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DVD : John Cassavetes - Five Films (Shadows / Faces / A Woman Under the Influence / The Killing of a Chinese Bookie / Opening Night ) - Criterion CollectionIn association with Amazon.comstarring: John Cassavetes-Five Films  List Price: $124.95 Amazon.com's Price: $84.99 You Save: $39.96 (32%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested) Binding: DVD EAN: 0037429199220 Format: Anamorphic, Box set, Black & White, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Special Edition, Widescreen, NTSC Label: Criterion Manufacturer: Criterion Number Of Items: 8 Publisher: Criterion Region Code: 1 Release Date: September 21, 2004 Running Time: 945 minutes Studio: Criterion Theatrical Release Date: November 18, 1974 Sales Rank: 8916 MPN: 060 Related Items:
Editorial Review: Description: This boxed set includes the following titles: • Shadows (1959) 81 min. B&W. 1.33:1 aspect ratio • Faces (1968) 130 min. B&W. 1.66:1 aspect ratio • A Woman Under the Influence (1974) 147 min. Color. 1.85:1 aspect ratio • The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976) 135 min. Color. 1.85:1 aspect ratio • Opening Night (1977) 144 min. Color. 1.66:1 aspect ratio • A Constant Forge (2000) 200 min. Color. 1.33:1 aspect ratio John Cassavetes has been called a genius, a visionary, and the father of independent film. But all this 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. While about beatniks, hippies, businessmen, actors, housewives, strippers, club owners, gangsters, and children, all of them are beautiful, emotional testaments to compassion. Cassavetes has often been called an actor's director, but this body of work—astoundingly, even greater than the sum of its extraordinarily significant parts—reveals him to be an audience's 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. Includes Charles Kiselyak's A Constant Forge, a candid biographical documentary on the life and work of Cassavetes . Amazon.com: Improvised by the cast, shot in black and white, John Cassavetes's first independent feature, Shadows, looked like no other film of its time. Cassavetes, seeking to both deal with social issues and create a new kind of cinema, told a story about a family of black siblings in Manhattan trying to make ends meet. Though it meanders at times, it features the kind of spontaneous emotion Cassavetes most wanted to elicit in his films. A sensation in 1968, Faces earned Oscar nominations for actors Seymour Cassel and Lynn Carlin. Improvised and shot in an edgy, hand-held fashion, the film examines the disintegration of the marriage of a couple in mid-life doldrums. Each seeks solace elsewhere: husband John Marley with prostitute Gena Rowlands, wife Carlin with a free spirit played by Cassel. But neither finds anything approaching the fulfillment they feel is missing from the marriage. Indeed, in Cassavetes's probe of raw emotions, these people discover that, just maybe, the problem lies not with their spouse but with themselves. The long, free-form drama A Woman Under the Influence is best appreciated as a good showcase for Rowlands, playing a woman whose sanity literally appears to be shattering as different aspects of her personality eclipse others at various times. Peter Falk plays her struggling, blue-collar husband, trying to understand the phenomenon and sometimes losing his patience. As with most of Cassavetes's works as a director, one can't help but find one's attention drifting in and out, but Rowland's performance is a key reason the film has been declared a "national treasure" by the Library of Congress. The title of The Killing of a Chinese Bookie is the only commercial element in this fascinating character study by writer-director Cassavetes, who once again finds his cinematic soulmate in actor Ben Gazzara. The film uses verité technique to tell the story of Cosmo Vitelli (Gazzara), a Hollywood strip-club owner whose growing debt to a local gangster can only be erased if he agrees to kill a rival Chinese gangster. As usual, Cassavetes employs his favorite actors (including Seymour Cassel and the fearsome Timothy Carey) and vivid improvisation to give Chinese Bookie a tense atmosphere of emotional urgency. Gena Rowlands stars in Opening Night, Cassavetes's drama of an aging, alcoholic stage actress in the days leading up to her latest Broadway opening. Like all of her collaborations with her writer-director husband, Rowlands is a woman on the verge of collapse, this time a lonely alcoholic whose very life is a performance. Overlong at 144 minutes, the film's long, loose scenes build through uncomfortable small talk and slow, tentative confrontations. Some of the scenes are edgy and thrilling, though many find this facet of Cassavetes pretentious and self-indulgent. Ultimately it's a matter of taste: if you like his style, you'll love this discomforting drama. The eight-disc Criterion Collection set is filled out with the 2000 documentary A Constant Forge: The Life and Art of John Cassavetes, plus numerous interviews, a second version of The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, a commentary track for A Woman Under the Influence, a 68-page book, and various other features. Average Rating:
 Rating:  - good price, fast shipping, thanks!the price was good and the product was shipped in a timely manner. My only complaint is that the booklet fell apart when first opened. Rating: - Brilliant and beautiful and raw depictions of how vulnerable we can beThe theme that all of the indispensable films in this set return to is how vulnerable we can be. At bottom what each of us wants is to be respected, to be acknowledged and to be loved. Anyone who loses that vulnerability -- which is for Cassavettes an ability: the ability to feel to express and to allow oneself to be heard without the stifling of self-censor -- anyone who loses that vulnerability whether by yielding to habit or by repression or self-control, may manage to achieve power but does ... Read More Rating: - John Cassavetes defines Independent Film.Considered to be "the father of independent film," John Cassavetes (1929-1989) was also a gifted actor (The Dirty Dozen; The Killers), screenwriter, and director. He was married to actress Gena Rowlands. Their daughter, Zoe, is known for her recent 2007 film, Broken English. The five films of this must-have Criterion collection reveal that Cassavetes was both a film genius and a true visionary. He not only defined indie film. He set the standard. Arguably, Cassavetes paved the way for Sundance, ... Read More Rating:  - Don't Support Criterion's TreacheryFive BIG stars for these incredible films, and for the beautiful transfers, but 0 stars for Criterion's dishonorable dealings with Cassavetes scholar Ray Carney who put in immeasurable work towards this release and was then fired (after all but completing his work for Criterion) and left completely UNCREDITED! Reportedly, this was due to a feud between he and Jena Rowlands over the inclusion of an earlier version of "Shadows" and an alternative cut of "Faces". These might have been included in the ... Read More Rating: - John Cassavetes: Five FilmsResolutely independent filmmaker John Cassavetes is a hero to film buffs, and this indispensable collection comprises five of his groundbreaking dramas. Though the rawness and immediacy of a Cassavetes film can be unnerving to watch, we feel sympathy, even affection for many of his characters. Our hearts break for the deflowered girl in "Shadows," the bewildered housewife in "Influence," even the two-bit gambler in "Killing," whose only home is his strip-club, his only family its sleazy denizens. A ... Read More Browse for similar items by category:
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