"Even if the family occasionally finds evidence that mountain goats have been in the kitchen, being so connected to the land is worth it."

"'The intensity of the light, the smells of the plants, the noise of the cicadas — it’s like everything is turned up to 11,' he said. 'There’s something completely cathartic about being there.'"

From "He Built a House With No Doors and Windows You Can’t Close/Inspired by homes open to their natural settings, an architect designed a house on the Greek island of Corfu with minimal barriers from the 'wild landscape'" (NYT)(free-access link).

Makes me think of that Paul Mazursky movie "Tempest," with John Cassavetes as an architect who's fed up with New York City and relocates — with adolescent daughter Molly Ringwald in tow — to a Greek island....

"It’s the people who aren’t artists who sacrifice. Artists somehow stumble onto the best life in the world, and I have no complaints."

Said Gena Rowlands, asked about any "regrets about having sacrificed her life to her art."

Quoted in "Gena Rowlands, Actress Who Brought Raw Drama to Her Roles, Dies at 94/Known for playing on-the-verge characters, she twice earned Oscar nominations for her work in films directed by John Cassavetes, her husband" (NYT).

She sometimes said that if she had not married Mr. Cassavetes, her career might have taken a very different turn: She could have been the blonde in romantic comedies. But, she contended, physical beauty was so common in Hollywood that it was irrelevant. When People magazine named her one of the most beautiful people in the world (she was 69) and asked for beauty tips, she suggested: “Sunglasses are the secret. Sunglasses and a little lipstick will take you to the market.”

Virginia Cathryn Rowlands was born on June 19, 1930, in Madison, Wis....

ADDED: Here's the clip from "A Woman Under the Influence" that I blogged when Peter Falk died in 2011: 

And here's something Mia Farrow wrote that I blogged about in 2009:

One workday, while we were waiting to shoot, Roman [Polanski] was discoursing about the impossibility of long-term monogamy given the brevity of a man's sexual attraction to any woman. An impassioned John Cassavetes responded that Roman knew nothing about women, or relationships, and that he, John, was more attracted than ever to his wife, Gena Rowlands. Roman stared at him and blinked a few times, and for once had no reply.

"BBC Culture polled film critics from around the world to determine the best American movies ever made."

"The results are surprising – Gone With the Wind appears at 97."

What's supposed to be surprising — that film critics from around the world put "Gone With the Wind" as low as 97 or that they put it on the list at all? We're talking about film critics. From around the world. 

And: "Critics were encouraged to submit lists of the 10 films they feel, on an emotional level, are the greatest in American cinema – not necessarily the most important, just the best."

Greatest, best, on an emotional level. What can that possibly mean? Scan the list and you'll get an idea. Or read this one critic's musings on how he thought about the task. Richard Brody (in The New Yorker):

None of the movies on my list were among my favorites in childhood, a time when I watched lots of movies, mostly on TV.... All are films that I discovered at or after the age of eighteen... The one ringer on the list is “Love Streams,” which isn’t the film by John Cassavetes that I have in fact watched most often (that would be “Husbands”); it’s the one in which several simple gestures and glances, the tilt of a head, the tone of a voice, even just the shadow on a face, move me in a trans-aesthetic, oddly intimate, utterly unconsidered way.

Oh, well, then, okay. I was a big John Cassavetes fan back when “Love Streams” came out (in 1984). It was mostly because I was deeply attached to "Husbands." But I avoided even seeing "Love Streams" because it got bad reviews and I'd loathed "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie" (in 1976) and that got good reviews. I never wanted to have that Killing-of-a-Chinese-Bookie feeling again. But maybe "Love Streams" deserves a viewing, on some rare occasion when, these days, I'm in the mood to sit through a movie. Frankly, these days, just about any movie gives me that old Killing-of-a-Chinese-Bookie feeling.

Movies! Ah, there's something to be said for Brody's target age of 18. All the movies I discovered when I was 18, back in 1969 and in the 10 to 15 years after that. Those are the movies that are structured into my brain — on an emotional level — but the idea that they are "best" is silly. Not that it's silly for BBC to make a list. People love lists. They're easy to read. They're provocative...  unless you can resist the provocation.

Peter Falk — the man "everybody falls in love with" — has died at the age of 83.

He'd been suffering fron Alzheimer's disease. The quote in the post title is from John Cassavetes, who directed 2 of my favorite Peter Falk movies, "A Woman Under the Influence" and "Husbands."

Here's an amazing scene from "A Woman Under the Influence" with Gena Rowlands:



And here's a scene that has made me laugh for more than 30 years. (It plays with the audio slightly out of synch, but please put up with that. Palladian synched the audio.)

Why haven't we heard from Mia Farrow about Roman Polanski?

I'd like to hear what she has to say. She worked closely with him on "Rosemary's Baby" and she had her experience with Woody Allen (who has made a show of supporting Polanski). Without any current statement, I looked for what she had to say about Polanski in her memoir, "What Falls Away."

This passage follows a paragraph about the difference between the filmmaking methods of Roman Polanski and John Cassavetes. Cassavetes was a great director, and also an actor. He played Mia/Rosemary's husband in "Rosemary's Baby." Polanski shot 30 or 40 takes, which bugged Cassavetes, who thought it "killed all the life in a scene."

One workday, while we were waiting to shoot, Roman was discoursing about the impossibility of long-term monogamy given the brevity of a man's sexual attraction to any woman. An impassioned John Cassavetes responded that Roman knew nothing about women, or relationships, and that he, John, was more attracted than ever to his wife, Gena Rowlands. Roman stared at him and blinked a few times, and for once had no reply.

"Rosemary's Baby" was made in 1968, the year Polanski married Sharon Tate (who was murdered the following year).

Here's a picture of Gena Rowlands and John Cassavetes in 1968:



And here's a picture of Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate, that same year:



Clearly, it was Cassavetes who understood marriage. It reminds me of the last thing Andre Gregory says in "My Dinner With Andre":

"Terrible! Unreal! No passion!"

Let's watch a little of "Husbands":



"You're terrible because you want to be terrible."

That's Ben Gazzara, John Cassavetes, and Peter Falk.

Do you like these John Cassavetes movies? Now, or just back in the 70s?