Autoportraits: John Cassavetes

First edition of Autoportraits: John Cassavetes by Ray Carney (1992). First impression. Medium format hardback in good condition. Some general shelf wear to dust jacket and minor wear and toning to the extremities of the book. Jacket now ina removable protective sleeve. Pages and spine are clean and intact. Printed in French.

About

A luscious, coffee-table sized photographic extravaganza. The most complete photographic presentation of Cassavetes’ life and work ever published. Ray Carney wrote the text and introduction. Larry and Sam Shaw provided the 170 photographs that illustrate the book, many in color and most a full page in size. 191 oversized pages.

This book was published in French in the Editions de l’Etoile series by Cahiers du cinèma in October 1992. It is still in print in France, but no English-language edition has been published. It is available at foreign language bookstores in the United States and England.

“I spent five years writing letters, making phone calls, and visiting New York editors attempting to persuade an American publisher to print this book, but the response was always the same – If it were Woody Allen or Oliver Stone, it would be different; but it’s Cassavetes, for gosh sake. We just can’t afford to take the risk! The book is the best-selling Cassavetes volume of all time, with more than 30,000 copies sold in France alone. But I guess it just can’t happen in America. After all, he’s not Woody Allen, and American publishing is about entertainment and profit, not about art, life, and truth.” Ray Carney.