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The Appropriate Tune - "Tell Me the Truth About Love" by Sarah Walker and Roger Vignoles
These days the term ‘indie film’ doesn’t mean quite the same as it once did. Used to be that if you were making an indie film then you weren’t looking at a several million dollar budget, A-list actors and a sweet deal with Netflix as the term has come to mean in these modern times, it meant independent. If you wanted a budget then you better start pounding the pavement looking for dentists with some disposable income, if you needed equipment you better hope there’s somewhere to rent it and if you needed actors you’d better hope you’ve got friends with a lot of free time or the cash to pay SAG scale wages. The classic documentary American Movie is perhaps one of the more extreme examples but that was the reality of filmmaking when removed from the Hollywood machine, and while technology has improved there are still aspects of it that are relevant to this day. Highly recommended, by the way.
When it comes to independent cinema, one name that’s bound to come up is John Cassavetes. From 1959 to 1986 Cassavetes directed 12 films, all produced without the aid of a major studio and financed largely out of Cassavetes’ own pocket (he was an actor by trade, even earning an Academy Award and Golden Globe nomination for his performance in Robert Aldrich’s The Dirty Dozen. This would be impressive enough on its own, but unlike the lovable Mark Borchardt the films of Cassavetes not only had the benefit of wide distribution by United Artists, Paramount and so on but also far greater critical acclaim. Several of his films were nominated or outright won multiple awards from places like the Venice Film Festival, the Academy Awards and the Writers Guild of America. In the winding, gravel-strewn history that is American cinema he’s certainly an intriguing figure, and I’ve been waiting for an excuse to cover some of his work. So why not now, when I’ve got a couple dozen spots to fill?
Released in 1976, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie was written and directed by John Cassavetes and produced by Al Ruban, who worked with Cassavetes on several of his films. Ben Gazzara stars as Cosmo Vitelli, owner of the night club Crazy Horse West, which seems to specialize in nudity-filled cabaret shows that feel like they were pulled from an Oingo Boingo concert. Cosmo seems to have it all; Money, girls, respect, until the day he decides to take in an evening of poker and racks up a 23,000 dollar debt. This does not sit well with the gangsters who run the casino, who love debt and people with debt as a rule but they act tough about it, and so they offer Cosmo their very own payment plan: there’s a guy in Chinatown that’s been muscling in on other people’s rackets. Kill him, and everything is square. This does not sit well with Cosmo, who has shed blood, sweat and tears to make Crazy Horse West the semi-legitimate business it is today, but it quickly becomes clear that the gangster’s ‘offer’ was more of a ‘threat’. So begins the downward spiral of Cosmo Vitelli, with the killing of a Chinese bookie.
There have been many films which have attempted to come across as ‘real’, the trend of ‘found footage’ horror perhaps being the most familiar to modern audiences, but few films have felt as ‘real’ to me as The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. That’s not to say that Cassavetes is trying to say these events happened or that it’s not trying to be a film, but that those especially cinematic qualities are stripped down in favor of a more realistic tone. There’s no music aside from one instance for example, leaving the entirety of ambience to the natural sounds of the world, if there is any sound at all. The lighting is natural as well, with several scenes that take place in complete darkness with only a hint of distinguishing features. Combined with the rough cinematography, the way that the camera will shake as it stumbles towards actors, the way it focuses on the actor’s faces, the smash cut editing, it often feels like Cassavetes hasn’t so much made a film as he has a documentary. Cinema verite I think they call it, in a way that feels much more of the various New Waves than the films who claimed such a connection, such as Scorsese’s Taxi Driver.
This ties into the performance aspect of the film as well, where the dialogue is very casual and conversational with actors frequently talking over each other, to the point where you’re left wondering how much of what they’re saying was actually written and how much of it was improvisational. Honestly though, most of the actual dialogue feels superfluous; Not that there aren’t memorable lines, but there's so much of Killing of a Chinese Bookie that’s built on visual storytelling that what’s being said doesn’t mean as much as how it fits within the context of the scene, if that makes any sense.
Cassavetes was also a fan of recasting actors in his films, like Tim Burton and Johnny Depp or Alfred Hitchcock and Jimmy Stewart, and that carries over into Killing of a Chinese Bookie. Timothy Carey and Seymour Cassel both featured in Minnie and Moskowitz in ‘71 (Cassel had also gotten a Best Supporting Actor nom for Faces in ‘68), and Ben Gazzara appeared in Cassavetes film Husbands five years prior, which apparently John was very impressed with since he not only brought him back but built the entire movie around him. For good reason though, as he’s fantastic as Cosmo Vittelli, the man who is smart enough to see the bars but can’t get out of the cage. Gazzara presents us with a facade, a man who crafted for himself this hot shot persona who is always in control, and seeing the persona warp and twist as control is ripped from him and his life crumbles around him is great acting. I also want to give credit to Azizi Johari, who plays Cosmo’s employee/love interest Rachel. Looking into her history it seems that she was originally a model (Playboy playmate of 1975) rather than an actress, only appearing in a handful of things, but for having so little experience I thought she did fine. Honestly I would have liked to see a bit more of her, but this is a story about Cosmo and so it makes sense that he takes precedence.
If I have any qualms with the movie, then it would be that lack of experience is made obvious, such as with Rachel’s mother Betty (played by Azizi’s actual mother Virginia Carrington). It’s not a problem with the actress in that case, this being her first and only film role, but rather with Cassavetes not properly covering for her inexperience. I was also going to make a comment about how the film forgot how to end, and seemed to meander a bit in the final act, but upon reflection I think that actually works. This is a noir film after all, coming out only two years after the infamous Chinatown, whose final line embodies the world-weariness of the modern era, especially for those mired in the mud of it all. Cosmo tries to erect his own little corner or order in a seemingly chaotic world, and as I mentioned earlier it is ripped away from him, just as it ripped from most of us in life. Even the title of a film gives credence to it: The Killing of a Chinese Bookie Who? Just some guy. Why? Because I have to. If Cosmo drags his feet it’s because he, like us, is desperately struggling against the things we ‘have’ to do, the things we’re forced to do, even if it appears to be inevitable. Though it lacks the stylization that we associate with film noir, or more so the American interpretations of the French concept, John Cassavetes captures the ambiguity, moral or otherwise that makes those films resonate with audiences.
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie is a film that I find hard to write about, which explains this shitty review. Sometimes you need 20 or so ingredients to make a satisfying meal and sometimes you just need meat and potatoes, and this is a meat and potatoes kind of movie. The Killing of a Chinese Bookie gets an easy recommendation, and on a personal level it’s really made me interested in continuing on with the rest of his filmography and building my understanding of him as a director much like I’ve done with David Lynch and Terry Gilliam. Who knows if I’ll ever actually get around to that though. In the meantime, try out this movie and see how you like it.
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