakers
life. Cassavetes on Cassavetes is a collection of interviews collected
or conducted by Boston University film scholar Ray Carney, in
which the late filmmaker recalls his experiences, influences and
outlook in the film industry. In the Oscar 2005 edition of Vanity
Fair magazine, one article features a tribute to Cassavetes by
three members of his stock company: Rowlands, and actors Ben Gazzara
and Peter Falk.
Many of John Cassavetes' films are now owned by Faces Distribution,
a company overseen by Gena Rowlands and Julian Schlossberg, with
Castle Hill Productions distributing.
In September 2004, The Criterion Collection produced a Region
1 DVD box set of his five independent films: Shadows, Faces, A
Woman Under the Influence, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie and
Opening Night. Also featured in the set is a documentary about
the life and works of Cassavetes called A Constant Forge, a booklet
featuring critical assessments of the director's work, and tributes
by old friends. In 2005, a box set of the same five films was
released in Region 2 by Optimum Releasing. The Optimum DVD of
Shadows has a voice-over commentary by Seymour Cassel. Mistakes
about the first and second versions of the film are documented
on Ray Carney's web site.
Cassavetes' son, Nick Cassavetes, followed in
his father's footsteps as an actor and director. In 1997, Nick
Cassavetes made the film She's So Lovely from the She's Delovely
screenplay his father had written. The film starred Sean Penn,
as John Cassavetes had originally wanted. Alexandra Cassavetes
directed the documentary, Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession in
2004 and, in 2006, served as 2nd Unit Director on her brother
Nick's film Alpha Dog. John Cassavetes' younger daughter, Zoe
Cassavetes, wrote and directed the 2007 film, Broken English,
featuring Rowlands and Parker Posey.
Filmmaking style
Directing
Aside from presenting difficult characters whose inner desires
were not easily understood, Cassavetes paid little attention to
the “impressionistic cinematography, linear editing, and
star-centred scene making” that are fashionable in both
Hollywood and art films. Instead, he chose to shoot mostly hand
held with general lighting, or documentary style, to accommodate
the spontaneity of his actors.
Cassavetes was never interested in working with actors or actresses
who were more concerned with their own personal images than with
that of the characters whom they were portraying, which is why
he rarely, if ever, had actors or actresses of note (other than
Gena Rowlands who was his wife) in his films. As Cassavetes himself
said, he strove “to put [actors] in a position where they
may make asses of themselves without feeling they’re revealing
things that will eventually be used against them.”
How Cassavetes used improvisation in films is frequently misunderstood.
With the exception of the original version of Shadows, his films
were completely scripted. Confusion arises in part because Cassavetes
allowed actors to bring their own interpretations of characters
to their performances. Dialogue and action were scripted, but
delivery was not.
Cassavetes's unorthodox characters reflected his similarly unconventional
methodology in the making of his films. He employed mostly his
friends as actors and on-set personnel, generally for little or
no money guarantee and a share in the profits, if any, of the
film. Both Shadows and Faces, two of his earliest films, were
shot over a four-year period on week-ends and whenever funds became
available.
Cassavetes once said: “The hardest thing for a film-maker,
or a person like me, is to find people…who really want to
do something…They’ve got to work on a project that’s
theirs.” This on-set methodology differs greatly from the
'director run' sets of big-budget Hollywood productions
Marshall Fine wrote: “Cassavetes, who provided the impetus
of what would become the independent film movement in America…spent
the majority of his career making his films ‘off the grid’
so to speak…unfettered by the commercial concerns of Hollywood.”
To make the kind of films he wanted to make, it was essential
to work in this ‘communal,’ ‘off the grid’
atmosphere because Hollywood’s “basis is economic
rather than political or philosophical,” and no Hollywood
executives were interested in Cassavetes’s in-depth study
of human behaviour. Indeed, he mortgaged his house to acquire
the funds to shoot A Woman Under the Influence, instead of seeking
money from an investor who might try to change the script so as
to make the film more marketable.
Music
Cassavetes was passionate about a wide range of music, from jazz
to classical to rock, "I like all music. It makes you feel
like living. Silence is death."
For the soundtrack of Shadows, Cassavetes worked with jazz composer
and musician Charles Mingus and Shafi Hadi to provide the score.
Mingus's friend, Diane Dorr-Dorynek, described Cassavetes' approach
to film-making in jazz terms:
"The script formed the skeleton around which the actors might
change or ad lib lines according to their response to the situation
at the moment, so that each performance was slightly different.
A jazz musician works in this way, using a given musical skeleton
and creating out of it, building a musical whole related to a
particular moment by listening to and interacting with his fellow
musicians. Jazz musicians working with actors could conceivably
provide audiences with some of the most moving and alive theater
they have ever experienced."
When asked by a documentarian, during the making of Faces, whether
he had the desire to make a musical film, Cassavetes responded
that he wanted to make only one musical, Dostoyevsky's Crime and
Punishment.
Cassavetes worked with Bo Harwood, from 1970 to 1984, on six films
in several different capacities, even though Harwood had initially
only signed on to do "a little editing" for Husbands,
and "a little sound editing" for Minnie and Moskowitz.
Harwood composed poignant music for Cassavetes' following three
films, and was also credited as "Sound" for two of them.
During these projects, Harwood wrote several songs, some with
Cassavetes.[16]
During his work with Cassavetes, Harwood claimed that the notoriously
unpredictable director preferred to use the "scratch track"
version of his compositions, rather than to let Harwood refine
and re-record them with an orchestra. Some of these scratch tracks
were recorded in Cassavetes office, with piano or guitar, as demos,
and then eventually ended up in the final film. While this matched
the raw, unpolished feel that marks most of Cassavetes' films,
Harwood was sometimes surprised and embarrassed.
The relationship seems to have ended amicably. When asked by documentarian
Michael Ventura, during the making of Cassavetes' last film Love
Streams, what he had learned from working with Cassavetes, Harwood
replied:
I learned a lot through John. I've done a lot of editing for him.
Picture editing, sound editing, music editing, shot sound, composed
score, and I've learned a lot about integrity...I think you know
what I mean. You know, thirty years from now, I can say I rode
with Billy the Kid.
a TRIBUTE
TO
CONTEMPORARY GREEK CINEMA
In August the program focuses on
Greek Contemporary Cinema every Sunday
at 3:00pm.
AUGUST 1
MIKRO EGLIMA
(2008) Small Crime by Christos Georgiou|COMEDY
in Greek| 95 min.
 Direction
and screenplay: Christos Georgiou
Music: Thanasis Papakonstantinou/konstontis
Papakonstantinou
Photography: Giorgos Giannelis
Editing: Isabel Meier
Starring: Aris
Servetalis, Vicky Papadopoulou, Evangelia Adreadaki, Arto Apartian,
Evgenia Dimitropoulou, Dimitris Drosos, Rania Ekonomidou, Antonis
Katsaris, Eleni Kokkidou, Kostas Koronaios, Erricos Litsis, Mara
Mparola, Akis Sakellariou, Yorgos Souxes, Dimitra Stogianni, Jean-Jacques
Tesson, Fotis Thomaidis, Rika Vayanni, Myzafer Ziflaj
Plot Summary: Leonidas, a young,
ambitious police officer, is assigned to a remote island in the
Aegean Sea. He dreams of solving important crimes, but there are
few to be found in the sleepy beach community where he is left
to such menial chores. Each day at the town café, Leonidas
and the other locals watch the beautiful Angeliki, the small islands
most famous daughter, as she hosts a popular talk show on national
TV. These daily rituals are shattered when the island experiences
what appears to be an actual crime-the island drunk, Zacharias,
is found dead at the base of a cliff. Eager to do some sleuthing,
Leonidas soon finds clues that tie the victim to Angeliki, who
returns to the island and joins the investigation. TRAILER
AUGUST 8
Akadimia Platonos| by Filippos
Tsitos (2009)|COMEDY
in Greek| 103 min.
 Directed
by: Filippos Tsitos
Written by:
Filippos Tsitos and Alexis Kardaras
Cinematography: Polidefkis
Kyrlides
Editing: Dimitris Peponis
Music: Nikos Kypourgos
Starring:
Antonis Kafetzopoulos, Anastasis Kozdine, Maria Zorba
and Titika Sarigouli.
Plot Summary:
Every day Stavros
raises the metal shutters of his cigarette store, puts out the
newspapers in front and then sets out the chairs where he and
his friends sit all day. They are all very proud of the way their
dog Patriot barks at every passing Albanian. Stavros and his friends
do not like these foreigners even if they are willing to do the
jobs the Greeks will not do. By the storeâ??s entrance,
Stavrosâ increasingly senile mother mopes in an armchair,
regardless of the affectionate care lavished on her by her devoted
son. Then one day she suddenly falls upon an Albanian worker,
embracing him and calling him "my son" in Albanian.
Stavros' mother has always told him that after his father died
up north, she moved to Athens, when he was but a year old. Now
Stavrosâ pals start looking askance at him: is he Greek
or Albanian? TRAILER
AUGUST 15
Phyxi Vathia (A Soul So
Deep) by Pantelis Voulgaris (2009)|DRAMA
in Greek| 124 min.)
 Direction
and screenplay:
Pantelis Voulgaris
Music:
Giannis Angelakas Photography: Simos
Sarketzis
Cast:
Vangelis Mourikis, Giorgos Symeonidis, Victoria Haralabidou,
Kostas Kleftogiannis, Vasilis Nanakis, Ioulios Tziatas, Giorgos
Tzortzis, Alexandra Kazazou, Klea Samanta
Plot Summary:Pantelis
Voulgaris’s latest film tackles the still-divisive topic
of Greece’s 1946-49 Civil War, when the “National”
army of Greece’s Western-backed government fought an insurgent
“Democratic” army of Greek leftists and communists.
The struggle was one of the first armed conflicts of the new Cold
War. Voulgaris dramatizes these internecine events through the
tale of two young brothers — 14-year-old Vlassis and 17-year-old
Anestis — who find themselves enlisted in opposing camps
after their father is killed and they are separated from their
mother. Voulgaris has stated that his intention was “to
finally reconcile the bloodiest pages of our modern history." TRAILER
AUGUST 22 Ores
Kinis Isyhias (False Alarm)
by Katerina Evagelakou|(2006) |COMEDY
In Greek| 86 min.
 Directed
by: Katerina Evangelakou
Written by:
Nikos Panagiotopoulos/Katerina Evangelakou
Cinematography : Giorgos Argiroiliopoulos
Editing : Ioanna Spiliopoulou Music : Dimitra Galani
Cast:
Alexia Kalsiki,
Chris Stergioglou, Taxiarhis Chanos, Errikos Litsis, Angela Papathemelis,
Yvonne Maltese, Lucia Michalopoulou, Vaso Kavalieratou, Anastasis
Kolovos, Dimitris Xanthopoulos, Makis Papadimitriou
Plot Summary: It
is summertime in a pedestrian street at the heart of the city.
Someone parks a car, activates the alarm and leaves. We’ll
never see who it is. The alarm of the car keeps going off all
night long, for no apparent reason. Inside their apartments, the
characters of the film are disturbed; they protest and threaten
to do something about it. The unsolicited, persistent sound of
the alarm will not let them rest – because tonight their
paths are going to cross. TRAILER
AUGUST
29 ISTORIA 52 (TALE
52) by Alexis Alexiou(2008)|THRILER
in Greek with English subtitles| 98 min.
 Direction/screenplay/Production
by Alexis Alexiou.
Camera: Christos Karamanis
Editor: Panos Voutsaras Music: Felizol, Peekay Tayloh
Cast:
Yorgos Kakanakis, Serafita Grigoriadou, Dafni Labroyanni, Argyris
Thanasoulas,Paxemi Kilaidoni, Orfeas Zafiropoulos
Plot Summary:Mutual
friends bring Penelope (Serafita Grigoriadou) and Iasonas (Giorgos
Kakanakis) together at a dinner party he's hosting. Their relationship
heats up by the end of the evening, and within a blink of an eye,
she's moving in.
Practically from the start, however, there's something wrong:
Iasonas experiences events one moment and then reimagines them
later in a different way. He says he doesn't take pills, but then
he's seen with his medication; she says she forgot her toothbrush,
but there it is in the bathroom.
A current of barely suppressed violence runs through Iasonas'
thoughts, as he's no longer able to distinguish between what's
happening now and what he's reliving --suggesting an ultra-serious,
schizophrenic "Groundhog Day." As things go horribly
awry with Penelope, he tries to rectify in the past what he knows
will happen in the future, but it becomes impossible to distinguish
reality from his crazed imaginings. TRAILER
All screenings take place at the Greek
Cultural Center. ADMISSION IS FREE.
Greek Cultural Center
26-80 30th Street, Astoria, NY 11102
Phone: 718- 726 7329
This event is made possible
with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts,
a state agency, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs,
with the Support of the Queens Borough President’s Office
and Materials for the Arts
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