john cassavetes the killing of a chinese bookie be a film that be one of those overlooked gem that be not only a great film and but a great record of it time and even if it might have more properly be title the murder of a chinese bookie . as much a i love the early and raw film of martin scorsese who reputedly think up this tale with cassavetes a few year earlier and no film i have ever see so perfectly capture the mid 1970s underworld a i know it a a child . there be a sense that on can even smell the cheap liquor and cigaret smoke that pervade it image . while scorsese mean street and taxi driver and rag bull and and goodfellas be also great film and they be so highly stylized and scored and and choreograph that they attain mythic quality and and be shorn of much of the realism cassavetes filmic world inhabits . what set cassavetes apart from his contemporary american peer be that his film do not mythologize they simply depict . in this sense and he do for modern urbanity what german filmmaker werner herzog do for historical film i. e. brings them down to eye level realism . he also depict his society with the same level of universal realism a yasujiro ozu do post war japan . in watch the two version of this film and make available a part of the criterion collection five disk john cassavetes five film collection the original 135 minute 1976 release and and the 109 minute 1978 re release and one also get a good representation of how greatness can be achieve . the long version have only a few scene more than the short version and and some of the same scene go on a bit longer and but the tale be basically the same and for the extra scene while interesting and be not essential while such a cosmo banter with a cabby about their new york past and a tale on a gopher tail cause botulism and and scene outside a club . even though the order of several scene change and or be alter a bit and and there be a few segment unique to the 1978 version and the editing on the late version be generally superior . rarely have a film either version and core so deeply into masculinity and the idea of territoriality . the long version feature a deep portrait of the film main character and los angeles strip club owner cosmo vitellus ( ben gazzara ) a low man in the underworld and and great detail his connection to the mobster of the old guard who resent the rise criminal power of different ethnic group . the killing of a chinese bookie succeed a a great piece of cinema because it lead character be one of the most realistically drawn character in film history he a thug and a killer and yet one who be explicable . he be a businessman who can not separate work from personal life his girlfriend be the bar top stripper and and twenty or more year his junior . yet and it be not a film noir and a so often call and for cassavetes transcend the simpleminded technique of that genre and and deliver a film of intellectual heft and psychological breadth and where murder blossom from the seemingly most inane and perfunctory and and inconsequential of moment and and lead to an examination of masculinity and territoriality that have no peer in film . sometimes his scene go on a tad too long and but and like walt whitman poetry and there be beauty and strength in even his excess something that many other so call artist most focused work lack . cassavetes consistently serve up his art at the grown ups table and a woody allen call drama vi à vi comedy and but so few film fan be use to real and or pure and drama and for hollywood have so dissolve their mind with mid level melodrama and that they simply be overwhelm by his best film audacious pseudo verité . that the killing of a chinese bookie may be his very best film be all the explanation need for it lack of popularity in a deliterate age .