It ends with the declaration that "the film you have just seen was an improvisation"-at once making you feel like an idiot for thinking an improvisation was an good movie, and astounded at Cassavetes' genius...once again. Of course, Cassavetes told some guy it wasn't really an improvisation per se, on his deathbed, so...it's the story about a light-skinned black woman, Lelia, who passes for white, and her family: another passing-for-white brother named Ben, and a black-black brother named Hughie. When she falls in love with a white jerk named Tony, he is unpleasantly surprised when he finds out she's black, and from there it goes on about the three main characters' individual aspirations and shortcomings. Hughie is a jazz singer in the process of becoming a failure, Lelia's still hopelessly depressed over Tony, and Ben is angsty and violent in general, in desperate need of something to shock him out of his stale patterns of existence. Overall, I suppose it's really about stasis vs. change in human life. I suspect that Cassavetes had the plot organized enough, and it was just the dialogue that was improvised. The dialogue itself is very uneven - sometimes somebody will say something very memorable, other times it's memorably awkward. What's amazing is the extent of the amateur actors' embodiment of their characters. Cassavetes went through the acting class he was teaching at the time he decided to do Shadows, whispered in the ears of the ten best students, and this was the result...the guys playing Ben and Hughie are very good. At first I didn't like Lelia, but as the film progressed you see more and more she's one of those actors who gets better as the tension and drama builds - not necessarily the best with small talk. Shadows is hailed by many as the forerunner of the indie film movement (made in 1959) and it's definitely recommended.

At the end of the movie, this message comes on screen - "The film you have just seen was an improvisation". That would partly explain it's disjointed feel at times, along with some inconsistency with the characters, in particular Lelia (Lelia Goldoni), who describes her first sexual experience with Tony (Anthony Ray) as 'awful', but in the next scene tells him how she's madly in love with him. By way of petty insult, she makes another beau, Davey (David Jones), wait two and a half hours while she fusses with her looks. I would have taken her brother Hugh's (Hugh Hurd) advice to not put up with it myself.

Made and set in the late Fifties, the film has a jazzy street vibe, with more than a passing share of Beat Generation influence, as director John Cassavetes cultivates a 'slice of life' picture that does have the feel of improv much of the time. Not quite midway into the picture, the tone of the story changes once Tony becomes aware that Lelia is a lightly skinned black woman who easily passes for white. Considering that she really is a white woman, born Lelia Vita Rizzuto, the improv factor becomes apparent more than ever. Upon reflection, Tony's love for Lelia is stronger than racial bias, and suggests to her brother Ben (Ben Carruthers) that there's 'no difference between us' as a way of smoothing over his earlier distancing from Hugh and Ben.

It strikes me that this was probably a pretty brave project for Cassavetes to undertake back in the day while notable segregation was still a fact in Fifties America. Cinematically it is rather amateurish at times, but makes up for it with a healthy dose of street energy and drive. A slight distraction for this viewer was the appearance of character Rupert (Rupert Crosse), who I would have easily taken for Laurence Fishburne in an early role.

John Cassavetes' jazz-scored improvisational film explores interracial friendships and relationships in Beat-Era (1950s) New York City.

How fascinating that the characters briefly discuss existentialism, the thoughts of Jean-Paul Sartre and put the film in the context of the beat generation. Those of us not having lived at the time may not be sure how influential Sartre was in his own day. He certainly still is today (2013), but it is nice to see how he influenced thought and film early on. Can any philosopher today claim to have such potency? Can the average person name a living philosopher?

The film itself may not be a Beat film, but the action clearly takes place on the edge of the Beat world. Much of the lingo (like "mad chick") works itself into the story, and there is, of course, the jazz theme.

The film is said to be an "improvisation", and one wonders to what degree there was a script and how much was truly improv. All the characters share their names with the actors that play them, making the lines much more blurred than in a strictly script-based acting job. This is not to say there was no acting -- the characters are all incredible.

Where this picture excels, though, is with racial issues. We see that racism is often really only skin deep -- a black woman with light skin is seen as white, despite having a black family, raised in a black community, and so on. How much should our skin dictate our identity?

Cassavetes successfully worked outside the studio framework, and while there may be a lack of budget and polish, what replaces it is a heart and soul the studio never had (and some might say still does not have today).