AccessMyLibrary provides FREE access to over 30 million articles from top publications available through your library.
Create a link to this page
Copy and paste this link tag into your Web page or blog:
The End of Allegory.(The Killing of a Chinese Bookie)(Video recording review)
In 1975, after the critical and financial success of "A Woman Under the Influence," the director and actor John Cassavetes turned his attention to a gangland drama that he had cooked up with Martin Scorsese. The resulting movie, "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie" (in a two-disk set on Criterion), is Cassavetes's only genre film. When it was released in 1976, it confounded most critics' expectations and closed in a week. Yet, for the director, it was an artistic breakthrough that set the stage for his daringly personal later works.
The movie stars Ben Gazzara as Cosmo Vitelli, the owner of the Crazy Horse West, a Los Angeles strip club. A bad night of poker leaves Cosmo twenty-three thousand dollars in debt to mobsters; when he cannot pay, they demand that he commit the crime foretold in the title. The story is formulaic, but Cassavetes's approach is strikingly unconventional. From the opening shot, a long take in which Cosmo is held in closeup as he pays off a seven-year debt to a small-time operator who goes unseen, Cassavetes avoids psychological motivation in favor of a Beckett-like opacity and absurd humor, and turns the story into a ...
- RE:VISION TO OPEN SATURDAY WITH CASSAVETES' 'CHINESE BOOKIE'
- Newspaper article from: The Boston Globe Jay Carr, Globe Staff March 30, 1987 700+ words
...overlooked films, will unreel at four Boston-area sites Saturday through April 12. "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie," John Cassavetes' 1978 film noir, will start things off Saturday and Sunday at 7:30 p.m. at the Institute of Contemporary...
- Fallen creatures in a fallen world: the films of John Cassavetes.(Film)
- Magazine article from: Sojourners Magazine Hughes, Darren March 1, 2005 700+ words
...traditional narrative are, Cassavetes' films resist resolution...Collection's recent release of a Cassavetes DVD box set offers the perfect...1974), The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976), and Opening Night...provide further insight into Cassavetes' working methods and his...
- John Cassavetes, indy film pioneer.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)
- Newspaper article from: Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service Lawson, Terry September 22, 2004 700+ words
...pioneering influence of John Cassavetes, who gets the vaunted Criterion...3 stars), in which Cassavetes' wife, Gena Rowlands...masterpiece "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie" (4 stars) and 1977...minute documentary about Cassavetes and his films, "A Constant...
- `Blair Witch' mockumentary beats release of movie for small screen: Cassavetes...
- Newspaper article from: The Washington Times September 30, 1999 700+ words
...way is the label's "The Cassavetes Collection," offering remastered...by the maverick auteur John Cassavetes: Ben Gazzara in the offbeat noir The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, Peter Falk and actor Cassavetes in Mikey and Nicky (directed...
- Cassavetes on Cassavetes & The Films of John Cassavetes: Pragmatism, Modernism,...
- Magazine article from: Cineaste Rosenbaum, Jonathan December 22, 2001 700+ words
Cassavetes on Cassavetes Edited by Ray Carney. London and New York: Faber and Faber, 2001. 526 pp., illus. Paperback: $25.00. The Films of John Cassavetes: Pragmatism, Modernism, and the Movies by Ray Carney. Cambridge...
- Another Cassavetes heard from: director Zoe.(movie director Zoe Cassavetes)
- Newspaper article from: Philadelphia Inquirer (Philadelphia, PA) Rea, Steven July 19, 2007 700+ words
...playing Wiffle ball with me!" Zoe Cassavetes remembers thinking happily, back when...That director, of course, was John Cassavetes, the actor-turned-American-indie...wife, Gena Rowlands. The unofficial Cassavetes rep troupe also included Falk, Ben...
- Unearthing a 'lost 'John Cassavetes film.
- News wire article from: United Press International December 13, 2002 700+ words
...breakthrough 1968 movie by the late John Cassavetes, which was recently discovered in the...is an expert on the life and work of Cassavetes, and the independent film movement...lost" version of the movie, one that Cassavetes may have meant to be released theatrically...
- Low-key Cassavetes in dogged pursuit of good storytelling.
- Newspaper article from: Saint Paul Pioneer Press (St. Paul, MN) January 21, 2007 700+ words
...won't like," writer/director Nick Cassavetes shows he's not inclined to a hard sell. Cassavetes' "Alpha Dog" -- based on the real...to stop -- is in theaters now, and Cassavetes isn't expecting the take-your-grandma...
