Encounter #40: I say, "Hello. Hello, how are you?"

I hope I never wind up like Zelmo, but I sure hope I can live as immediately as Zelmo, as anybody in a Cassavetes picture. A Cassavetes "character" isn't really a character, though. Just like Cassavetes himself isn't really an actor, or director, or writer. He's a liver, and a lover. Yes, I'm getting into some hero worship. And, yes, I mean two things when I say "liver" -- he lives a life well (yes, again, present tense) and he drinks a ton of alcohol. For all the fun I had this weekend, I evacuated myself from myself a little too much. My immanence was inhibited. (And yesterday I ate too much meat.) The greatest moments in a Cassavetes picture are those moments of clarity when the booze dries up. Yet, part of the reason I adore Love Streams so much is because, at the end, during that Noah's Ark rainstorm madness, it's finally a liquid version of the previously gaseous (yet, over time, ever more blocky) pictures Cassavetes made. To use my friend's phrase, he exceeds me. He's way too cool. For more proof, here he is talking about what he wants from movies, from directors, from audiences, from life. Too cool. --RWK