How many ways can you tell a story? When that story’s a thriller, there are particular expectations of the genre, of tension and races against time. And those can be handled in ways we’ve come to taken for granted, even though they heighten what we see so that it bears little resemblance to life as lived. That strand of thrillers includes everything from Speed to the Bourne films. What’s interesting is when you see someone make a thriller that doesn’t rely on the devices that filmmakers typically use to get audiences engaged with their stories.

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie is the first John Cassavetes film I’ve seen, but there was something very familiar about it stylistically. Anyone who’s seen films from the new wave of digitally shot and semi-improvised movies will recognise the rough and ready feel of his work. In that sense Cassavetes, making films in the sixties and seventies, was ahead of his time, though Chinese Bookie has some of the same feel of the earlier Au Bout de Souffle. But improvisation wasn’t such a part of his method as it may appear: certainly it would have been more technically difficult to improvise at length while shooting on film. The raw feeling of Chinese Bookie is largely to do with the leeway Cassavetes gave to actor Ben Gazzara in his portrayal of club owner Cosmo Vitelli, the film’s protagonist, and its verite style of scripting and shooting.

Sometimes you only realise what you’re used to in its absence. Chinese Bookie is a thriller, sure, but the thrills take a long time coming. Instead, there’s a leisurely build-up in which we see the fabric of Cosmo’s life. In the first ten minutes of the film he’s seen at three different drinking venues, the last his own stripclub. And we get to see quite a bit of life at the club itself, Cosmo’s pride and joy, where he choreographs dismal would-be comic hip routines featuring show host Mr Sophisticated and the women dancers.

Somewhere along the line, the owner of a gambling club pays a visit with his retinue, which is where the story really kicks off in conventional terms. But that’s to misunderstand what Cassavetes is doing. In his organic portrayal of Cosmo and the world he lives in, he’s painting a picture of a particular kind of masculinity. Cosmo is acutely aware of his status with others, and of his obligations as an alpha male who cares for his employees, and that’s the key to what could be his undoing.

It’s when Cosmo is obliged to kill the Chinese bookie that the film becomes more like a conventional thriller, and it does so brilliantly. The scenes of him shooting the bookie, running away from the scene, and then dealing with the consequences, are taut and energised. If anything, because the film isn’t stylised in the manner of a mainstream thriller, because it more recognisably draws from life, this stuff of action and violence is even more powerful than it would be.

So, what can be learned from Chinese Bookie? Well, it’s a fascinating template for anyone wanting to explore more organic filmmaking. But that doesn’t mean lengthy improvisation. I can’t think of many films where improvisation has been much of an asset when it’s a key part of the process. And one danger of the digital filmmaking revolution is that some directors think that if they just shoot enough material, then a film can be created in the edit suite afterwards. Look at One for the Road for where that kind of thinking leads: a few good scenes do not a movie make.

Ultimately, audiences like films because they like stories. And stories have themes, that are expressed through a beginning, middle, and end. Being in control of your material, knowing the story you want to tell, enables you to tell it all kinds of ways, including using the freewheeling choices that Cassavetes makes. If you don’t know for sure what story you want to tell to begin with, how can you possibly hope to create a narrative on an edit suite? Digital technology has begun to democratise the film industry, but at the moment I see too many examples of directors who adopt a ’spray and pray’ approach, hoping that if they film enough stuff, that they’ll capture some nuggets in the process. Maybe, but nuggets are best seen in the context of a backdrop, rather than randomly scattered, and that once again draws attention to the importance of storytelling and structure in cinema.