![]() ![]() Whenever you feel you have a grasp on the film, Scorsese undercuts it. Indeed, these scenes gave rise to a long lived sitcom, not something you could imagine from any other Scorsese film.Īlice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore is constantly surprising. These café scenes are light and small-scale, the narrative driven by quirky and eccentric characters. As this is an early Scorsese film there are moments of darkness through the film, not least Keitel’s two-timing and violent lothario, but the bulk of the movie is set in the café that Alice find work in. In each city she becomes involved with a man, the first played (again) by Harvey Keitel, the second played by Kris Kristofferson. She and Tommy begin their journey, but quickly run out of money forcing her to pick up jobs firstly in Phoenix, Arizona and then as a waitress in Tucson. Alice’s emotionally abusive husband has died leaving her with limited funds and a lack of stability, all she has is a desire to sing for a living. The film follows Alice Hyatt, played by Ellen Burstyn, as she and her precocious son, Tommy, played by Alfred Lutter, travel to her hometown in search of work. Instead, Scorsese’s fourth film is a sunny, witty road trip movie set in New Mexico. The second movie in this dual release, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore is, on the surface, far removed from the gritty urbanism of Who’s That Knocking at My Door, and the New York focused, dystopian narratives of Mean Streets and Taxi Driver. It’s strange to see Keitel here, especially in such a vulnerable role, but again this gives the sense of a first step towards Scorsese’s later films, indeed this film is often seen as a trial run for the director’s breakthrough film Mean Streets. It’s difficult to divorce this film from the body of Scorsese’s later work, especially as it contains so many familiar elements, not least the presence of Harvey Keitel as the central male character. As such, the grafted on sex scene filmed in Amsterdam in 1968: a weird, oneiric, almost hallucinogenic sequence scored to the tune of The Doors’ The End, becomes a key link between Scorsese and the French New Wave that lifts the film from social realism to something more abstract and stylised. The film is packed with pop-culture references, kinetic camera moves and cherry picks from European cinema, particularly the editing of Godard, but also the earlier poetic realism of Jean Vigo and Marcel Carné.Īs with the output of these French directors, Scorsese’s film is intangible, almost fantastical, focussing on a doomed and marginalised character. One reason for this is Scorsese’s already competent and shockingly mature individual directorial style. ![]() Finally a distributor picked up the film and made Scorsese add an exploitative sex scene to create a third and final version.įrom this it sounds like the film should be a mess, but instead, despite the fact that the three periods of the film production are clearly identifiable, the film stands as a coherent and polished whole. and his group of friends, the pivotal romance plot was added, and the title changed to I Call First. Scorsese continued to add to it and to adapt it even after the original version, called Bring on the Dancing Girls, had been released.Īs such it is possible to see the evolution of the final film: originally intended to focus on J.R. ![]() ![]() Originally conceived as a film school project and made over four years, Who’s That Knocking at My Door is an ever shifting movie with scenes inserted even after its initial release. He returns to the church to seek enlightenment and redemption, but we suspect he achieves neither. Finally they reconcile, but when he forgives her for her past and agrees to marry her despite the fact she isn’t a virgin, she breaks it off with him. Surprisingly, and depressingly, he blames her for this ‘flaw’ in her character and rejects her. Eventually she reveals that a sexual assault from her past (replayed in flashback) has made her reluctant to go all the way. They begin to court, but despite his advances she resists having sex with him. The girl is a liberated college graduate, unnamed in the film and played by Zina Bethune. Harvey Keitel plays J.R., a young New York Catholic who meets a girl on the Staten Island ferry. The earlier movie, Who’s That Knocking at My Door, is Scorsese’s debut feature film. The two films are different, tonally, stylistically and in terms of their genre, but each contain elements of the distinctive approach to fimmaking of the Italian-American pioneer of the New Hollywood wave. The BFI have just released on DVD two early Martin Scorsese movies: Who’s That Knocking at My Door from 1968 and Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore from 1974. ❉ These two films tell us everything we need to know about Scorsese then and now. ![]()
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