Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		5.0
Overall		4.5

Shadows Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov September 23, 2013

Winner of Pasinetti Award at the Venice Film Festival, John Cassavetes' "Shadows" (1959) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Criterion. The supplemental features on the disc include an original trailer for the film; Charles Kiselyak's documentary "A Constant Forge"; video interviews with actors Lelia Goldoni and Seymor Cassel; archival workshop footage; restoration demonstration; promo materials; and more. In English, with optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-A "locked".

The boys

Note: Shadows is part of Criterion's upcoming John Cassavetes: Five Films Blu-ray box set.

The film follows a group of different characters who try to find their way in the Big Apple – and possibly happiness and success. They are young, naive, and with different understandings about life.

Hugh (Hugh Hurd) is a jazz musician whose career has come to a halt. He still has plans for the future but has slowly come to realize that it may not turn out to be as bright as he once hoped. His sister Lelia (Lelia Goldoni) is ready to fall in love with the right guy, while his brother Bennie (Ben Carruthers) is just another beatnik who can’t stay out of trouble.

One day Lelia meets Tony (Anthony Ray), a nice guy who seems ready to be in a serious relationship. They spend a lot of time talking and she falls in love with him. But Tony feels that everything is happening too fast for him. After he meets Hugh, he also gets seriously confused – Hugh is black while Lelia isn’t. Eventually, his confusion evolves into frustration.

While struggling to land a solid gig, Hugh attempts to help Lelia overcome her frustration with Tony’s behavior. Tony helps him out after he suddenly disappears and breaks Lelia’s heart. Meanwhile, Benny’s frustration with the way things are starts to boil and he challenges the wrong group of guys.

John Cassavetes’ directorial debut is a raw and very energetic film about ordinary people with ordinary dilemmas. It is a street-smart film about life as it happens, a never-ending roller coaster of meaningless triumphs and often predictable disappointments.

The film is rather chaotic at times. It almost seems like Cassavetes’ camera tends to favor some of the characters and try to spend as little time as possible with others. For example, during a passionate debate Cassavetes suddenly pulls out the camera, leaving the viewer partially confused as to how it would end. Elsewhere, for an extended period of time Cassavetes simply follows closely a group of people because their interactions have a certain rhythm which the debate did not. This technique gives the film a strong sense of authenticity and the raw atmosphere many documentary films have.

There are obvious romantic overtones in the film, but they are trivial. After a while the progression of the relationship between Lelia and Tony becomes far less important than the world they belong to. What is happening between the two lovers has happened before and will happen again, but the energy and excitement on the streets may never again be the same. This is what Cassavetes' film is concerned with – the texture of reality.

In 1958, Cassavetes organized a number of free screenings of Shadows, but the critical response was underwhelming. As a result, he went back and reshot a number of sequences. The new version of the film incorporated very little of the footage that appeared in the original version. Soon after, the remaining prints of the original version of the film disappeared.

For a number of years, it was universally accepted that the original version of Shadows was lost. But in 2004 Professor Ray Carney from Boston University announced that he had discovered the only print of the original version of the film. The print – which had spent years with the daughter of a junk dealer who ran a small shop in downtown Manhattan after it was discovered abandoned in the subway - apparently consisted of two reels of 16mm black-and-white Kodak Safety Film with optical sound.

(Note: For more information on Professor Carney’s discovery, visit his site here).

Shadows Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, John Cassavetes' Shadows arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Criterion.

The following text appears inside the booklet provided with this Blu-ray release:

"This high-definition digital transfer was created on a Spirit DataCine from a 35mm fine-grain master struck from the UCLA Film & Television Archive's restoration duplicate negative and restored by Criterion. The original monaural soundtrack was restored by Audio Mechanics in collaboration with the UCLA Film & Television Archive and remastered at 24-bit from a 35mm print. Sonic Solutions' NoNOISE, Sonic Studio HD, and Pro Tools were used for pop and click removal, dropout repairs, hiss reduction, and EQ rebalancing.

Transfer supervisor: Maria Palazzola.
Film and sound restoration supervisor: Ross Lipman/UCLA Film & Television Archive, Los Angeles.
Sound restoration: John Polito/Audio Mechanics, Burbank, CA.
Colorist: Gregg Garvin/Modern VideoFilm, Burbank, CA."

