Directors used to call him 20 questions.
I watched this short documentary (39 min) while doing my laundry this afternoon. I’ve loved John Cazale since I saw him in Dog Day Afternoon. When I was in high school and shortly after, my friend Chase had a couch and old TV set up in the third car stall of his parents garage. We used to watch movies out there late at night. We would eat Jack’s Pizza and drink Dr. Pepper. Dog Day Afternoon was one of the films we watched together and I remember talking about Cazale’s performance. At the time, I think we probably realized that he had played Fredo, but I don’t remember talking about his incredible career and his death at 42. Years later, I would hear details about his career and his relationship with Meryl Streep, but I didn’t know there was a movie about his life until I heard Jonah Hill talking about him on the WTF? podcast. Luckily, I live in Madison, WI where there is a great video shop where you can rent things like this.
John Cazale was an accomplished theater actor. He appeared in five feature films before his death from lung cancer in 1978. The five films he made were each nominated for Best Picture.
1. The Godfather
2. The Conversation
3. The Godfather: Part II
4. Dog Day Afternoon
5. The Deer Hunter
He died before The Deer Hunter was released. The Conversation is the only film of his that I haven’t seen. According to Francis Ford Coppola (interviewed in this documentary), he wrote the part in that film specifically for Cazale after working with him on The Godfather.
The documentary is really just a bunch of clips from his films and interviews with his friends, co-stars (Pacino, De Niro, Hackman), and actors that were influenced by his performances (Buscemi, Rockwell, Hoffman). It’s interesting because the actors they interview talk specifically about his performances and then they show the clips that they refer to. It’s cool.
Viewing Diary 