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''Shadows'' is a film about interracial relations during the Beat Generation years in New York City, directed by John Cassavetes. The film stars Ben Carruthers, Lelia Goldoni and Hugh Hurd as three African-American siblings, though only one of them is dark-skinned. The film was initially shot in 1957 and shown in 1958, but a poor reception prompted Cassavetes to rework it in 1959. Promoted as a completely improvisational film, it was intensively rehearsed in 1957, and in 1959 it was fully scripted. The film depicts two weeks in the lives of three siblings on the margins of society: two brothers who are struggling jazz musicians, and their sister who dates several men. Hurd plays Hugh, a jazz singer hunting for a job, finally landing a gig at a sleazy club. Carruthers plays Ben, a trumpeter who hangs out with his friends, tries to pick up girls, and gets in fights. Goldoni plays Lelia, a flirtatious artist whose innocence is revealed through three relationships she has, one with an older white writer, one with a shallow white lover, and one with a gentle young black admirer. Goldoni's uninhibited performance leaves the strongest impression on the viewer. Film scholars consider ''Shadows'' a milestone of American independent cinema.〔 In 1960 the film won the Critics Award at the Venice Film Festival.〔 ==Production== The idea for the film came from a classroom exercise. With acting coach Burt Lane (later the father of Diane Lane), Cassavetes was conducting classes for aspiring actors at the Variety Arts Theatre in Manhattan's off-Broadway Union Square neighborhood, the classes listed as "The Cassavetes-Lane Drama Workshop"; this was Cassavetes' attempt to counter the adherents of method acting who controlled much of New York theatre and film. A particular exercise became the core of the film: a young African-American woman who was very light-skinned dated a young white man, but he was repulsed when he discovered she had a black brother. Cassavetes determined to put the scene on film, so he began looking for funding. While ostensibly promoting the film ''Edge of the City'' on Jean Shepherd's ''Night People'' radio show on WOR in February 1957, Cassavetes said he could make a better film than director Martin Ritt. He pitched the drama workshop idea to Shepherd's radio audience. Cassavetes was surprised when listeners sent in about $2,000 to start the project.〔 Money also came from Cassavetes' friends including Hedda Hopper, William Wyler, Joshua Logan, Robert Rossen, José Quintero, and Cassavetes' agent Charlie Feldman. Cassavetes hired German cinematographer Erich Kullmar as cameraman, the only crew member besides Cassavetes with any experience in film. Using the student actors from the Cassavetes-Lane Drama Workshop, shooting started in February 1957 in a largely improvised form. Cassavetes composed an outline for the film, but not a script. Cassavetes and assistant director/producer Maurice McEndree gave detailed instructions to the actors, constraining the situation to guide the story, with the words and the movements improvised by the actors. Cassavetes intended the story to evolve from the characters rather than vice versa. Three initial weeks of work was thrown out, the first week because of technical problems with quality, and the next two weeks because Cassavetes felt that the actors were talking too much. After they had developed their characters to the point that they could portray emotion in silence, the actors were able to improvise with more clarity, and with a level of truth that Cassavetes found revealing. He was a demanding director who required a critical romantic scene to be performed more than 50 times before he was satisfied with the results. About 30 hours of film was exposed during several months of off-and-on shooting. Filming took place in various locations including inside the apartment Cassavetes shared with his wife Gena Rowlands, and on the streets of New York. Using a 16 mm camera borrowed from Shirley Clarke, and monochrome film stock, Kullmar was forced to shoot scenes in which the actors could move in any direction they wished, making for unpredictable zoom and focus requirements. No filming permits were obtained, so the cast and crew were necessarily ready to pack quickly and leave a location.〔 Originally published in Issue 34: Jazz.〕 The lighting was a general wash rather than specific effects. The microphone was placed by Jay Crecco (who was also an actor in the film), and dialogue was recorded to tape with street noises intruding. Even though Cassavetes said "print it!" after he was satisfied with a scene, there was nobody on the crew keeping track of the film takes, so all of the exposed film had to be printed. The editing of the film was made much more difficult by the lack of notes taken during shooting, and by the sound recorded "wild" on tape, not synchronized with the film. The microphone failed to pick up some of the dialogue, requiring lip-readers to watch the footage and write down what had been said, so that the actors could re-record their dialogue.〔Charity, Charlesworth 2012, pp. 45–47.〕 Editors Len Appelson, Maurice McEndree and Wray Bevins began work while shooting was still underway, editing the film in an office next door to the Variety Arts Theatre, the office which is seen hosting a rock 'n roll party in the film. Primary photography was finished by mid-May 1957, with of film exposed, but the editing took more than a year. Cassavetes was not available during much of this time; starting in June he was on location working as an actor first in ''Saddle the Wind'', then he was acting in ''Virgin Island''. At the end of 1957, the editors moved to a professional editing suite to complete the task.〔''Cassavetes on Cassavetes'', p. 76.〕 Cassavetes intended to have the jazz music of Charles Mingus on the soundtrack, but Mingus came up with a number of songs that could stand on their own rather than impressionistic film music to follow the story. Three hours of Mingus and his band were recorded, and much of this material was placed in the first version of ''Shadows'' which was screened in 1958, but almost all of it was removed during the 1959 reworking of the film. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Shadows (1959 film)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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