The films of John Cassavetes: part 6 - MIKEY & NICKY
August 5th 2010 14:17
A GANGSTER FILM LIKE NO OTHER
Mickey & Nicky - an ignored masterpiece awaits
John Cassavetes never considered himself a director or writer, just an actor - and it was his artistic interpretations as an actor that would ultimately forge his vision of the world in his own films as a director. Now we get to one of the most truly interesting films ever, deep down at the bottom of the pile of great 70’s American films lie a buried treasure, one of the top 5 or so greatest film’s to ever come out of America during a decade that was filled with an embarrassment of riches. Mikey & Nicky is not just a neglected masterpiece, but it is a completely ignored work of art which rivals even the top tier of works of art in all forms. Mikey & Nicky defies all of it’s cinematic containments, splitting at the seams and breaking into the very ebb and flow of the second by second, fluctuating, multivalent uncertainty of a human experience.
Mikey & Nicky is a gangster film, a film about friendship and betrayal, but words alone cannot do justice to the ever slippery gesturing and meaning, the glances and phrasing between characters, in a film where each second that passes we have to constantly gage what the consequences of one moment to the next could or should or might not be. Making our senses free fall into the same dance they do outside of the cinema. What I’m talking about is completely different to our reactions to a thriller or watching a scene where we don’t know what will happen. Mikey & Nicky actually rewires our reception of each moment’s meaning as it slips and slides along, sometimes making for some shocking moments and at times more hilarious ones.
Actor John Cassavetes gives his greatest performance in 'Mikey & Nicky'
When Nicky, played by John Cassavetes (The Fury, The Tempest, Edge Of The City) steals money from the mob, he learns that there is a contract out on him. Hurled into an unhinged state of panic and paranoia he lets out a call of help to his best friend Mikey, played by Peter Falk (Made, Pocketful Of Miracles, Husbands). Mikey arrives attempting to support him, but Nicky is just too on edge to have any reason talked into him as he creates a reckless, nervous energy every time he’s in shot. After finally agreeing to get out of his apartment in case someone actually is trying to kill him they stay on the move to avoid being found as Mikey stays by his side.
These two middle aged men have known each other their whole lives, Mikey the more cautious low key one (although he has his moments) and Nicky the trouble maker. As the night continues Nicky constantly makes things difficult for them, getting into fights and drawing negative attention to himself, it’s not difficult to see why someone might want him killed. As they move through the city, looking over their shoulder their resentments begin to emerge regarding each other, the grudges they still hold from years back resurface. As they get more on each others nerves, accusations begin, problems they still have with each other. Do these two guys merely put up with each other because they don’t have any other real friends or were they ever proper friends to begin with? One thing is for sure, Nicky is getting more and more convinced that Mikey is the one who the mob have hired to kill him.
"They're gonna kill me"
Peter Falk, who is on screen through out 95% of the film, along with John Cassavetes, acted in many of the films Cassavetes wrote and directed, but Mikey & Nicky is instead directed by one time Hollywood comedy director turned Cassavetes disciple, Elain May. Why am I including this in the series then if Elain May wrote and directed this? The reason is because Mikey & Nicky is the only film that has ever been made that completely felt, in every way possible, like one of Cassavetes own film’s, one thing is for certain, this doesn’t feel like you’re watching someone copying his films or TRYING to make one of his films, it absolutely feels like the real deal. Mikey & Nicky is constantly of the same signature as one of Cassavetes own masterpieces, Faces being the film it most specifically feels like, although never as intense to sit through. According to rumour, Cassavetes did actually direct some of the films smaller scenes, but never anything major.
Mikey & Nicky, while technically rough as guts, marred by poor sound mixing, a tacky soundtrack and a faded print which betrays the films originally innovative cinematography, is astounding, and while it is a ‘gangster film’, it has to be seen to understand the experience it puts you through. Mikey & Nicky, being so faithfully realised in all of it’s Cassavetean like influence, reveals Cassavetes own secret in creating works that defied all of cinema's supposedly, intangible boundaries. The secret is in the acting we see on the screen. Director Elain May lets Cassavetes and Falk off the leash and we discover how they’re able to use their own spontaneous brand of acting that they did in Cassavetes film’s to bring the same raw, complex experience of life lived at it’s most unpredictable force to Mikey & Nicky, as the performances always come before any other technical regard.
