X
- 1959
- PG
- Lion International Films
- 1 h 21 m
- 1959
- PG
- Lion International Films
- 1 h 21 m
Summary Cassavetes' jazz-scored improvisational film explores interracial friendships and relationships in Beat-Era (1950s) New York City.
Directed By: John Cassavetes
Written By: John Cassavetes
- 1959
- PG
- Lion International Films
- 1 h 21 m
- 1959
- PG
- Lion International Films
- 1 h 21 m
Shadows
86
6.8
Summary Cassavetes' jazz-scored improvisational film explores interracial friendships and relationships in Beat-Era (1950s) New York City.
Directed By: John Cassavetes
Written By: John Cassavetes
Top Cast
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
Based on 11 Critic Reviews
86
100% Positive
11 Reviews
11 Reviews
0% Mixed
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
Based on 11 Critic Reviews
86
100% Positive
11 Reviews
11 Reviews
0% Mixed
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
The film perfectly captured a specific time and place, illuminating simple truths regarding the human condition, while unveiling an important, powerful, and visionary new force in the American cinema.
Arguably the founding work of the American independent cinema, John Cassavetes’s 1959 Shadows is the prototype for Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets, Jim Jarmusch’s Stranger Than Paradise, Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It, and all their progeny.
Goldoni is spectacular here as a light-skinned black woman with a white admirer and an apartment full of her brother's hooligan buddies. And, oh, what shots of the era's New York movie marquees. [22 May 1998, p.6E]
It's a cool customer – the hip lingo and fast-talking characters all of a piece with its bebop score – but there's a scrupulous honesty to the story, too.
Caught in the ecstasy of collective creation, a handful of earnest amateurs have almost accidentally produced a flawed but significant piece of folk art.
Shadows is an unfinished picture in every sense of the word. Yet it is fitfully dynamic, endowed with a raw but vibrant strength, conveying an illusion of being a record of real people, and it is incontestably sincere.
At 80 minutes, its cinematic flash fiction, and a suitable entry point into the lively body of work Cassavetes made.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 6 User Ratings
6.8
33% Positive
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
50% Mixed
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
17% Negative
1 Rating
1 Rating
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 6 User Ratings
6.8
33% Positive
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
50% Mixed
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
17% Negative
1 Rating
1 Rating
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