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Home , A Child Is Waiting, Ben Gazzara, Brass Target, Edge of the City, Gena Rowlands, Johnny Staccato

March 11, 2014 (Series 28: 7) , KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE (1976, 135 minutes)

Directed by John Cassavetes Cinematography by Mitch Breit

Ben Gazzara ... Cosmo Vittelli Timothy Carey ... Flo Al Ruban ... Marty Reitz

JOHN CASSAVETES (director) (b. John Nicholas Cassavetes, December 9, 1929 in City, New York—d. February 3, 1989 (age 59) in , ) directed 16 films and TV shows, which are 1986 Big Trouble, 1984 Love Streams, 1980 Gloria, 1977 Opening Night, 1976 The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, 1974 A Woman Under the Influence, 1972 “” (TV Series), 1971 , 1970 Husbands, 1968 Faces, 1966 “ Presents the Chrysler Theatre” (TV Series), 1962-1963 “The Lloyd Bridges Show” (TV Series), 1963 , 1961 , 1959-1960 “” (TV Series), and 1959 Shadows. He also wrote 14 films and TV shows—2010 Antes del estreno (original story), MITCH BREIT (cinematography) has been cinematographer for 1999 Gloria (1980 screenplay), 1997 She's So Lovely, 1984 Love 2 films: 1976 The Killing of a Chinese Bookie and 1974 A Streams, 1980 Gloria, 1977 Opening Night, 1976 The Killing of Woman Under the Influence. a Chinese Bookie, 1974 A Woman Under the Influence, 1971 Minnie and Moskowitz, 1970 Husbands, 1968 Faces, 1966 “Bob ... Cosmo Vittelli (b. Biagio Anthony Gazzara, Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre” (TV Series), 1961 Too Late August 28, 1930 in , New York—d. February 3, Blues, and 1959 Shadows—and edited 2—1968 Faces and 1959 2012 (age 81) in New York City, New York) appeared in 133 Shadows. In addition, he appeared in 79 films and television films and television shows, among them 2011 Ristabbànna, 2011 shows, including 1985 “Nederland C” (TV Movie), 1984 Love Chez Gino, 2010 Christopher Roth, 2010 13, 2008 Looking for Streams, 1982 Tempest, 1982 The Incubus, 1981 Whose Life Is It Palladin, 2006 Quiet Flows the Don, 2006 Paris, je t'aime, 2005 Anyway?, 1978 Brass Target, 1978 The Fury, 1977 Opening Schubert, 2003 , 2001 “Brian's Song” (TV Movie), 2001 Night, 1977 Heroes, 1976 Mikey and Nicky, 1976 Two-Minute “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” (TV Series), 2000 Jack of Warning, 1975 Capone, 1971 Minnie and Moskowitz, 1970 Hearts, 2000 The List, 2000 Very Mean Men, 2000 Blue Moon, Husbands, 1969 If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium, 1969 1999 The Thomas Crown Affair, 1999 , 1998 The Machine Gun McCain, 1968 Rosemary's Baby, 1967 The Dirty Big Lebowski, 1998 Buffalo '66, 1997 The Spanish Prisoner, Dozen, 1966 “The Long, Hot Summer” (TV Series), 1966 “The 1997 Stag, 1995 Bandits, 1995 The Zone, 1988 Quicker Than the Virginian” (TV Series), 1965 “The Legend of Jesse James” (TV Eye, 1987 Control, 1981 They All Laughed, 1981 Inchon, 1979 Series), 1964 “The Alfred Hitchcock Hour” (TV Series), 1964 Saint Jack, 1977 Opening Night, 1977 “The Trial of Lee Harvey The Killers, 1959-1960 “Johnny Staccato” (TV Series, 27 Oswald” (TV Movie), 1976 Voyage of the Damned, 1976 The episodes), 1959 Shadows, 1958 “Studio One in Hollywood” (TV Killing of a Chinese Bookie, 1975 Capone, 1970 Husbands, 1969 Series), 1957 Affair in Havana, 1957 Edge of the City, 1956 , 1969 If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Crime in the Streets, 1955 “Kraft Theatre” (TV Series), and 1951 Belgium, 1965 A Rage to Live, 1963-1964 “Arrest and Trial” (TV Fourteen Hours. Series, 30 episodes), 1959 , 1957 The

