Close-Up on John Cassavetes

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Close-Up Film Centre
97 Sclater Street
London E1 6HR

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At the beginning of the month, Close-Up, the London-based film archive and library, opened a cinema complete with a pair of newly restored 35mm projectors which will host a regular schedule of programming. To celebrate this exciting addition to the capital's cinematic landscape a series of John Cassavetes films are being screened, including A Woman Under the Influence, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie and Opening Night. If possible, it would be well worth seeing them all, and experiencing each one on film, the way the director originally intended.

—Close-Up Film Centre

Weekend Viewing: The Killing of a Chinese Bookie

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—01. Ben Gazzara as Cosmo Vitelli.

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In 1976's The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, director John Cassavetes turns his incomparable independent cinema verite style and improvised performances on the crime genre, resulting in a seedy depiction of 1970s LA. Ben Gazzara's reading of a strip club owner Cosmo Vitelli, whose degenerate gambling ties him to the mob and forces him to do a job that puts him up against tough odds, is nuanced and believable. The 108 minute re-edit moves with a spare economy that is missing from the original, being 30 minutes longer, but the lingering closeups and fantastic camera work are just as marvellous. 

—Available from Criterion