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The Killing of a Chinese Bookie

The Northwest Film Forum
Seattle, WA

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The Killing of a Chinese Bookie

Jun 29

(John Cassavetes, US, 1976, 35mm, 135 min)

35mm print!

Wednesday, Jun 29 at 08:00PM
John Cassavetess mid-70s film noirish gangster film casts Ben Gazzara as Cosmo Vitelli, a gentlemans club owner who desperately clings on to his façade of suave demeanor and control despite the seedy world around him and his indulgences in self-destructive behavior. Finding himself deep in debt with loan sharks, Cosmo is forced to carry out a terrible crime or lose his way of life. A mesmerizing study of masculine identity.

Compared to the grimy reality of other 1970s crime movies such as The French Connection, the formal surface of The Killing of a Chinese Bookie is one of shimmering beauty. And that is because it is not a realistic film. It is the subjective fever dream of a psyche carving fantasy out of reality as he goes. Jason Mark Scotte, Brightlights Film Journal