Cassavetes—KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE—2

Strange One, 1954 “Medallion Theatre” (TV Series), 1952-1953 difficult for him to convey uncomplicated good humor, and this “Treasury Men in Action” (TV Series). no doubt handicapped him as a young actor looking for work. At any rate, though he played for a time in a Rhode Island stock TIMOTHY CAREY ... Flo (b. Timothy William Carey, March 11, company, he looked in vain for parts on Broadway. “Nobody 1929 in , New York—d. May 11, 1994 (age 65) in Los would hire me,” he says, “because I was, quote, ‘such an unusual Angeles, California) appeared in 93 films and television shows, type.’” including 1986 Echo Park, 1984 “The New Mike Hammer” (TV His career got underway in 1952, when he played a Series), 1983 D.C. Cab, 1982 Fast-Walking, 1975-1978 small part in a Gregory Ratoff movie called Taxi. Ratoff hired “Baretta” (TV Series), 1977 “Charlie's Angels” (TV Series), him again—as assistant stage manager—for his Broadway 1977 “Starsky and Hutch” (TV Series), 1976 Chesty Anderson success The Fifth Season. The same year Cassavetes played an U.S. Navy, 1971-1976 “Columbo” (TV Series), 1973 The Outfit, intense and brooding young matador in “Paso Doble,” a short 1971 Minnie and Moskowitz, 1969 “The Virginian” (TV Series), play on the television magazine program Omnibus. Many similar 1967 “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” (TV Series), 1967 A Time for television roles followed and Cassavetes became typecast as a Killing, 1958-1966 “Gunsmoke” (TV Series), 1964 Rio Conchos, disturbed or delinquent youth…. 1964 , 1962 The World's Greatest Sinner, 1961 One-Eyed Jacks, 1957 , 1956 Naked Gun, 1956 Cassavetes’ ambitions went beyond profitable The Last Wagon, 1956 The Killing, 1955 I'll Cry Tomorrow, assignments in routine entertainments. He has always “wanted to 1955 East of Eden, 1953 “Death Valley Days” (TV Series), 1951 express things that I think may be of value,” and been more Across the Wide Missouri, and “concerned with the problems 1951 Ace in the Hole. confronting real people. . . than emphasizing dramatic structure AL RUBAN ... Marty Reitz or bending characters to fit a Appeared in 12 films and TV plot.” It was this that brought shows: 1988 Mr. North, 1984 him into “this ridiculous Love Streams, 1982 Swamp business” of filmmaking. In Thing, 1978 The Big Fix, 1976 1956 he had begin to teach The Killing of a Chinese at a Manhattan Bookie, 1968 Coogan's Bluff, drama workshop. One of the 1968 Madigan, 1965 “Kraft group’s improvisations seemed Suspense Theatre” (TV Series), to have the makings of a movie, 1965 “The Alfred Hitchcock and Cassavetes mentioned this Hour” (TV Series), 1965 The project on Night People, Jean Sexploiters, 1964 Bunny Yeager's Nude Las Vegas, and 1963 Shepherd’s unique late-night music and talk show. Shepherd’s 1,000 Shapes of a Female. He also produced 8 films—1990 audience of insomniacs and moonlighters sent in donations Texasville, 1987 Happy New Year, 1977 Opening Night, 1976 totaling $20,000. Thus encouraged, Cassavetes raised a similar The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, 1971 Minnie and Moskowitz, sum from show-business friends and his own savings, assembled 1970 Husbands, 1968 Faces, and 1964 The Beautiful, the a crew willing to participate for nothing, and started work on his Bloody, and the Bare—and was the cinematographer on 7—1984 first picture, Shadows. Love Streams, 1981 Jet Lag, 1979 David, 1977 Opening Night, Both the story and the dialogue of Shadows were 1976 The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, 1974 A Woman Under the improvised by the cast who gave their names to the characters Influence, and 1968 Faces. they play.. . .The film was made intermittently over a period of two years. The cameraman, Eric Kollmar, used a 16mm hand- “John Cassavetes,”from World Film Directors, V. II, Ed. held camera, and the picture acquired a grainy quality when it John Wakeman. H.W. Wilson Co., NY, 1986. was blown up into 35mm. The dialogue was recorded live and American director, actor, scenarist, and producer, was synchronized later, backed by the jazz of Charlie Mingus. Unable born in New York City, the younger of two sons of Greek to interest American distributors, Cassavetes sent Shadows to immigrants, Nicholas and Katherine Cassavates. His father, a Europe, where it was welcomed enthusiastically as a pioneering Harvard-educated businessman, had a knack for making (and triumph of cinema verité, a harbinger of an American New losing) millions. John Cassavetes grew up in the Long Island Wave. It won the Critics’ Award at the 1960 Venice Film towns of Sands Point and Port Washington, where he attended Festival and made a respectable profit. In 1961 it was released in public schools and became a movie buff, enamored of Frank the under the auspices of Lion-International, a Capra comedies and Dick Powell musicals. He majored in British company. English without taking a degree at Mohawk College and Colgate ...For many ...it marked the beginning of “the New University, both in New York State, and then, inspired by the American Cinema.” To those who wanted to crown him as the plays of Robert E. Sherwood, enrolled at the New York American Godard, Cassavetes responded unhelpfully that credit Academy of Dramatic Arts. He graduated in 1950. for the film belonged to the actors: “The director is the most The story is much quoted that Cassavetes, having expendable person in the film. If you have a good script and chipped his tooth in a fight when he was a child, was for years good actors, all the director has to do is aim the camera and keep afterwards too embarrassed to smile: “When I finally got enough things going.” money for caps, I’d forgotten how to smile.” It still seems Cassavetes—KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE—3