John Cassavetes and Peter Falk
All the hyperbolic praise in the world wouldn’t do justice to describe Falk and Cassavetes acting, both fine actors that they are, you get the feeling that they tried anything and everything and it payed off, the film feels seriously improvised at times in light of moments and lines that seem far too truthful to be scripted, and is indicative of Elain May’s powerful writing. John Cassavetes gives the greatest acting performance of his life in this film. Actor Ned Beatty (Deliverance, Network, Toy Story 3, The Walker) also has a smaller role in the film as the very human hitman, who could’ve gotten the job done if only he hadn’t spent as much time trying to find decent parking. Along with these three is an extremely rare appearance by legendary acting teacher - Sanford Meisner, inventor of the widely taught Meisner Method school of acting.
Film critic Stanley Kauffman, called Mikey & Nicky “the best film that I know by an American woman”. Elain May’s name as writer/director safeguards the film against any accusations of misogyny, and there really are some shocking moments of disregard towards women here. Mikey & Nicky really goes to some dark places in this black comedy. Originally funded by a studio, Mikey & Nicky went ridiculously over schedule. Elain May shot 1.5 million feet of film during the shoot (Gone With The Wind only shot 500,000 feet) and she spent two years in the editing room working on the film. The result of such indiscretions compounded by turning out such a severely uncompromising, uncommercial film was that the film would disappear deeper than the Titanic as the studio buried the film before it was even complete, only to have it resurface in horrible shape ten years later in 1980, mysteriously with a final edit completed after all that time.
Ned Beatty looks to make the kill
Elain May was originally a Hollywood writer/director who regularly collaborated through out her career with Mike Nichols and Warren Beatty, making her first comedy, A New Leaf, which was then followed in 1972 by her brilliant and now forgotten comedy The Heartbreak Kid with Charles Grodin and Cybill Sheperd, which was unfortunately remade into one of the worst comedies ever starring Ben Stiller in the Grodin role. By the time Elain May made Mikey & Nicky, her masterpiece, she had sealed her fate as an unreliable director that couldn’t work to schedule. For the next few years she worked only as a writer, penning the screenplays for Heaven Can Wait, Reds, Labyrinth and Tootsie, many of which she didn’t receive a credit for. In 1987 May wrote and directed Ishtar, this would be the last film she ever made, and would only continue her career as a writer after that, writing the screenplay for Dangerous Minds, The Birdcage and Primary Colours.
HBO’s The Sopranos has had times where it’s actors and characters got close to the ebb and flow of Mikey & Nicky’s style. The dynamic between Falk and Cassavetes characters here are similar to that of Robert DeNiro and Harvey Keitel's characters in Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets. If you liked these two mentioned titles then you owe it to your self to scour the earth for this obscure masterpiece. Mikey & Nicky has now been restored on a new print after decades of neglect, following it’s Official Selection in the Cannes Classics series at 2007 Festival De Cannes and this new print is available on DVD in the U.S. I have been asked by film buffs curious to dip into John Cassavetes' directed films - "what film should I start with?" I would recommend Mikey & Nicky.
Here’s a scene from Mikey & Nicky.
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Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
Took me awhile to watch this one but when I did I was appropriately impressed and abit ashamed i hadn't done it earlier.
Certainly a fine performance from both Falk and JC with ahead of its time scripting.
Comment by Matt Shea
Comment by David O'Connell
20/20 Filmsight
Screen Fanatic
Comment by ShaunK
Screen Adventure
hi Matt, if you go after any film that isn't available in Australia, this should be it! Make sure it's the new print you watch.
JD My man - I couldnt agree more - thanks for reading all!
Comment by ShaunK
Screen Adventure