Word: vitelli
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Asked about her response to American food, Italian Giovanna Vitelli doesn't pause even a second before blurting: "I avoid it like--Wait, I take that back. Once in a while, when I walk with my friends and we pass a typical American restaurant, I turn to them and say 'Hey, let's go in and have a greasy, disgusting, slimy meal."' If Vitelli doesn't seem to mind the grease, it's only because, she says, "There's a lot to be gained from the cultural experience alone...
...many like Vitelli, the number of consecutive meals of yogurt and salad reached nightmarish proportions, driving them off-campus, where they now live and cook native dishes to their hearts' content. There they are able to team up with friends of the same heritage to exploit the culinary skills they sharpened in the old country. Vitelli feels she is particularly fortunate because she and her compatriots share such a predilection for edibles. "When two or more Italians--be they men, women or children--get together, just as long as they're within 50 miles of a stove, the main topic...
Side Notes. Again like many jazz musicians-Thelonius Monk, for one -Cassavetes is most interested in the pauses and side notes everyone else passes over. The Killing of a Chinese Bookie is another of the director's blitzed meditations on life at the edge. Cosmo Vitelli (Ben Gazzara) owns a strip joint on Sunset Boulevard and a debt of dishonor. No sooner has he finished paying off the mortgage on the Crazy Horse West than he runs up an unmanageable IOU at a Santa Monica gambling joint. To pay the debt, the gamblers put this proposition to Cosmo: snuff...