Impressed by the success of Shadows, Paramount hired two years on the editing. It was shown in 1968 at film festivals in Cassavetes to make a series of high-quality, low-budget films, New York, , and Venice, where it received five beginning with Too Late Blues (1961) which stars Bobby Darin awards. as a struggling young jazz pianist. It pleased neither the critics Released in the United States later the same year, it nor the public, and Paramount canceled the contract. Cassavetes earned two million dollars within a few months and was expected was then signed by to direct A Child is Waiting eventually to gross about seven million. Diane Jacobs wrote that (, 1963), a drama in which retarded children at a “the extravagant physical gestures and child play which appeared California hospital play alongside the stars and first in Shadows are redoubled in Faces. Maria masks her . There was a falling-out between Cassavetes and confusion with a high-pitched laugh. Jeannie communicates with the studio, and he was given Dick in nursery just two weeks to edit the rhymes…..Cassavetes film—extreme hardship for an intensifies the solation of each improvisational director who character by cutting from one to needs more time than most to the other, rarely portraying both cut and shape his material. husband and wife in the same Kramer made further cuts and frame. As they laugh at the result, according to ostensibly shared jokes, the Cassavetes, was a camera jolts uneasily.” Alex sentimentalization of his work. Ross called Faces “the longest, A Child is Waiting, written by most ambitious, most brilliant Abby Mann, is technically the home movie ever made. . . . most orthodox of the directors Somehow Cassavetes has pictures, “with classic captured the texture of actual Hollywood pans and zooms and life on film.” a steady camera,” but it seemed Husbands, which to some critics a moving and followed in 1970, is the only provocative film that deserved a one of Cassavetes films in better press than it received. which he has given himself a After that, Cassavetes major role. He appears with directed no more movies whose and Ben Gazzara as ultimate form was in the hands one of a trio of affluent Long of others, though he continued to act in them. He regards himself Island suburbanites—middle-aged adolescents who mourn the as an “amateur” director but a “professional” actor, prepared to death of an old friend with a three-day private wake that takes in appear in good, bad, or indifferent productions so that he can an impulsive visit to London for gambling and sex. By turns afford the luxury of making his own films in his own way, from ribald, , witty, cruel, and moving, Husbands leaves the audience his own scripts. In the middle of the late 1960s he was seen in an to find answers to the questions it raises about responsibility, assortment of television dramas, in Don Siegel’s The Killers marriage and mortality. . . . Cassavetes himself said that (Universal, 1964), in Devil’s Angels (American International, “Husbands is about feelings and sentiment, and sentiment is 1967), and in Robert Aldrich’s war film The Dirty Dozen (MGM, selfish. We try to prove that selfishness is important, a way to 1967), which brought him an Oscar nomination for his stay sensitive.” impersonation of yet another psychopathic killer. He also earned His aims were more modest in Minnie and Moskowitz good notices as the young actor who sells his wife to the devil in (Universal, 1971). The history of an improbable love-match Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (Paramount, 1967). between a Wasp sophisticate () and a raffish Jewish car parker (), it is an affectionate tribute In 1965, meanwhile, Cassavetes had written the first to the sentimental idealism of the Frank Capra comedies and (for draft of Faces, about a middle-aged, middle-class couple whose most of its length) a holiday from the home-truths of most of marriage has become a comfortable pattern of habits that do not Cassavetes’ other work. Indeed, the picture has something of the include communication, and what happens when they discover spirit of a family outing, with Cassavetes appearing as the this. Unlike Shadows, the film was acted by experienced heroine’s married lover, his mother as Moscowitz’s strident professionals ( and Linda Carlin as the couple Dick Mama, and various other relatives of the two stars as minor and Maria, and Cassavetes’ wife Gena Rowlands as the call girl characters. This unabashed nepotism was repeated in Cassavetes’ Jeannie). Though they worked with a fully written script, next film, in which he cast not only his wife, mother, and Cassavetes allowed them an exceptional degree of autonomy in children, but also his in-laws. their interpretation of his lines, sometimes revising dialogue to fit A Woman Under the Influence (1974) was written at a role more closely to the actor’s sense of it. The effect is almost Gena Rowlands’ request—she had wished to return to the stage as free and spontaneous as with the improvisations of Shadows, and needed a vehicle. As the work developed, however, the and the director’s subsequent films have been made in the same central role began to seem too taxing for nightly performances, way. so Cassavetes rewrote the piece as a film, mortgaging his house Shooting again in 16mm (later blown up to 35mm), and borrowing from his friends to finance it. The story is Cassavetes spent eight months filming Faces and something like virtually a case history, and among other things reflects Cassavetes—KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE—4 contemporary concerns over the disproportionate number of Gloria (1980), which Cassavetes wrote, produced, and women committed to mental hospitals. Mabel Longhetti is a directed, and which was co-winner of the Venice Film Festival’s loving wife and mother who knows but cannot explain that top award, the Golden Lion, was a departure for Cassavetes in something in her remains unfulfilled. She becomes “different”— some respects, blending his personalized film making with tried- unable to sustain her role as a model housewife—and begins to and-true conventions of Hollywood…. express physically the frustration she cannot articulate. Her Written with Ted Allan and winner of the Berlin Film bewildered husband tries but fails to understand her and, giving Festival’s top prize, Love Streams (1984) is another Cassavetes way to his mother’s bullying, commits Mabel to an institution. movie with obvious faults and brilliant performances. Gena She is released months later, shaky but touchingly determined to Rowlands and Cassavetes play a brother and sister, both half- “succeed,” though it is painfully clear that she is returning to a mad though in quite different ways….. situation that is just as uncomprehending as it was when she left. Cassavetes stepped in to direct Big Trouble (1986) when Bu perhaps her case is not entirely hopeless, since (unlike the Andrew Bergman, who wrote the film as a follow-up to his couple in Faces) she and her husband love each other; Casavetes successful 1979 comedy The In-Laws, withdrew from the said, “I really think A Woman Under the Influence is a new assignment. Big Trouble reunites the stars of The In-Laws—Alan film….a film that says we’re not so evil as we are caring.” Arkin and Peter Falk—in a plot that, as one critic wrote, “is a Most of Cassavetes’s films focus down on the objects of most cheering, sweetly demented salute to Bill Wilder’s Double their scrutiny to the virtual exclusion of all else, but here we are Indemnity.”… given a fuller impression of a world outside (if only to emphasize The film was not well served by , the claustrophobic narrowness of Mabel’s life). Some critics which was reluctant even to release it, but once it reached the greeted the picture as a feminist tract, but Diane Jacobs thought it theatres, reviews were generally favorable…. rather an investigation of “the extent to which love means Most critics agree that even the best of Cassavetes’ responsibility , and an exploration of the capacities of both men films are extremely uneven, and Pualine Kael finds “a muffled and women for self-abnegation.” Paul Zimmerman described the quality” in his direction: his scenes are often unshaped and so picture as “flailing away at us with its heavy-breathing hysteria, rudderless that the meanings don’t emerge.” Derek Malcolm boring us with its repetitiousness, wounding us to the heart with agrees, but adds that “the irritating idiosyncrasies, the seemingly the tender combat of its loving, hating characters, making us endless repetitions, the sheer indulgence can produce—and confront our deepest feelings regularly do—some blinding even as we cry, ‘Stop, flashes of insight.” enough!’” Zimmerman concluded that “Cassavetes is Diane Jacobs has the biggest gambler around, described Cassavetes as “the betting that he can make magic father of the ,” out of inspiration and saying that his “fascination with improvisation to keep his realism and the actor-based characters form boring us to narrative set the stage for the death. For two and a half ‘personal’ styles of the school of hours, he wins and loses from directors that invaded scene to scene until, battered, Hollywood over a decade later.” exasperated but close to tears, Many of the young directors we surrender.” There was have acknowledged this universal praise for Gena influence. Rowlands‘ performance as For Jacobs, “it is in the Mabel and Peter Falk’s as her shady area between life and husband. fiction that Cassavetes’ films are both most effective and most The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976) stars Ben disquieting—less than myth and more than fact. . . .Eschewing Gazzara as strip-joint owner forced into murder to square a metaphor on the one hand and the painterly image. . . on the gambling debt. Charles Champlin formed the impression that other, Cassavetes’ myopic lens denies man the option of either Cassavetes “could not decide whether to make a ‘popular’ escape or of metaphysical redemption. . . . .It is Cassavetes’ picture in something close to the gangster tradition, or another of belief in the spontaneity of emotions and his unswerving his studies of contemporary American society.” Judith Christ integrity in evoking them that elevate his films beyond moments called the result “a mess, as sloppy in concept as it is in of improvisation.” The director himself says: “I am more execution, as pointless in thesis as it is in concept.” interested in the people who work with me than in the film itself Opening Night (1978)m, directed and written by or in cinema.” Cassavetes, deals with a Broadyway actress(Gena Rowlands) who in having to assume the role of an aging actress forced to from The St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia. Ed. Andrew confront herself. In the course of the film her fears and self- Sarris. Visible Ink, , 1998, entry by Bill Wine. doubts are brought out through her interaction with those round her—her leading man(Cassavetes), the director (Ben Gazzara), Cassavetes’ style centers around a freedom afforded his and the author of the play (Joan Blondell), and by the end the actors to share in the creative process. Cassavetes’ scripts serve viewer has come to know her deeply…. as sketchy blueprints for the performers’ introspective Cassavetes—KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE—5 explorations and emotional embellishments. Consequently, uncompromising vision remains vividly contemporary, camera movements, at the command of the actors’ intuitive challenging, provocative, and at its heart, darkly lyrical. If there behavior, are of necessity spontaneous. was ever an American , Cassavetes was the one. The amalgam of improvisational acting, hand-held camera work, grainy stock, loose editing, and threadbare plot give his films a texture of recreated rather than heightened reality, often imbuing them with a feeling of astonishing psychodramatic intensity as characters confront each other and lay bare their souls. Detractors, however, see Cassavetes as too dedicated to the performers’ art and too trusting of the actor’s self-discipline. They charge that the result is too often a mild form of aesthetic anarchy….

