Foreign Films on DVD

Studio: Sony Pictures Home Ent Release Date: 08/18/2009 Run time: 142 minutes Rating: Pg13

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 <i>Shadows, Faces, A Woman Under the Influence, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, and Opening Night in stunning new transfers. Includes Charles Kiselyak's <i>A Constant Forge, a candid biographical documentary on the life and work of Cassavetes .

An ex-gun moll works to protect a young Puerto Rican boy from assassination by the New York mob.
Genre: Feature Film-Action/Adventure<br><b>Rating: PG
Release Date: 25-FEB-2003
Media Type: DVD

John Cassavetes devastating drama details the emotional breakdown of a suburban housewife and her family s struggle to save her from herself. Starring Peter Falk and Gena Rowlands (in two of the most harrowing screen performances of the 1970s) as a married couple deeply in love yet unable to express that love in terms the other can understand, the film is an uncompromising portrait of domestic turmoil. The Criterion Collection is proud to present one of the benchmark films of American independent cinema a heroic document from a true maverick director. Available for the first time as a stand-alone release, from the box set John Cassavetes: Five Films.

SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:
Restored high-definition digital transfer
Audio commentary by longtime John Cassavetes collaborators Mike Ferris (camera operator) and Bo Harwood (sound recordist/composer)
Video conversation between actors Gena Rowlands and Peter Falk
Audio interview with Cassavetes by film historians Michel Ciment and Michael Wilson, conducted in 1975
Theatrical trailer
Stills gallery featuring rare behind-the-scenes production photos
PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Kent Jones and an interview with Cassavetes

John Cassavetes engages film noir in his own inimitable style with The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. Ben Gazzara brilliantly portrays gentlemen s club owner Cosmo Vitelli, a man dedicated to pretenses of composure and self-possession. When he runs afoul of a group of gangsters, Cosmo is forced to commit a horrible crime in a last-ditch effort to save his beloved club and his way of life. Suspenseful, mesmerizing, and idiosyncratic, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie is a thought-provoking examination of desperation and masculine identity. Available for the first time as a stand-alone release, from the box set John Cassavetes: Five Films.<br><br>SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:<br> Restored high-definition digital transfer of John Cassavetes original 1976, 135-minute edit of the film
Restored high-definition digital transfer of Cassavetes 108-minute edit from the 1978 theatrical rerelease<br> Video interviews with star Ben Gazzara and producer Al Ruban
Audio interview with Cassavetes by film historians Michel Ciment and Michael Wilson, conducted after the film s release<br> Stills gallery featuring rare, behind-the-scenes production photos<br> PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by Phillip Lopate and interviews with Cassavetes

"Before I met you, I thought I was in trouble," says moneyed museum worker Minnie (Gena Rowlands) to longhaired car park attendant Seymour (Seymour Cassel) over a hot dog and a coffee. Such is the basis of true love in <I>Minnie and Moskowitz, a shaggy, unusually romantic comedy that is nonetheless pure John Cassavetes. After a long introductory sequence in which each character fills the screen with the rhythm of their respective lives, they meet when Seymour rescues Minnie from a blind date gone hopelessly bad. Minnie and Seymour have almost nothing in common--he's a talkative, spontaneous goof with quicksilver emotions, a dead-end job, and little ambition, she's a shy, insecure but sincere upper-class single in an abusive affair with a married man (an uncredited Cassavetes, insidiously charming and cruelly bullying). But they are both lonely romantics with a love of Bogart movies. As in most of Cassavetes's work, the script is less a story than a string of dramatic engagements colored with the quirks and emotional impulses of its characters, and he takes his time exploring the nooks and crannies of the volatile relationship. But amidst the shouting matches and frenzied fights are moments of quiet intimacy, and it turns into the most hopeful portrait of romantic love in the Cassavetes canon, complete with a sunny, uncharacteristically happy home movie ending. --Sean Axmaker

The disintegration of a marriage is dissected in John Cassavetes' searing Faces. Shot in high-contrast 16 mm black and white, the film follows the futile attempts of captain of industry Richard (John Marley) and his wife, Maria (Lynn Carlin), to escape the anguish of their empty marriage in the arms of others. Featuring astonishingly powerful, nervy performances from Marley, Carlin, and Cassavetes regulars Gena Rowlands and Seymour Cassel, Faces confronts suburban alienation and the battle of the sexes with a brutal honesty and compassion rarely matched in cinema.<br><br>SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET FEATURES:
New, restored high-definition digital transfer
Seventeen-minute alternate opening sequence, from an early edit of the film <br> Cinéastes de notre temps (1968), a 48-minute episode from the French television series dedicated to Cassavates, featuring rare interviews and behind-the-scenes footage
Making Faces, a 2004 documentary including interviews with actors Lynn Carlin, Seymour Cassel, Gena Rowlands, and director of photography Al Ruban
Lighting and Shooting the Film, a short documentary from 2004 in which Ruban explains how he and the crew achieved the distinct look of Faces
PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Stuart Klawans

Gena Rowlands plays a nervous actress on the brink of a breakdown as she prepares for the opening night of her Broadway play. The entire movie takes place in the few days prior to the opening and shows the backstage turmoil of a doomed production. Rowlands begins to fall apart when an adoring fan dies in an accident and she is forced to look hard at her life. Starring: Gena Rowlands, John Cassavetes, Joan Blondell, Ben Gazzara.

John Cassavetes' directorial debut revolves around an interracial romance between Lelia (Lelia Goldoni), a light-skinned black woman living in New York City with her two brothers, and Tony (Anthony Ray), a white man. The relationship crumbles when Tony meets Lelia's brother Hugh (Hugh Hurd), a talented dark-skinned jazz singer struggling to find work, and discovers the truth about Lelia s racial heritage. Shot on location in Manhattan with a cast and crew made up primarily of amateurs, Cassavetes' Shadows is a visionary work that is widely considered the forerunner of the American independent film movement.

SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:
New, restored high-definition digital transfer
Video interviews from 2004 with actress Lelia Goldoni and associate producer Seymour Cassel <br> Rare silent 16 mm footage of John Cassavetes and Burt Lane s acting workshop<br> Restoration demonstration
Stills gallery featuring rare behind-the-scenes production photos<br> Theatrical trailer<br> PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by Gary Giddins and a reprinted essay by Cassavetes