Cassavetes at the Marchesa: BOOKIE/HUSBANDS

The film [Killing of a Chinese Bookie] is about a conformist, about somebody who would have been a white-collar worker years ago and who does all the right things and who is going to be killed for it.... It's the story of so many people's lives. It's not hard to understand because it happens all the time.

- John Cassavetes

from Cassavetes on Cassavetes by Ray Carny 

Killing Of A Chinese Bookie

I was first introduced to The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie (and to John Cassavetes) by director Spencer Parsons. He assigned me Cassavetes boot camp just before I began editing his feature, I'll Come Running. I binged my way through Bookie, Faces, A Woman Under The Influence, Minnie & Moskovitz (my current fave), and Husbands. Spencer wanted me to absorb the performance styles, cutting rhythms, the way camera follows the actors, and especially how Cassavetes constructed everything around performance and emotion regardless of whether the image was technically perfect.

Since that binge I had not seen Cassavetes since. I've got a Netflix DVD copy of Opening Night waiting for me, and I'd love to get my hands on Love Streams, though I know that's tough one to track down.

Last Monday, I made my first trip to the new Marchesa Theater which is operated by the Austin Film Society. The best way to describe the Marchesa is that its Austin's own version of the New Beverly in Los Angeles. When I briefly lived in LA, I loved going out of my way to go to the New Beverly to see older movies or arthouse fare or grindhouse flicks. The Marchesa is located at what used to be the Lincoln Village, a dumpy 8-theater building I remember occaisonally seeing movies at when I was a kid. It was a weird feeling realizing what the Marchesa used to be when I pulled into the parking lot.