As his career progressed, Cassavetes changed his thematic concerns, upgraded his technical production values, and, not surprisingly, attracted a wider audience—but without overhauling his actor-as-auteur approach. Faces represented Cassavetes’s return to his favored semi-documentary style, complete with the seemingly obligatory Interview with John Cassavetes, excerpted, originally in excesses and gaffes. But the film also contained moments of Filmmakers Newsletter January, 1975. truth and exemplary acting. Not only did this highly charged drama about the disintegration of middle- class marriage in Judith McNally: How did you get involved in doing the affluent Southern California find favor with the critical and screenplay for A Woman Under the Influence? Is it something filmmaking communities, it broke through as one of the first you had wanted to do for a long time? independent films to find a sizable audience among the general moviegoing public…. JC: I think we’re just reporters, all of us basically. And a story like this is not newsworthy, really—it’s not Watergate; it’s not A Woman Under the Influence was by far Cassavetes war; it’s a man and woman relationship, which is always most polished, accessible, gripping ,and technically proficient interesting to me. And in telling a story, I think the most film. For this effort, Cassavetes departed from his accustomed important thing is to make it correspond to the emotions of the style of working by writing a fully detailed script during pre- audience you’re addressing. I have a total awareness that a film production. Starring Gena Rowlands in a magnificent can be successful only because an audience is interested in a performance as a lower-middle class housewife coming apart at particular subject. The quality of the film itself doesn’t affect an the seams, and the reliable Peter Falk as the hardhat husband who audience as much as the subject you choose. is ill-equipped to deal with his wife’s mental breakdown. Woman offered a more palatable balance of Cassavetes strengths and JM: Did you have a particular audience in mind? weaknesses. The over-long scenes and overindulgent acting jags are there, but in lesser doses, while the privileged moments and JC: Yes—people. Women and men, to be specific. Actually, A bursts of virtuoso screen acting seem more abundant than usual. Woman Under the Influence was first a trilogy of three-act plays, Financed by Falk and Cassavetes, the film’s crew and which I converted to one screenplay. It was hard to cut down, cast (including many family members) worked on deferred and the finished film is long. As I get older, I guess I have a salaries. Promoted via a tour undertaken by the nucleus of his tendency to make longer pictures. But the subjects are also more virtual company (Cassavetes, Rowlands, Falk) and booked difficult. I don’t think audiences are satisfied any longer with just without a major distributor, Woman collected generally ecstatic touching the surfaces of people’s lives; I think they really want to reviews, Academy Award nominations for Cassavetes and get into a subject. Rowlands, and impressive box office returns. ... JM: I certainly didn’t find the length excessive, but two and a “People who are making films today are too concerned half hours is long for a feature. Do you anticipate any trouble with mechanics—technical things instead of feeling,” Cassavetes from theater owners? told an interviewer in 1980. “Execution is about eight percent to me. The technical quality of a film doesn’t have much to do with JC: I haven’t had any; no one has brought it up. This film deals whether it’s a good film.” with the serious problems of a man and a woman who are alienated from each other by their backgrounds, ignorant of their from ’s Movie of the Week. Ballantine own problems, yet totally in love. If we rushed the story just to Books, NY, 1999. get to the dramatic areas, it would no longer be a valid picture. So I can’t take into consideration what some theater owner or Cassavetes certainly was a director like no other, and, distributor might think—I couldn’t care less. contrary to popular conception he also (except for Shadows, which was improvised) wrote all his own scripts. John was our JM: How tightly was the film scripted? most revolutionary filmmaker, whose restless and Cassavetes—KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE—6

