John Cassavetes - Five Films - Criterion Collection

John Cassavetes has been called a genius, a visionary, and the father of independent film. But such rhetoric threatens to obscure the humanism and generosity of his art. The five films included here represent his self-financed works made outside the studio system of Hollywood, on which he was afforded complete control. Populated by beatniks, hippies, businessmen, actors, housewives, strippers, club owners, gangsters, and children, the films are beautiful, emotional testaments to compassion. Cassavetes has often been called an actor´s director, but this body of work even greater than the sum of its extraordinarily significant parts reveals him to be an audiences director.

The Criterion Collection is proud to present Shadows, Faces, A Woman Under the Influence, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, and Opening Night in stunning new transfers, as well as Charles Kiselyak´s 2000 documentary A Constant Forge - The Life and Art of John Cassavetes.

A Constant Forge:
Charles Kiselyak, 2000
Charles Kiselyaks A Constant ForgeThe Life and Art of John Cassavetes is a detailed journey through the career of one of films greatest pioneers and iconoclasts. Assembled from candid interviews with Cassavetes collaborators and friends, rare photographs, archival footage, and the directors own words, the film paints a revealing portrait of a man whose fierce love, courage, and dedication changed the face of cinema forever.

Faces:
John Cassavetes, 1968
The disintegration of a marriage is dissected in John Cassavetes searing Faces. Shot in high-contrast 16mm black and white, the film follows the futile attempts of captain of industry Richard (John Marley) and his wife, Maria (Lynn Carlin), to escape the anguish of their empty marriage in the arms of others. Featuring astonishingly powerful, nervy performances from Marley, Carlin, and Cassavetes regulars Gena Rowlands and Seymour Cassel, Faces confronts suburban alienation and the battle of the sexes with a brutal honesty and compassion rarely matched in cinema.

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie:
John Cassavetes, 1976
John Cassavetes engages film noir in his own inimitable style with The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. Ben Gazzara brilliantly portrays gentlemens club owner Cosmo Vitelli, a man dedicated to pretenses of composure and self-possession. When he runs afoul of a group of gangsters, Cosmo is forced to commit a horrible crime in a last-ditch effort to save his beloved club and his way of life. Suspenseful, mesmerizing, and idiosyncratic, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie is a thought-provoking examination of desperation and masculine identity.

Opening Night:
John Cassavetes, 1977
Broadway actress Myrtle Gordon (Gena Rowlands) rehearses for her latest play, about a woman unable to admit that she is aging. When she witnesses the accidental death of an adoring young fan, she begins to confront the personal and professional turmoil she faces in her own life. Featuring a moving performance by Rowlands (and with some scenes shot on stages with live audiences reacting freely to the writing and performing), John Cassavetes Opening Night exposes the drama of an actress who at great personal cost makes a part her own.

Shadows:
John Cassavetes, 1959
John Cassavetes directorial debut revolves around an interracial romance between Lelia (Lelia Goldoni), a light-skinned black woman living in New York City with her two brothers, and Tony (Anthony Ray), a white man. The relationship crumbles when Tony meets Lelias brother Hugh (Hugh Hurd), a talented dark-skinned jazz singer struggling to find work, and discovers the truth about Lelias racial heritage. Shot on location in Manhattan with a cast and crew made up primarily of amateurs, Cassavetes Shadows is a visionary work that is widely considered the forerunner of the independent film movement.

A Woman Under the Influence:
John Cassavetes, 1974
John Cassavetes devastating drama details the emotional breakdown of a suburban housewife and her familys struggle to save her from herself. Starring Peter Falk and Gena Rowlands (in two of the most harrowing screen performances of the 1970s) as a married couple deeply in love yet unable to express that love in terms the other can understand, the film is an uncompromising portrait of domestic turmoil. The Criterion Collection is proud to present one of the benchmark films of American independent cinemaa heroic document from a true maverick director.

Upplagd i sortimentet: 10 Augusti, 2008