John Cassavetes: Five Films (#250) USED

John Cassavetes was a genius, a visionary, and the progenitor of American independent film, but that doesnt begin to get at the generosity of his art. A former theater actor fascinated by the power of improvisation, Cassavetes brought his search for truth in performance to the screen. The five films in this collectionall of which the director maintained total control over by financing them himself and making them outside the studio systemare electrifying and compassionate creations, populated by all manner of humanity: beatniks, hippies, businessmen, actors, housewives, strippers, club owners, gangsters, children. Cassavetes has often been called an actors director, but this body of workeven greater than the sum of its extraordinary partsshows him to be an audiences director.

SHADOWS(1959)

• 82 minutes
• Black & White
• Monaural
• 1.33:1 aspect ratio John Cassavetess directorial debut revolves around a romance in New York City between Lelia (Lelia Goldoni), a light-skinned black woman, and Tony (Anthony Ray), a white man. The relationship is put in jeopardy when Tony meets Lelias darker-skinned jazz singer brother, Hugh (Hugh Hurd), and discovers that her racial heritage is not what he thought it was. Shot on location in Manhattan with a mostly nonprofessional cast and crew, Shadows is a penetrating work that is widely considered the forerunner of the American independent film movement.

  FACES(1968)

  • 130 minutes
  • Black & White
  • Monaural
  • 1.66:1 aspect ratio John Cassavetes puts a disintegrating marriage under the microscope in the searing Faces. Shot in high-contrast 16 mm black and white, the film follows the futile attempts of the captain of industry Richard (The Godfathers John Marley) and his wife, Maria (Taking Offs Lynn Carlin), to escape the anguish of their empty relationship in the arms of others. Featuring astonishingly nervy performances from Marley, Carlin, and Cassavetes regulars Gena Rowlands (A Woman Under the Influence) and Seymour Cassel (Rushmore), Faces confronts modern alienation and the battle of the sexes with a brutal honesty and compassion rarely matched in cinema.

    A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE(1974)

    • 147 minutes
    • Color
    • Monaural
    • 1.85:1 aspect ratio) This uncompromising portrait of domestic turmoil details the emotional breakdown of a suburban housewife and her familys struggle to save her from herself. Gena Rowlands (Faces) and Peter Falk (Wings of Desire) give unforgettably harrowing performances as a married couple deeply in love but unable to express their ardor in terms the other can understand. This landmark American film is perhaps the most beloved work from the extraordinary John Cassavetes.

      THE KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE(1976 version)

      • 135 minutes
      • Color
      • Monaural
      • 1.85:1 aspect ratio, 1978 version
      • 108 minutes
      • Color
      • Monaural
      • 1.85:1 aspect ratio) John Cassavetes engages with film noir in his own inimitable style with The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. Ben Gazzara (Anatomy of a Murder) brilliantly portrays a gentlemans club owner, Cosmo Vitelli, desperately committed to maintaining a facade of suave gentility despite the seediness of his environment and his own unhealthy appetites. When he runs afoul of loan sharks, Cosmo must carry out a terrible crime or lose his way of life. Mesmerizing and idiosyncratic, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie is a provocative examination of masculine identity. It is presented here in two versions: Cassavetess original 1976 edit and his 1978 one, nearly thirty minutes shorter.

        OPENING NIGHT(1977)

        • 144 minutes
        • Color
        • Monaural
        • 1.85:1 aspect ratio. While in the midst of rehearsals for her latest play, Broadway actor Myrtle Gordon (A Woman Under the Influences Gena Rowlands) witnesses the accidental death of an adoring young fan, after which she begins to confront the chaos of her own life. Headlined by a virtuoso performance by Rowlands, John Cassavetess Opening Night lays bare the drama of a performer who, at great personal cost, makes a part her own, and it functions as a metaphor for the directors singular, wrenched-from-the-heart creative method.