JC: I think it’s in the modern screenplay tradition—if there is watching the technical processes as hard as they’re watching the such a thing. The old screenplays, as you know, detailed every actors. If the actors are good, the picture looks good—I mean, the shot, every angle, every location. Today we just don’t do that; actual photography looks better when the actors are better. pictures are much more loosely made. This script was really for On a set there’s really a lot that can hamper the actors. the actors. So we did have all the dialogue scripted. For example, in this film, here’s maybe the most important moment in two people’s lives: a guy is committing his wife to a JM: One of the hallmarks of your films is the consistently mental institution. But someone is also fiddling with your hair, brilliant performances you get from your actors. Do you do a lot putting lipstick on you, placing lights above you, sitting you of rehearsing? down, marking your feet, moving cameras, yelling, “Hey, she doesn’t look good; her skin is out of focus.” Now, I ask you, how JC: Not that much. I just use can the actors concentrate? So very good actors—that helps! I we do all this before the actors really believe almost anyone come onstage. We all work can act. How well they can act quietly, and hopefully depends on how free they are efficiently, and get it done. and whether the circumstances are such that they can reveal JM: In this film, the what they feel. I don’t think performance of the three small there’s any great trick to my children is critically important at directing. I just get people I times. Did you find any special like, people I’m interested in, problem in working with such and talk to them on the basis of young children? their being people rather than actors. JC: It is different. You’re always stooping to the children, always If an actor wants to do something in a certain way, I aware they are children. You don’t know quite how much they don’t want to tell him that wouldn’t be right—that would be can comprehend or how good they’re going to be, so you’re crazy. I’m never aware of anyone being bad; I don’t have that always terribly afraid they’re going to be little snot-nosed cute type of criticism in me. I believe everything until the actor stops kids. and questions. I don’t want big, long discussions; I don’t want to I found the best approach was to be kind of cold to the know what they’re thinking. If an actor tells me, “Look, I’m kids, not to deal with them as children and not to worry whether going to try this,” and then tries to do it, he’s putting untold they’d do well. I just hoped they would pick up, as an adult pressure on himself. would, where the story was going. As a matter of fact, I was quite thrilled. At the end of the picture, there’s a scene where JM: Can you explain why you often work with both amateurs Peter Falk is apparently attacking his wife, and the kids and professionals in the same picture? automatically attacked the father. I never said for them to do that, they just did it—and in an exquisite way. The delicacy with JC: I find it very easy because they help each other. The amateur which they approached their own intervention and the taking of has no preconceived notions of how it should be done. The sides was something that never could have been told to them. professional has: he’s gone to school, learned techniques, knows You just try not to put any pressure on the children, so they can what will work—his choices, his selections, are usually better. listen and do things their own way. And I think they did. The amateur has no selection; it’s a very pure thing. So the Now, in working with the kids, or any actors for that professional gets a little jealous while the amateur begins to pick matter, I certainly give directions-but I’m not aware of it. And, up a few things. Somewhere in the course of the film they come hopefully, the people I give them to are not aware of taking them. together and aid each other: the professional takes purity form So I know, for example, they went up the stairs, and I must have the amateur, and the amateur takes on a certain amount of said something about it, but I tried to do it within the framework professionalism. of the action so it didn’t become a set direction. I might have said, “Take them up the stairs, Pete,” and then eliminated that JM: Do you consciously direct this, or does it sort of happen by from the soundtrack. osmosis? JM: One striking thing about your films is your use of the camera JC: I think it’s all in the atmosphere. It’s very hard to let the to select, probe, and reveal. How closely do you work with the technical process of film take over and then expect the actors to cinematographer in planning camera moves and angles? reveal themselves. I mean, you can’t take a shower at a dinner party. If I have any special way of working, it’s just to setup an JC: Obviously, you have to begin by putting the camera atmosphere where what the actors are doing is really important, somewhere. But I feel that there is no such thing as setting up a fun, and nothing takes precedence over it. shot that is “right” for the scene. So I’m left just shooting the For that reason, the choice of the crew becomes action, and the selections are those of the operator. If the operator extremely important. They have to understand that what they are is free to think in those terms, he can simply photograph what’s doing—no matter how hard they are working—is only to help happening without constricting the actors. what is going on in front of the camera. Audiences are not Cassavetes—KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE—7

