There are several other great scenes before the film ends. One is where Cosmo is rejected by his black girlfriend Rachel’s (Azizi Johari) mother, Betty (Virginia Carrington), who bandaged his wound, but bans him from her home since he will not go to a hospital. When she starts pontificating on his lifestyle and disregards his attempt to justify his life with a sob story regarding his father, Cosmo simply leaves, and Cassavetes cuts off the scene — something a Hollywood film would have milked for faux depth. Then there’s the scene of a sexy waitress who auditions for Cosmo, and then is attacked by Rachel in a jealous rage. The key to the scene is that it is shot showing the girl only from her waist down, as she struts on stage in front of Cosmo — a really terrific comment on what’s on his mind and why his girlfriend goes wild. There’s a scene where Cosmo gives a pep talk to his schlocky strip club performers, then tries to come clean in front of the club’s audience. In the end, he has to sublimate this night as he has all others, even though his blood still oozes from his gunshot wound, where the bullet remains lodged, and stains his suit.
One wonders how many times Cosmo has gone through something similar to this before. Despite his façade at the film’s start, it’s clear the man is not satisfied with his life, despite deluding himself that he’s crawled up to "respectability" in the world, and by film’s end this dissatisfaction is only deepened. The last scenes of the film show the bad act, led by talentless strippers and Teddy - aka Mr. Sophistication (Meade Roberts, who wrote the screenplay with Cassavetes) - a sort of dark parody of the kind of schlocky headmaster of bad acts that Jim Broadbent’s character celebrated in Moulin Rouge, just petering to the end, like in real life. Whether or not Cosmo will finally be taken out by the remaining gangsters, bleed to death from his wound, or whether they will not fuck with him any longer, is never made clear.
The acting is stellar, from Gazzara’s brilliance and slow boiling rages to Roberts’ giddy and depressing parody of the self-indulgent artiste types. Is it any wonder that Mr. Sophistication’s theme song is called "Imagination Is Funny", the very title of which seems like it could have been stolen from the great parodic South Park film of a few years back? Another great performance is turned in by Cassavetes regular Seymour Cassel, as Morty Weil, the blond gangster who pretends to befriend Cosmo, only to sell him out and set him up for a hit, before Cosmo does him in first. This performance is seen fully in the longer version, whereas in the shorter version he has little greater import than the other altacocker hoods.
Article comments
1 - Rodney Welch
I learned a lot from your review, which is thoughtful and specific and generous, and will most certainly lead me to add this to my queue. After I see it, I will likely read this piece again.
Unfortunately, I had a problem with your smug tone. Because Cassavetes set himself up against the studios, his acolytes have (and have always had) this annoying tendency to assume that a) everything he did was pure, unblemished art and b) if you don't agree then you're part of the problem, a "bourgeois" imbecile who doesn't get it because you spend too much time feeding at the Hollywood trough -- and if you do get it you'll probably still need the help of an expert cineaste, as great films need "someone to explain to the masses why they work." (Bourgeois? Masses? Did you eat a whole box of Das Kapital for breakfast?)
Cassavetes has been a personal hero of mine ever since A Woman Under the Influence -- the first film I ever reviewed, which was for a high school paper. Since then, I've tried seeing his work when available, and it's been hit or miss. Gloria and Love Streams were great; on the other hand, I've yet to make it to the end of Faces, which I thought was a terrible argument for improvisational acting. (On the other hand, I think Cassavetes himself was a great film actors, and his role in Elaine May's Mikey and Nicky one of the greatest ever. And I still love seeing him get blown to shreds in the Fury.)
Have you looked up any Vincent Canby lately? As a daily working critic goes, his body of work looks better and better. I don't always agree with him, but he's very often smart, very often sees details others miss. He was way ahead of the pack, for example, regarding the work of Fassbinder. Read his review of Katzelmacher, in which he is very open to a film many people find hard to watch; not only enthusiastic about the innovations (while nonetheless acknowledging the Godardian derivation) but capable of seeing the humor, the depth, and the humanity. Hardly the work of a middle-class guy from the burbs patronizing his own class.
2 - Dan Schneider
Rod:
I think you are reading a political argument into the piece where none exists. My main point of contrast is vs.Scorsese's work, and artistically, not politically.
That you see smugness in a defense of art is unfortunately too typical these days.
When reviewing older films I always check what the old timers wrote- Canby, Kael, Crowther, Ebert, etc. The very reason I started reviewing films is because, with the exception of Ebert, the reviews are all poorly written, and all are fairly stolid, and inflect their biases into the review, as you did in your post.
I am no acolyte of Cassavetes. He's very hit and miss. Minnie and Moscowitz is not good, and Influence is overrated. Faces, however, is very good.
Canby, however, is stolid. In many reviews he misses the most manifest things. As a writer, I try to navigate the middle between Lowest Common Denom reviews by his likes, and the masturbatory film theory sort of crap that is proliferating online.
Again, while I think this is a great film, I recognize that not all he touched was gold. Shakespeares wrote a dozen great plays, but he also wrote a dozen that are amongst the worst plays ever published. That makes him far more interesting than unadorned deific greatness.
Finally, I loathe armchair artsy intellectual Leftists (MFA scum), but that does not mean that some crits they bring of society - i.e.- that the masses are drooling idiots, are not correct. In pointing out flaws, one must not broadbrush in the inverse way your opponent does.
Thanks for the reply.
3 - Rodney Welch
No problem. I always like encouraging young people.
4 - Dan Schneider
Well, I'm middle-aged, but the thought remains. Last point, one needs to get beyond the 'talking points' style of dialectic, where key words like 'Bourgeois', or the like, dredge up connotations that are not there.
5 - free bet
bourgeois indeed
6 - roger nowosielski
You're an interesting cat, Mr. Schneider.