James O’Brien Archives

The critical role of race in John Cassavetes’ first film

By James O’Brien

Shadows is the first film John Cassavetes directed and, regarding the version he released in 1959, it is the only film he created that distinctly explores themes of Blackness and Black identity in an American urban landscape. Too Late Blues, A Woman Under the Influence, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, and Love Streams all depict identity and race in different and attention-worthy ways as well, but none of Cassavetes’ directorial work after 1959 engages with these topics to the same degree or with the same immediacy.

Marking Cassavetes’ birthday with a discussion on male discourse in his films

By James O’Brien

On the cusp of what would have been John Cassavetes’ eighty-seventh birthday, it is not only possible to pause and imagine the work the man could have made throughout his sixties and seventies — think, for a moment, on Cassavetes as being alive and well, writing and directing films in a post-9/11 America — but also we can turn to his works for a lens onto a version of the world that, given the recent state of affairs on this planet, we could sorely use.

Six methods of detection in Sherlock Holmes

By James O'Brien

Between Edgar Allan Poe’s invention of the detective story with ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’ in 1841 and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s first Sherlock Holmes story ‘A Study in Scarlet’ in 1887, chance and coincidence played a large part in crime fiction. Conan Doyle resolved to be different in future.

Author: James O’Brien