Actor John Cazale is notable not only for his talent and intensity as a performer, but also for having one of the most impressive filmographies of any actor with a career as short as his. A seasoned theater veteran, Cazale appeared in only five feature films before his untimely death from lung cancer in 1978 at the age of 42. says something.
Cazale appeared in three Francis Ford Coppola films (The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, and The Conversation). Sidney Lumet's thrilling bank robbery drama Dog Day Afternoon and Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter. Cazale played supporting roles in all of them. Each of them was nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Three of them won.
Cazale's film career was, of course, only a small part of his acting experience. He appeared on the stage in 1962 in the play “JB”. He has also performed in many Broadway shows such as The Spoon River Anthology, Here Comes the Iceman, and Shakespeare's Measure for Measure. plays the role of Angelo). In 1977, he was to make his Broadway debut as Agamemnon in the first production of Aeschylus' Oresteia trilogy. Cazale only played the role in the first preview of the show, but had to withdraw due to ill health. A short time later, he was diagnosed with cancer.
All of Cazale's performances are marked by tragedy, as you can see just how much talent and presence he has on the big screen. If he stays healthy, there's every reason to believe that Cazale will continue to produce amazing performances for interesting, ambitious directors.
Of the five films in which he appeared, /Film provides the following (perhaps controversial) ranking for quality.
5. The Deer Hunter (1978)
Michael Cimino's tense Vietnam War drama The Deer Hunter is a stripped-down, thoughtful portrait of PTSD that captures its true depths. The film is about a small group of friends from a Slavic community in Pennsylvania who are drafted into the war in 1968. Robert De Niro plays the more reserved Mike Vronsky, and Christopher Walken won an Academy Award for playing Mike's troubled best friend, Nick. more clearly after the experience of war. And their war experience was sad While soldiers, the young Americans were captured by the Viet Cong and they were forced to play games of Russian roulette (although they eventually escaped).
John Cazale plays Stan, a hometown friend who regularly joins their deer hunts. Cazale had already been diagnosed with terminal cancer when he signed on to play the role, and the story goes that De Niro and co-star Meryl Streep (who was dating Cazale at the time) had to apply for his job. He couldn't get insurance, so De Niro also paid for his friend's insurance; De Niro loved him. Cazale died before The Deer Hunter was released.
“The Deer Hunter” comes in last because of how slow it moves. The story of PTSD, the trauma of war and the horrors of war are all remarkable and powerful, but Cimino's film opens with a 50-minute Robert Altman-esque wedding sequence that seems oddly detached from the recent war tragedy. Cimino was certainly trying to define who these characters were, but he overstretched himself.
4. The Godfather (1972)
It might be bold of me to list Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather as number four on any list, as it regularly tops most lists as one of the greatest films of all time. However, this is just my personal taste and more of a commentary on how amazing John Cazale's filmography is. It's also a comment on Cazale's role in the film, which is smaller and less important than his other high-profile films.
In The Godfather, Cazale plays Fredo Corleone, the middle son of mobster Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando). The Godfather is more about Vito's youngest son, Michael (Al Pacino), who begins the film resentful of his family's criminal record, but ends up taking the case. Michael is the only one who seems capable enough to lead and take on the responsibility he doesn't want… but then he falls into the role very neatly at the end of The Godfather.
Fredo, on the other hand, is somewhat weak-willed and certainly not fit to lead. He exists in the story simply as the “less preferred choice” to lead the mob. The eldest Corleone son, Sonny (James Caan), meanwhile, is very hot. Only Michael, a reluctant villain, can capture the love of his family. “The Godfather” has a Shakespearean quality that emphasizes the tragedy of each character. Fredo's tragic flaw is his lack of leadership.
Also, as we later learn in The Godfather Part II, Fredo's arc is more than just the “other brother.”
3. The Godfather Part II (1974)
In The Godfather Part II, Michael gets along well with the mob and internalizes the need to kill anyone who betrays or exposes the family. He's already had a brother assassinated and is next in line when Fredo sells Michael to a rival family. Michael had always suspected that Fredo might become a shifter, even though he knew he didn't have the constitution to be in the crowd. (Spoiler: things don't go so well for Fredo in the movie.)
Many feel that The Godfather Part II is more highly regarded than its predecessor due to its two-fold story. Half of the film is about Michael's continued moral depravity, and the other half is about him. A young version of Marlon Brando's Vito Corleone (now played by Robert De Niro) escapes to the United States and works in the underworld. The Godfather Part II combines American Alger-like ambitions with crime and the limited opportunities offered to immigrants.
The Godfather Part II is loved by moviegoers and fratboys alike. Many understand the underlying tragedy of the film and how survival can turn into tyranny. Others marvel at Michael's “hands-on” professionalism, combining his desire for violence with strength. Any confusion reveals the film's moral complexity.
2. The Conversation (1974)
In Coppola's “The Conversation.” (Released the same year as “The Godfather Part II”) Gene Hackman plays Harry Cole, a professional surveillance specialist and wiretaker who takes his job seriously to the detriment of everything. He can listen intensively to distant conversations using advanced recording equipment, but is not very adept at actual conversation. He tries to remain neutral with his espionage skills, especially when he finds out what some of his clients have been doing with the information he's captured, making him feel guilty about what he's doing.
Harry, you see, filmed a distant conversation between a couple in Union Square and spent most of the movie remixing it into something listenable. What he finds is scarier and darker than he expected. “The Conversation” is a beautiful commentary on the use of modern media to penetrate new moral gnats, directed by a technically minded engineer who can't use his engineering to escape them.
John Cazale plays Stan, Cole's assistant, who is more or less Harry's “normal” sidekick. He knows a lot about recording equipment, but doesn't have the light touch that Harry has. He also seems more capable of leaving the room and leading a normal life. Stan reminds us that real people exist in this universe.
1. Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
The best of Cazale's films is Sidney Lumet's 1975 bank heist film Dog Day Afternoon. The most compelling aspect of Lumet's film is how screwed up the main characters are. They are not professional thieves and their plans go terribly wrong. A bank robbery turns into a hostage situation pretty quickly, and the need to make some money soon becomes a media spectacle. The effort is led by Sonny Wortzik (Al Pacino), who, as viewers eventually learn, has been robbing a bank to pay for sex-reassignment surgery for his trans lover (Chris Sarandon), who is still living under his name. John Cazale plays Sal, one of Sonny's housemates, who expresses his willingness to resort to violence if necessary. He's kind of a scary character.
“Dog Day Afternoon” is based on a real-life robbery by John Wojtowicz.he also intended to get money to change his gender for his trans girlfriend (a woman named Elizabeth Eden). Although Wojtowicz did not get the money he wanted from the robbery, he made a fortune by selling the film rights to his life story. Thanks to the success of “Dog Day Afternoon”, Eden was able to undergo a reassignment operation. After that he got married.
Lumet's film is a humane, humane and grounded crime thriller that features frank discussions of queerness and queer love. It's both a rousing, tense and sweaty story that questions the state of policing (Sonny's chant of “Attica” references police violence in a nearby prison) as well as a poignant tale of romantic desperation. It's one of the best films of the 1970s, and for my money, the best of Cazale's influential era.