Usually the actors don’t know what’s being shot. Even but I don’t think the camera operators would dare to take that though we sometimes shoot very tight, they never know when privilege. the camera’s going to swing onto them, so everyone has to play every moment. If you set up a formalized shot, the tendency is JM: And how many takes do you usually do per scene? for the actors to let down when they’re not on-screen. So the fluidity of the camera really keeps it alive and allows the JC: It depended on the difficulty of the writing. If the writing was operator to make his selections excellent, the scenes went easily. emotionally. If the writing wasn’t too good and there were loose or open JM: In that long sequence ends, then we did several takes, when Mabel is committed , it sometimes up to twelve or was fascinating the way fourteen. people kept going in and out I shoot a lot of film of focus, and it very much because I shoot ten-minute takes. matched the emotional I can’t stand to have an actor go dynamics of the scene. Was through a whole scene in master that carefully preplanned? and then, simply because he has nothing to do, shift him into one JC: We just set it up on such little thing: “Now look an extremely large lens that I knew it would be technically here...Look there...Fine. Cut. Print.” I’d rather spend a little bit impossible to do it all in focus. The operator and the focus puller more time and money and give the actor an opportunity to play couldn’t possibly be in concert because there can be no way of the scene with other actors who are also playing the same scene. knowing where the actors would be at any moment. It had to be a So out ratio goes up. We had a thirteen-week shooting schedule natural thing: certain things would come in and out of focus and mist have shot 600,000 or 700,000 feet of film. The finished because there were so many points of interest switching back and film is about 13,000 or 14,000 feet. forth all the time. We did that sequence many different times, in many JM: Did you do much multiple-camera work here? different ways. But out of maybe twelve takes, this was the only one that seemed to play in continuity, in terms of performances JC: Not too much. We were shooting in regular 35mm with a and everything else. Mitchell BNC. We used an Arri for a second camera—for the handheld work and for exteriors. Mainly we used long lenses and JM: And it was all shot in one take? wide-angles. We tried to match their look by setting the optics so we’d always be shooting from underneath, which gives the wide- JC: Oh, yes. I shoot almost everything in ten-minute takes— angle the same appearance as the long lens. unless, of course, it’s a very short scene. I’m not bright enough … (and I don’t think anyone is, really) to get everything all at once. When I was a kid, Frank Capra was certainly America If there are emotions and revelations taking place a mile a to me. In terms of today’s directors, I think Marty Scorsese is minute, how can we separate all these things with our camera and phenomenal and singular. I very much like Don Siegel for what then go into an editing room and try to make selections? It would he does, and also Peter Bogdanovich, Melvin Van Peebles, really be impossible. Shirley Clarke, , , and I have to get a take that plays/ If we don’t see Peter for a certainly . In a way, I admire them all: each picture is moment, or if we don’t see Gena for a moment, it’s not that different, every person has a different strength. When it comes important. The important thing is to play whatever action is most right down to it, I admire anyone who can make a film. interesting at the moment. I’m not going to stand over the camera operator’s shoulder and say, “Swing over to that...Do you have a JM: Sooner or later, the question comes up whether film is an art good frame there?” It’s more like documentary work. Besides, or a craft. we had a wonderful camera crew. I knew they would be as artistic as possible and would frame in such a way that it JC: I think film is magic. With the tools we have at hand, we wouldn’t seem like a movie. really try to convert people’s lives. Directors are alone because their work is so JM: Did you do a lot of handheld shooting in this film? disproportionate to daily life. When you become a director, you take on the responsibility not just of making a picture and putting JC: Twenty-five or thirty percent of the film was handheld. And I yourself on the line as a person, but you’re also saying: “Today I do all the handheld shooting myself. I like to use it where it am going to make a great movie. I am also going to be wouldn’t ordinarily be used—for example, in an acting scene successful. I am going to reach an audience so I can make my rather than an action sequence—for fluidity, for intensity. next film.” I hate the present system of directing because there’s Besides, once there’s a handheld camera up there, the too much pressure to be good. There’s no relaxation at all. actors go much faster. When I’m shooting, I think nothing of You’re constantly aware of the financial responsibility, the fact saying to the actors, “Get the hell out of there, move, move!”— that your life without directing is very empty and that you have to make a successful movie. So your instincts and what you Cassavetes—KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE—8 know sometimes give way to what you have to do. You must a ticket to see the movie! That’s a big reason against major please distributors and your audience. distributors. I see people like Bob Altman, Elaine May, Elia We’re distributing A Woman Under the Influence Kazan—great directors. These people shouldn’t be left alone. ourselves because the studios have had no interest in it. And if Somewhere along the line there has to they did come to us,we wouldn’t sell it cheaply, be somebody who makes things easier. because we’ve taken our risks and expect to be Not someone who says, like most paid well for it. After all, who the hell are they? distributors, “Can you do it? Can you Unless they finance the production, they’re a be a killer? Can you pretend that bunch of agents who go out and book theaters; everything is right?” that’s what it really boils down to. Sure, being a I think the greatest thing a distributor is a craft in itself, and if they had director can do is keep himself straight, done a better job we’d all be in better realize that he or she doesn’t have to condition. They’ve lost millions and millions of know all the answers, and be content dollars because of their petty egos. Most of with enjoying oneself without thinking them don’t have any real interest in films. How about what’s going to happen could they? They hate artists anyway. afterwards. That’s very hard to do. You Everyone who makes a film is at the have to be somewhat innocent. major distributors’ mercy. We don’t want great sums of money, but we do expect distributors JM: You’ve always stayed well away to offer us some continuity and be more from the usual Hollywood system. Do practical: not to offer actors a million dollars you think it’s possible to maintain that when times are good and make the business kind of innocence in it? impossible, not to take 25 percent overhead so they can put more money in their coffers, and JC: I don’t think I could ever make not to make destructive pictures they don’t another film like this again. And I’m believe in. They’d make a picture about a not talking about the quality of the revolution in which all major studio heads were film—I mean the kind of film where you do everything. I’ve killed if they thought it would make money. done it four times, and I don’t know that I could do it again. I That’s the kind of impossible situation that makes would want to have more ease and relaxation; I would want to paranoids out of all people who make films. We have to contend have some endorsements of my talent and the film I’m making. with it, we accept it, and in accepting it we hurt ourselves and This way, it’s too difficult. You say to yourself, “Well, everyone else around us. I don’t say I’ve been a saint in my life, what is it? It’s a film. All right, it affects people’s lives. Maybe but I couldn’t sell my soul out for things I just don’t believe in. I’ll connect with somebody. But it doesn’t affect my life that And if that means I’ll never make a film again, then I’ll never much—I’m just putting down what I know.” So is it worth it to make another film again. kill yourself to make the film and bring it to an audience so that someone will applaud? Or so that you’ll have a big house? I can’t Phillip Lopate: The Killing of a Chinese Bookies: The Raw like making films anymore if they’re this tough. The pressures and the Cooked (Criterion notes) are too unnatural. I’m not crying, because I enjoy it. But I am In John Cassavetes’s personal cinema, the director was saddened by the fact that I have physical limitations. always trying to break away from the formulas of At the end of every film, you have to say good-bye to Hollywood narrative, in order to uncover some fugitive everybody. Here are people who worked night and day and killed truth about the way people behave. At the same time, he themselves, and at the end you shake hands and go away, and took seriously his responsibilities as a form-giving artist, now all of a sudden all the credit belongs to me! And to the actors who put in their thirteen weeks—while other people put starting with a careful script (however improvised in two years into it. At the end, I feel this bitterness and hostility appearance). Nowhere was the tension between because I’ve got to walk away and do another film that may not Cassavetes’s linear and digressive, driven and entropic have anything to do with them. It seems like a double cross. tendencies more sharply fought out than in The Killing of a If a major distributor comes in, the people who made Chinese Bookie (1976), one of his most fascinating the film possible are not acknowledged—they’re not even given achievements. Cassavetes—KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE—9

