John Cassavetes: Five Films [Criterion Collection] [8 Discs]

MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

Many directors consider John Cassavetes one of the grandfathers of American independent film. This spectacular box set from Criterion shows why. In addition to Shadows, Faces, A Woman Under the Influence, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, and Opening Night (all presented in the original theatrical aspect ratio), the set contains a 2000 documentary about the man and his career -- A Constant Forge: The Life and Art of John Cassavetes. A variety of extras are scattered throughout the discs, including both the full director's cut and the theatrical cut of The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, deleted footage, audio commentary by the camera operator and composer on A Woman Under the Influence, video interviews with many of the people who collaborated with Cassavetes, and a 68-page booklet containing essays on the man and his films. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

DVD FEATURES:

• Number of Discs: 8
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 (Theatre Wide Screen)
• Screen: Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV
• Audio: Dolby Digital Mono
• Features:
  • New high-definition digital transfer of all films, with restored image and sound, and, where applicable, enhanced for widescreen televisions
  • More than two hours of new video interviews with Lynn Carlin, Seymour Cassel, Peter Falk, Ben Gazzara, Lelia Goldoni, Gena Rowlands, and Al Ruban
  • Two versions of The Killing of a Chinese Bookie: Cassavetes' original 135-minute cut, on home video for the first time, as well as his subsequent 108-minute re-edit
  • Faces alternate opening: 17 minutes of footage not included in Cassavetes' final cut
  • Cineastes de Notre Temps (1968): A 48-minute episode of the French television series, dedicated to Cassavetes
  • Workshop footage: Rare silent clips from the Cassavetes-Lane Drama Workshop, from which Shadows emerged
  • Audio commentary on A Woman Under the Influence by sound recordist and composer Bo Harwood and camera operator Mike Ferris
  • Restoration demonstration for Shadows
  • Audio interviews with Cassavetes by film historians Michel Ciment and Michael Wilson
  • "Lighting & Shooting the Film": A study of the techniques and equipment used on Faces by Al Ruban
  • Original theatrical trailers
  • Stills galleries: Rare behind-the-scenes photos, publicity shots, and posters
  • Biographical sketches of the actors Cassavetes frequently cast in his films, written by Tom Charity (John Cassavetes: Lifeworks)
  • Plus: A 68-page book featuring new essays on Cassavetes and the films by writers/critics Gary Giddins, Stuart Klawans, Kent Jones, Phillip Lopate, Dennis Lim, and director Charles Kiselyak, as well as reprinted writings by and interviews with Cassavetes, and tributes to the filmmaker by director Martin Scorsese, Cassavetes' secretary Elaine Kagan, and novelist Jonathan Lethem

AWARDS

• Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

•     Nominated Best Actress - 1974 (Gena Rowlands)
•     Nominated Best Director - 1974 (John Cassavetes)
•     Nominated Best Original Screenplay - 1968 (John Cassavetes)
•     Nominated Best Supporting Actor - 1968 (Seymour Cassel)
•     Nominated Best Supporting Actress - 1968 (Lynn Carlin)

• Berlin International Film Festival

•     Won Silver Bear for Best Actress - 1978 (Gena Rowlands)

• British Academy of Film and Television Arts

•     Nominated Best British Film - 1960 (John Cassavetes)

• Hollywood Foreign Press Association

•     Won Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama - 1974 (Gena Rowlands)
•     Nominated Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama - 1977 (Gena Rowlands)
•     Nominated Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Pic - 1977 (Joan Blondell)
•     Nominated Best Director - 1974 (John Cassavetes)
•     Nominated Best Picture - Drama - 1974
•     Nominated Best Screenplay - 1974 (John Cassavetes)

• Library of Congress

•     Won U.S. National Film Registry - 1992
•     Won U.S. National Film Registry - 1989

• National Board of Review

•     Won Best Actress - 1974 (Gena Rowlands)
•     Nominated Best Picture - 1974

• Venice International Film Festival

•     Won Volpi Cup for Best Actor - 1968 (John Marley)

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Cast:

  
       Ben Gazzara - Cosmo Vitelli
       Ben Carruthers - Ben
       Anthony Ray - Tony
       Hugh Hurd - Hugh
       Christina Grisanti - Maria Longhetti
       Alice Friedland - Sherry
       Dennis Sallas - Dennis
       Joanne Jordan - Louise
       Darlene Conley - Billy Mae
       Elizabeth Deering - Stella
       John Kullers - Eddie "Red" (Gangster)
       Al Ruban - Marty Reitz
       Katherine Cassavetes - Vivian
       Lady Rowlands - Melva Drake
       Angelo Grisanti - Charlie Spikes

• Director:

  John Cassavetes, Charles Kiselyak

• Producer:

  Nico Papatakis, Maurice McEndree, Al Ruban, Sam Shaw

• Screenwriter:

  John Cassavetes

• Cinematographer:

  Erich Kollmar, Al Ruban, Caleb Deschanel, Frederick Elmes, Mike Ferris, Michael Stringer

• Songwriter:

  Jack Ackerman

• Composer (Music Score):

  Charles Mingus, Shifi Hadi

• Songwriter:

  Hunt Stevens, Eleanor Winters

• Composer (Music Score):

  Jack Ackerman

• Musical Direction/Supervision:

  Jack Ackerman

• Songwriter:

  Charlie Smalls

• Composer (Music Score):

  Bo Harwood

• Musical Arrangement:

  Booker T. Jones

• Musical Direction/Supervision:

  Booker T. Jones

• Composer (Music Score):

  Anthony Harris

• Editor:

  Maurice McEndree, Len Appelson, Al Ruban, John Cassavetes, Tom Cornwell, David Armstrong

• Production Designer:

  Randy Liles, Bryan Ryman, Sam Shaw

• Art Director:

  Phedon Papamichael

• Associate Producer:

  Seymour Cassel, Al Ruban, Paul Donnelly, Michael Lally

• Set Designer:

  Randy Liles, Bob Rech

• Costume Designer:

  Alexandra Corwin-Hankin, Mary Hurne

• Sound/Sound Designer:

  Don Pike, Bo Harwood

• Stunts:

  Charlie Picerni

• Second Unit Director Of Photogra:

  Gary Graver

• Conductor:

  Booker T. Jones

REVIEWS:

• John Cassavetes, one of the film business' first truly independent directors, specialized in a kind of semi-improvised, emotionally wrenching brand of naturalism, which usually tended to polarize audiences. Opening Night, along with A Woman Under the Influence (1974) and Love Streams (1984), all starring his wife, Gena Rowlands, could be thought of as his trilogy on a woman's emotional disintegration. The loosely constructed script concerns the eagerness of the cast of a play in rehearsal to avoid confronting the lead actress about the damage her alcoholism is doing to the production. When a possibly imagined tragedy spins the actress into a sort of breakdown, no one seems to be able to help. As usual, Cassavetes gives the actors free rein, and there are some overindulgent scenes. Yet there is far more truth in this gritty film than in a year of Hollywood's output combined. Rowlands is brilliant as the actress, and her agonized ordeal becomes a powerfully moving experience. Likewise, the rest of the impressive cast, which includes Cassavetes (as her husband), Ben Gazzara, Joan Blondell, Peter Falk, and Paul Stewart, all turn in memorable performances. While possibly lacking the unified impact of A Woman Under the Influence, this is still very much a film worth seeing. ~ Michael Costello, Rovi
• John Cassavetes's elliptical mid-1970s picture walks a fine line between self-indulgent and inventive. Fascinating in its originality, the film is somewhat undercut by an unsteady blend of naturalism and artifice. Originally developed with Martin Scorsese, the movie is ostensibly a gangster film, but the genre is bent into a demented character study. Cassavetes regular Ben Gazzara delivers an absorbing performance as the man forced into a moral quandary and barely aware of it. The movie was originally released in 1976 at 135 minutes, but it was re-edited in 1978 to 109 minutes. ~ Brendon Hanley, Rovi
• John Cassavetes' Shadows is one of the most important and influential movies of American independent cinema. Shot on location in New York City in gritty, naturalistic black-and-white, it was one of the first American efforts to exhibit the urgent, spontaneous look and feel of French New Wave films. Cassavetes had been a reasonably well-known actor, but his first directorial effort was a world apart from the popular dramas of the era. Shadows set the tone for personal, independently made features for decades to come: it tackled controversial subject matter, featured a cast of unknowns, and had a distinctly unprofessional veneer in most technical aspects. The candidness of the performances and the audacity of the director set it apart: the script was largely influenced by the actors during their rehearsals. In initial screenings, Shadows was shunned by audiences; Cassavetes reworked much of it and re-released the film to greater success. ~ Brendon Hanley, Rovi
• The maturation of his maverick "home movie" ethos, John Cassavetes's Faces (1968) incisively explores the disintegration of an upper middle-class marriage. Shot in 16mm black-and-white, Cassavetes's mobile long takes capture the shifting character dynamics as John Marley's Richard walks out on Lynn Carlin's Maria for a night with Gena Rowlands's prostitute Jeanie, leaving Maria to find temporary solace with Seymour Cassel's young swinger Chet. Punctuating those long takes with extreme close-ups, the actors' brief moments of silent emotional revelation allude to the feelings masked by the jokes, songs, and dances that constitute their interactions. Filmed over eight months and edited over several years, the final form of Faces is hardly off-the-cuff, yet Cassavetes's cinema verite style and reliance on improvised performances of scripted lines created a feeling of spontaneous intimacy to match the "realistic," mundane truth of marital boredom. Independently produced by Cassavetes after two frustrating Hollywood experiences, Faces became a critical hit. Along with prizes from the Venice Film Festival and the New York Film Critics Circle, Faces received Oscar nominations for Cassavetes's script and Cassel's and Carlin's supporting performances, confirming Cassavetes's place as one of the most innovative and influential American filmmakers of the 1960s. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi
• Though "women's liberation" was never mentioned, John Cassavetes's timely dissection of a wife's coming undone wrenchingly revealed the insolvable contradictions of domesticity. With his signature "improvisational" yet scripted style, Cassavetes used hand-held long takes, close-ups, and zooms to mine the minute details of character and emotion evinced by his wife Gena Rowlands and his frequent collaborator Peter Falk as blue-collar couple Mabel and Nick, registering the complex effects of Mabel's claustrophobic existence on her "unusual" psyche. Concentrating on Mabel's protean moods, as well as on the reactions of her family and her husband, Cassavetes shies away from a pat diagnosis of madness, suggesting that the institution of marriage -- even to a husband who loves her -- is as responsible for Mabel's breakdown as her own inner turmoil. Several years in the making and funded by Falk and Cassavetes to insure creative autonomy, A Woman Under the Influence debuted to acclaim at the 1974 New York Film Festival, particularly for Rowlands's tour-de-force performance. Distributed by Cassavetes himself to avoid studio interference, it became a small-scale hit and earned Oscar nominations for Best Actress and Best Director; despite his reputation as a male-centered filmmaker, it remains Cassavetes' most successful film, both commercially and artistically. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi