The movie mogul John Cassavetes hated with a passion: “The laughing stock of Hollywood”
John Cassavetes was a revolutionary figure in Hollywood who changed the game with his daring indie pictures and novel approach that was like nothing American cinema had really seen before setting the whole industry ablaze.
His first film, Shadows, was experimental and loose, almost documentary-like, and as his career progressed, he became one of America’s most exemplary directors, with movies like Opening Night and A Woman Under the Influence becoming instant classics. Inspired by the arthouse and foreign filmmakers who were working outside of the traditional Hollywood studio system, Cassavetes found freedom in an approach that money-hungry movie moguls didn’t stifle.
Still, he had strong opinions about certain industry figures whom he believed were an insult to the art of filmmaking, like Bob Evans, a producer who was once head of Paramount Pictures. He worked on many iconic movies from the New Hollywood era, from Harold and Maude to Chinatown, but Cassavetes thought he was “the laughing stock of Hollywood”.
Talking to Playboy, he dished his rather unforgiving opinion on Evans, beginning with how, after getting his job, he promised to hand over complete creative control of the movies to their directors, but “That never really happened, of course, and to understand why, you’d have to understand the pure bullshit involved in dealing with major studios”.
He explained that when Evans was in charge, the company had a mixed bag of success with their films until a certain movie ended up emerging to overwhelming adulation, which is something he used as an excuse to go back on his promises: “Then they make Love Story under tight studio control, and it becomes a fantastic hit, and Evans suddenly says he’s a creative filmmaker. Did Evans direct it, write it, act in it, film it? He contributed his wife as the star.”
The director continued bitterly about the producer’s underhand intentions to retain control, citing a success that was not even his to begin with, adding, “He announced that he’s never going to give away creative control again. Give away? Who the hell gave him the right to give anything away? Evans is nothing! He’s a hanger that was put in a closet and grew into a boy. The only doing he ever did was to manufacture a line of clothes. How dare he compare himself with an artist!”
Cassavetes was simply not impressed with the way that Evans saw his role in Hollywood, deeming him the furthest thing from a true artist; rather, the filmmaker thought he was just a lazy, money-minded man who was only good for greenlighting or hindering projects and not ideating: “They just say go ahead or don’t go ahead; you can have the money to make a film or you can’t have the money”.
It frustrated the director to see someone like Evans claim they had anything to do with a movie besides pummelling cash into it, claiming that in the grand scheme of things, filmmakers go through a massive effort to bring about a film to fruition, in which no major studio head ever has a hand in besides writing cheques.
Eventually, he finished his tirade by concluding that “anyone who says otherwise is a goddamned liar. Robert Evans is the laughing stock of Hollywood, and I’m just using him as an example, because he said about the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard”.