Following up his success with A Woman Under the study of its grinning, self-estranged protagonist, Cosmo, a Influence, the director thought it might be interesting to try small-time, rough-around-the-edges businessman trying to a gangster picture to stretch himself, in effect by maintain an invented persona of Mr. Lucky suavity and exchanging the domestic suburbia of quarreling married charm. The corsages he brings each of his “lovely couples for a more raffish milieu, and meeting the audience ladies”—rounding them up as escorts to the gambling joint halfway with some traditional Hollywood entertainment Ship Ahoy, where they will be forced to witness his values associated with the genre: suspense, murder, double defeat—are the perfect expression of his self-conscious, crosses, topless dancers. An amiable, courtly nightclub formal punctilio and hunger for class. Gazzara turns in a owner, Cosmo Vitelli (Ben Gazzara), already in debt to brilliant performance as the unhappy Cosmo. (That loan sharks, indulges his unfortunate weakness for drinking Gazzara was unhappy himself through much of the and gambling, and ends up owing twenty-three thousand shooting, finding it hard to sympathize with or admire his dollars to gangsters, who demand that he pay off the debt character, only reinforces our sense of Cosmo as by executing a competitor of theirs, a mob boss whom they discomfited with his chump role in life.) Cosmo seems inaccurately describe as a Chinese always to be sniffing himself for bookie. The story obeys the step- something rancid or fraudulent. by-step fatalism of an unfolding Trying to live up to an elegant nightmare, whereby small standard of sophistication, he mistakes and temptations lead to mutes his Sicilian street temper deeper consequences, such as can with a false veneer of politeness be found in classic film noirs with and seductive blather. In a long, Edward G. Robinson, , revealing speech near the end, he and Jean Gabin. Looked at purely admits that he is always betraying as narrative, there is surprisingly his real nature: “Look at me—I’m little waste in the script: each scene advances and only happy when I’m angry, when I’m sad, when I can intensifies the central dramatic situation. Cassavetes even play the fool, when I can be what people want me to be, fulfills the genre contract with action sequences (rare for rather than be myself.” Ironically, he utters this false him) that involve shootings, chases, and sinister, underlit confession as a way to motivate the troupe to get back garages, perhaps drawing on his own experience as an onstage and give the customers what they want—saying, actor in crime movies. On the other hand, the film’s “Choose a personality,” or in other words, Fake it for me. enduring power comes across most in subtle details of Even at his most sincere, he’s calculating, and even at his setting and character that play against, or in inertial most calculating, he is lost, unable to decide what he is counterpoint to, these obligatory propulsive scenes. undergoing or who he is. One moment he says, “I’ve never felt better in my life”; the next moment it’s “I don’t feel too Cosmo’s strip club, the Crazy Horse West, functions as a hot” (no surprise, since he has a bullet lodged in his gut). viscous flypaper to which the film keeps attaching itself, where time dawdles and dilates in a constant night. Cassavetes clearly believed the self to be a constant bluff, a (Cassavetes insisted these nightclub scenes be shot through desperate improvisation launched in heavy fog. He told an gels, which created stylized pools of isolating red or blue interviewer: “People don’t know what they are doing, light for the owner-impresario to walk through.) Cosmo myself included. They don’t know what they want or feel. has gilded his tawdry peep show with a series of fantasy It’s only in the movies that they know what their problems backdrops, all introduced by the dumpy, epicene master of are and have game plans for dealing with them.” The ceremonies, Teddy, professionally known as closest thing Cosmo has to a game plan is: the show must Mr. Sophistication, who “takes” the audience to exotic go on. In one hilarious scene, en route to his prospective hit locales. Unforgettably portrayed by the Hollywood job, he stops in a phone booth to check up on the evening’s screenwriter Meade Roberts, Mr. Sophistication belongs to performance: what number are the girls and Teddy doing? that tribe Dostoy­evsky called “the insulted and the He berates his help for not knowing the acts better after all injured.” He oozes affronted, buffoonish humiliation. But these years. At bottom he is a man of the theater, at its he also epitomizes the needy, oversensitive artist—a self- most Felliniesque and flea-bitten. He understands two parody by Cassavetes—who is hungry for the spotlight but things: “I own this joint” and “Everything takes work; believes himself fundamentally homely and unloved. we’ll straighten it out.” You do your job the best you can, Teddy’s theme song, “Imagination,” becomes the film’s even if it’s just shaking your tits onstage in the no-win bleak anthem. ­situation life hands you. It is this sort of philosophical stoicism that informs much of the nobility in Cassavetes’s At bottom, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie is a character grubby universe. Cassavetes—KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE—10

