John Cassavetes: Five Films (The Criterion Collection) [Shadows / Faces / A Woman Under the Influence / The Killing of a Chinese Bookie / Opening Night]

Description

John Cassavetes was a genius, a visionary, and the progenitor of American independent film, but that doesn’t 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 collection—all of which the director maintained total control over by financing them himself and making them outside the studio system—are 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 actor’s director, but this body of work—even greater than the sum of its extraordinary parts—shows him to be an audience’s director.FIVE-BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURESNew high-definition digital restorations of all five films, with uncompressed monaural soundtracksNew high-definition digital restoration of Cassavetes’s 108-minute 1978 version of The Killing of a Chinese BookieA Constant Forge: The Life and Art of John Cassavetes (2000), a 200-minute documentary by Charles KiselyakNew interviews with actor Lelia Goldoni and associate producer Seymour Cassel about ShadowsSilent footage from the Cassavetes-Lane Drama Workshop, from which Shadows emergedRestoration demonstration for ShadowsAlternate eighteen-minute opening sequence for FacesEpisode of the French television series Cinéastes de notre temps from 1968, dedicated to CassavetesMaking “Faces,” a new documentary featuring interviews with actors Cassel, Lynn Carlin, and Gena Rowlands and director of photography Al RubanAl Ruban on Lighting and Shooting “Faces,” a new video programAudio commentary for A Woman Under the Influence by sound recordist and composer Bo Harwood and camera operator Mike FerrisNew conversation between Rowlands and actor Peter Falk about A Woman Under the InfluenceNew interview program featuring actor Ben Gazzara and Ruban discussing The Killing of a Chinese BookieNew conversation between Rowlands and Gazzara about Opening NightNew interview with Ruban about Opening NightThree audio interviews with Cassavetes from the 1970sTrailers for Shadows, A Woman Under the Influence, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, and Opening NightStills and poster galleriesTrailersEnglish subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearingPLUS: A booklet featuring essays by Gary Giddins, Kent Jones, Kiselyak, Stuart Klawans, Dennis Lim, and Phillip Lopate; writings by and interviews with Cassavetes; and tributes to the filmmaker by director Martin Scorsese; actor and writer Elaine Kagan, Cassavetes’s former secretary; and novelist Jonathan LethemSHADOWSJohn Cassavetes’s 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 Lelia’s 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.FACESJohn 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 (John Marley) and his wife, Maria (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 and Seymour Cassel, Faces confronts modern alienation and the battle of the sexes with a brutal honesty and compassion rarely matched in cinema.A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCEThis uncompromising portrait of domestic turmoil details the emotional breakdown of a suburban housewife and her family’s struggle to save her from herself. Gena Rowlands and Peter Falk 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 BOOKIEJohn Cassavetes engages with film noir in his own inimitable style with The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. Ben Gazzara brilliantly portrays a gentleman’s 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 film is a provocative examination of masculine identity. It is presented here in two versions: Cassavetes’s original 1976 edit and his 1978 one, nearly thirty minutes shorter.OPENING NIGHTWhile in the midst of rehearsals for her latest play, Broadway actor Myrtle Gordon (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 Cassavetes’s 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 director’s singular, wrenched-from-the-heart creative method.A CONSTANT FORGECharles Kiselyak’s A Constant Forge—The Life and Art of John Cassavetes is a detailed journey through the career of one of film’s greatest pioneers and iconoclasts. Assembled from candid interviews with Cassavetes’ collaborators and friends, rare photographs, archival footage, and the director’s own words, the film paints a revealing portrait of a man whose fierce love, courage, and dedication changed the face of cinema forever.