“This is the only Cassavetes film made without a full script (it grew out of acting improvs), and rarely has so much warmth, delicacy, and raw feeling emerged so naturally and beautifully from performances in an American film.”
John Cassavetes’s directorial debut revolves around a Beat-era New York City romance between would-be writer, Lelia (Lelia Goldoni), and musician, Tony (Anthony Ray). But their relationship is put in jeopardy when Tony meets Lelia’s darker-skinned jazz singer brother, Hugh (Hugh Hurd) and discovers that her racial heritage is not what he thought it was… Shot on location in Manhattan with a mostly nonprofessional cast and crew, Shadows is a penetrating work that is widely considered the forerunner of the American independent film movement.
