HBO is showing the documentary short I Knew It Was You: Rediscovering John Cazale. I saw this at last year's Independent Film Festival of Boston and really loved it.
It's a profile of actor John Cazale. You probably don't know the name, but you know the actor. He was in five films, three were Best Picture winners and the other two were nominated. He played Fredo in the first two Godfather films, Stan in The Conversation, Sal in Dog Day Afternoon and Stan in The Deer Hunter. He died of cancer at 42 before The Deer Hunter was released.
The film shows clips of his work and gives some biographical details, but it's mostly interviews with filmmakers who talk about their reverence for his craft. Al Pacino, Gene Hackman, Robert De Niro, Richard Dreyfuss, Meryl Streep and Sidney Lumet all talk about how his dedication on set made them all give better performances. I also didn't know that Streep and he were in love.
I think my favorite parts were when younger actors Philip Seymour Hoffman, Sam Rockwell and Steve Buscemi each describe subtle gestures he did in his scenes that they're amazed by. The film then shows those clips and they're just small things like his little dance entering a room, adjusting his fly, slouching in a chair that you probably didn't consciously notice. You realize these things are not in the script and yet they're responsible for your emotional response to the character.
This film explains great acting as well as anything I've seen. At just 45 minutes long, if you love movies, you need to see this.
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