As expected, the basic characteristics of the high-definition transfer are very similar to those of the transfer the BFI used for their release of Shadows in the United Kingdom. (The foundation for that high-definition transfer was a telecine supervised by Criterion's Maria Palazzola). Detail and clarity are very pleasing. There are some minor clarity and sharpness fluctuations, but they are obviously inherited. Generally speaking, contrast is stable. Predictably, grain is quite heavy, but depending on light exposure in some sequences it could look slightly toned down (this has nothing to do with digital grain reduction). Compression is very good. Overall image stability is also excellent. As it was the case with the BFI release, some very light flecks still pop up here and there (see screencapture #11). To sum it all up, this is a solid and very competent presentation of Shadows that should make fans of the film very happy. (Note: This is a Region-A "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-A or Region-Free PS3 or SA in order to access its content).

Shadows Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: English LPCM 1.0. For the record, Criterion have provided optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature.

Dynamic intensity is very limited, but this should not be surprising when one considers how and when Shadows was filmed. The music (mostly sax solos) is stable and free of pops and distortions. The dialog is stable, clean, crisp, and easy to follow.

Shadows Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer - original theatrical trailer for Shadows. In English, not subtitled. (3 min, 1080i).

• A Constant Forge - this outstanding documentary film, directed by Charles Kiselyak in 2000, focuses on John Cassavetes' life and legacy. Included in it are various archival interviews with actors and friends who knew the director well, clips from Cassavetes' films, rare photographs, etc. In English, with optional English subtitles. (201 min, 1080i).
  
  1. When is it interesting?
  2. A brief history
  3. The films
  4. "All mere complexities"
  5. The men
  6. The women
  7. Films as dissections
  8. De-canning film
  9. A fearless director
  10. Waiting for the miracle
  11. Gena's Mabel
  12. "Right there with you"
  13. Make it ring true
  14. What he wanted
  15. A great football coach
  16. The things that made it work
  17. Family filmmaking
  18. The importance of the struggle
  19. In the theater
  20. The first independent
  21. Have a good time
  22. A wonderful madhouse
  23. He believed in miracles
  24. Offensive in the best sense
  25. Adult films
  26. The techniques to capture life
  27. Strip it all away
  28. No entertainment
  29. The music
  30. Laugh right up to the end
  31. "Cassavetes is a place"
  32. "Mechanical men"

• Lelia Goldoni - in this video interview, actress Lelia Goldoni recalls her first encounter with John Cassavetes in New York City and discusses his improvisational methods. Mrs. Goldoni also recalls how two years later she was contacted in Los Angeles and asked to fly back to New York to do "added scenes" for Shadows. The interview was conducted exclusively for Criterion in Los Angeles in 2004. In English, not subtitled. (12 min, 1080i).

• Seymor Cassel - in this video interview, Seymor Cassel discusses his professional relationship with John Cassavates and contribution to Shadows. The interview was conducted exclusively for Criterion in Los Angeles in 2004. In English, not subtitled. (5 min, 1080i).

• Workshop Footage - the Cassavetes-Lane Drama Workshop was founded in 1956 by John Cassavetes and Burt Lane, and was located in the Variety Arts Building at 225 West Forty-sixth Street in Manhattan. This the place where Shadows was born. Included here is silent footage from some of the rehearsals that were done at the workshop. Without sound. (5 min, 1080i).

• Restoration Demonstration - this program focuses on the UCLA Film & Television Archive's work to preserve Shadows. The majority of the restoration work was done between 2000 to 2002, and the funding for it was provided by the Film Foundation and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, among other organizations. Ross Lipman, Film Restorationist at UCLA Film and Television Archive, discusses the film's restoration. (12 min, 1080i).

• Galleries - all in 1080p.
  
  1. Workshop, Filming, and Premiere
  2. Recording the Score
  3. Posters

Shadows Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The films of John Cassavetes belong in every serious collection. Shadows, the first film in Criterion's upcoming John Cassavetes: Five Films box set, looks very good in high-definition. Also included on this release is Charles Kiselyak's outstanding two-hundred-minute documentary "A Constant Forge". HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.