"If You're Yourself, You Won't Get Hurt"

Cassavetes' 1959 film Shadows documents the lives between various New Yorkers living through different occupations, economic status, race, ambitions, etc. The nature of the film and it's production lends to the emergence of experimental cinema and art films. The idea of art is prevalent throughout the entire film and that will be the main focus of this blog entry too.

In the scene [26:24-28:00], the camera introduces the audience to a party. Here we see Lelia discussing how she never intended to be a writer and that the position was thrusted upon her by David. This introduction to Lelia's objection to the idea of being a writer, especially for a profession, is key for many of the elements that influence and drive Shadows. For example, this film comes out of the Beat Generation which surrounds the rise in writers who were interested in rejecting and dismissing societal standards, new styles, experiementation with drugs, sexuality, and various arts, and the interest in the displays of human condition in the world. The scene further ventures into this world of beat writers and intellectuals as we see a woman discussing existentialism with another out of the frame. Lelia's position in this scene and in the party is complicated, because there is an artistic spirit and drive in her that draws her to be surrounded by the elements of the party, and of the culture, yet she cannot be receptive to the forceful nature of commercialized, institutional, societal pressures from the people around her. Her rejection is an attempt to protect herself from being hurt by the masks people wear, the falsity of relationships and ideals, and the idea of "selling out."

Relating Lelia's attitude and response to David's pressure to be a professional writer to the overall theme of shadows and shadowing, it is evident that Lelia's position in society or in the open, art circuit she is attracted to is affected by her decision to either dismiss the standards of society and struggle to find her place or succumb and follow the rules which risks losing the passion or drive. Living in the shadows of other successful people, her friends, and her brothers, I think Lelia searches for a way to be seen, which ultimately leads to giving her self over to Tony in an effort to find love. Even then, a shadow is cast on her when Tony reacts to the reveal that she is partially black, and she is immediately disgusting to him. Her race becomes an issue and another factor that pushes her in the background of life's show, when everyone else seems to be in the spotlight. Both Lelia and her brothers find themselves dealing with the complexity of late-1950s, Beat Generation, New York where being yourself doesn't provide the protection that Lelia suggests towards the end of the scene.