The plot’s biggest gamble is to make Cosmo, this likable if approach; to morally divided or not entirely sympathetic screwed-up schnook, actually go through with the killing. characters, dollops of “dead time,” and subversions of Is it plausible that someone so seemingly decent would do traditional genre expectations. such a thing? We don’t know, any more than we know enough about his past to say with certainty whether it’s The film, seen today, generates considerable suspense, part even the first time he’s killed someone. But if we accept of which comes from classic man-against-the-mob Cassavetes’s model of the self as constantly in flux— conventions: seeing how the noose of fate is tightened. Part provisional, unknowable, yet susceptible to the immediate of it, however, comes from Cassavetes’s perverse claims of duty—then we may be better able to make the reluctance to play the game of simple entertainment, leap and accept the possibility. offering more complex rewards instead. An example is the scene where Cosmo stops off at a hamburger restaurant to Cosmo’s counterpart in the gangster world is Mort, pick up some meat with which to placate the guard dogs shrewdly played by that superb Cassavetes regular before murdering their owner. The waitress, a well- Seymour Cassel. Morty is intentioned, matronly blonde, another character with a tries to convince her customer false self, a smiling to take the burgers company man hiding individually wrapped, so they behind an oddly decorous won’t make a greasy mess. manner; “Will you excuse Cosmo obviously cannot me please? I have to freshen share with her the real reason up,” he says to his dinner why he refuses this amenity companions before ordering and is reduced to repeating another rubout. Not his request, with mounting everyone surrounding frustration, while the Cosmo is as empty and bartender acts as a amoral, however. Rachel sympathetic bridge between (Azizi Johari), the beautiful the two. Classic gangster showgirl who is Cosmo’s lover, and her mother, Betty movies or film noirs often feature sharply etched cameos of (Virginia Carrington), offer him an alternative of tender garage attendants, hotel clerks, or hash slingers, but care. So it is all the more startling when, in a powerful generally they perform a strict narrative function and then scene toward the end, Betty interrupts his monologue of disappear. In this scene, however, the waitress goes beyond childhood reminiscence and sweet talk to tell him she that point, threatening to pull you out of the hit-man doesn’t give a shit. “Cosmo, I think what happened was narrative by insisting on her reality. Cosmo, looking tired wrong,” she says, rising to full moral stature, and adds that and aggrieved, is being forced to acknowledge that every if he won’t see a doctor to have the bullet removed, then he human has a distinct point of view—something he will can’t stay in their house. Without wanting to know how he again have to take into consideration soon enough, when he came by that bullet, she indicates to him that he represents faces the old Chinese bookie, naked in the bathtub, before a danger to her and her daughter, and she has an obligation deciding whether to blow him away. to protect her family. Thus his fantasy that this black mother and daughter are his true “family” crumbles, and he In Cassavetes’s cinema, these delays, these retreats to the club, his only haven. So might Tony Soprano eruptions of the messy, frustrating, time-consuming, and later lick his wounds in the Bada Bing! club. inconvenient ways that everyone, bit player to star, asserts his or her right to be taken seriously, are not impediments In 1976, when The Killing of a Chinese Bookie was first to the plot but are the plot. This point is made clearer in the released, it bombed at the box office, much to Cassavetes’s original, more leisurely (and, to my mind, better) version of disappointment. Critics found it disorganized, self- the film, which lasted 135 minutes, as opposed to the indulgent, and unfathomable; audiences took their word for second, tightened version of 108 minutes. In the longer it and stayed away. Today, the film seems a model of version, we learn more odd details about the De Lovelies narrative clarity and lucidity; either our eyes have caught (the one who doesn’t like champagne, for instance) and get up to Cassavetes or the reigning aesthetic has evolved an introduction to the Seymour Cassel character at his most steadily in the direction of his personal cinematic style. unctuously ingratiating. We are allowed to sink into the Now we are more accustomed to hanging out and listening moment voluptuously, to see more stage routines in the in on the comic banality of low-life small talk; to a nightclub, which reinforces Teddy’s/Mr. Sophistication’s semidocumentary, handheld-camera, ambient-sound role as Cosmo’s grotesque doppelgänger and makes for a Cassavetes—KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE—11 better balance between crime and showbiz film. The the nightclub, where Teddy sings a despicably hostile shorter version is in some ways tougher, colder, more rendition of “I Can’t Give You Anything but Love” to the abstract, like a French policier; in the longer, exploratory audience (and, by extension, to us), and the last line heard version, Cosmo takes a while to seem completely lost, in the film is a chorus girl reassuring Mr. Sophistication alienated. Both versions, however, end in the same ironic that they really do love him, even if he thinks they don’t. way, with Teddy mistaking his padrone’s philosophical We could say the same to the now departed Mr. spiel as proof that Cosmo “practices the best thing there is Cassavetes. in this world—to be comfortable.” Cosmo goes off we know not where, bleeding, possibly to death, and we never . see him again. The focus shifts back for the final time to

The online PDF files of these handouts have color images Coming up in the Spring 2014 Buffalo Film Seminars:

March 25 Agnes Varda, Vagabond, 1985, 105 min April 1 Gabriell Axel, Babette’s Feast, 1987, 104min April 8 , Vanya on , 1994, 119 min April 15 , , 2001, 110 min April 22 , The Three Burials of Melquaides Estrada, 2005, 120 min April 29 José Padilha, Elite Squad, 2007, 115 min May 6 John Huston, The Dead, 1987 83 min

CONTACTS: ...email Diane Christian: [email protected] …email Bruce Jackson [email protected] ...for the series schedule, annotations, links and updates: http://buffalofilmseminars.com ...to subscribe to the weekly email informational notes, send an email to addto [email protected] ....for cast and crew info on any film: http://imdb.com/ The Buffalo Film Seminars are presented by the Market Arcade Film & Arts Center and State University of New York at Buffalo with support from the Robert and Patricia Colby Foundation and the Buffalo News