Back to La La Land

A return visit to LA LA LAND was nice this week, for a rainy afternoon, as my partner had not seen it, and yes, he loved it - the music and dancing and the jazz and all those bright colours. I liked it a lot too again, but it seemed a tad too long, and maybe shallow. 

But hey, we like Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone is a big discovery for me and some sequences just sang for me, recalling moments from the Cukor 1954 A STAR IS BORN (walking around the movie sound stages), AN AMERICAN IN PARIS,  SINGING IN THE RAIN, THE BANDWAGON's "Dancing In The Dark"- Minnelli is a big influence here as is French director Jacques Demy - echoes of UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG and particuarly THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT, that 1967 delight and of course Scorsese's NEW YORK NEW YORK with that other driven, more intense couple both finding their individual careers but having to separate to do so - LA LA LAND is not quite in that league, but has so many blissful moments we don't care, thanks to Damien Chazelle's flair. He captures the spirit of those films and recreates it in present day Los Angeles - Joni's "city of the fallen angels", taking in REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE's Griffith Park Observatory along the way. 
More on Scorsese, Demy, Minnelli and Ryan at labels. 

New year re-views 1 - Journey To Italy

Widely misunderstood and shamefully ignored at the time of its original release in 1954 (though filmed in 1953), but now recognised as simply not one of Rossellini’s greatest films, but as one of the key works of modern cinema, JOURNEY TO ITALY is a deceptively simple piece, all of 80 minutes. There is little plot to speak of: a marriage is breaking down under the strain of a trip to Italy as we watch. But in its deliberate rejection of many aspects of ‘classic’ Hollywood narrative and its stubborn pursuit of a quite different aesthetic, its mesmerising storyline creates space for ideas and time for reflection, as we follow the wife on her travels around Naples and that Pompeii site.

Catherine and Alexander, wealthy and sophisticated, drive to Naples to dispose of a deceased uncle's villa. There's a coolness in their relationship and aspects of Naples add to the strain. She remembers a poet who loved her and died in the war; although she didn't love him, the memory underscores romance's absence from her life now. She tours the museums of Naples and Pompeii on her own, immersing herself in the Neapolitan fascination with the dead and noticing how many women are pregnant; he idles on Capri, flirting with women but drawing back from adultery. With her, he's sarcastic; with him, she's critical. They talk of divorce. Will this foreign couple find insight and direction in Italy?

This is so influential in lots of ways. Bergman's anguish and feelings of isolation summon up Monica Vitti on that island in Antonioni's L'AVVENTURA, and the couple drifting apart remind us of Mastroianni and Moreau in LA NOTTE - also Antonioni, like the sequences of Moreau drifting alone around Milan. Rossellini has an ideal location here too, overlooking the Bay of Naples, Sorrento, Capri etc. The early 50s Italian chic is to the fore too in those hotels where the couple idle their time. Sanders is terrific here, in one of his best films - as of course is Bergman.

I actually saw this initially as a kid, when most of it would have been over my head, but remember being fascinate by that Pompeii site and the statues of the volcano victims being redisovered.

These Rossellini films were hard to see for a long time, before the video age and the dvd revolution. I remember Ingrid telling us at the London BFI/NFT in the early Seventies (when I practically lived there) how important these films were in the development of Italian cinema, paving the way for Antonioni and the others, and how they were being rediscovered. She was right about that. More on VOYAGE TO ITALY at labels. It is also covered in Martin Scorsese's essential MY VOYAGE TO ITALY documentary.  It is engrossing to see again and perhaps the most modern of the other Rossellini-Bergmans: STROMBOLI, EUROPA 51, FEAR and the comic episode of SIAME DONNE, 

Next up: L'AVVENTURA, PLEIN SOLEIL, DESERT FURY, THE CHAPMAN REPORT, LES DEMOISELLES DE ROCHEFORT, BLOW-UP, and some French double-bills, and more Deneuve and Aimee .... 

New Goodfellas trailer

Personally approved by Scorsese, for its re-release, as we await the arrival of his lauded new film SILENCE. 

20 top 1970s movies.

Looking at all those BFI lists of 10 best French/Italian/Swinging 60s/gay etc lists on their website, got me compiling another Best of 1970s - but I can't do ten, or twelve - it will have to be a Top Twenty. Were the 1970s the last great decade for movies? I dare say it depends on if you were there and how old you were - I was 24 in 1970 so  been there, done that, got the tee-shirt. We like the 80s and 90s and 2000s too of course, but the 1950s were my childhood, the 1960s my teens and early twenties, so the 1970s was a great era to live through as one went into one's thirties, for movies and music, and of course also discovering the gems of the 1940s and '30s.   So here are the 1970s for me:

• THE PASSENGER. I was mesmerised by Antonioni's mystery and had to return to it several times, as per my review in "Films Illustrated" in 1976.
• BARRY LYNDON - I could see the brilliance of A CLOCKWORK ORANGE but didn't like it, but I love BARRY LYNDON - see next post, above.
• TAXI DRIVER - those searing visuals, Herrmann's powerful score, Scorsese and De Niro .... and Paul Schrader's script.
• OBSESSION - a favourite De Palma, with another amazing Herrmann score (and another Schrader script) and wonderful Genevieve Bujold
• CHINATOWN - Polanski's all time great, its Faye Dunaway's movie as much as Nicholson's.
• KLUTE - the first of Pakula's paranoia thrillers, with Jane Fonda just as mesmerising now
• SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY - Schlesinger's masterpiece with Finch and Jackson never better
• DON'T LOOK NOW - ditto for Nick Roeg, with Julie Christie
• L'INNOCENTE - Visconti's last film in 1976, directed from a wheelchair - another ravishingly opulent costume drama.
• NEW YORK NEW YORK - another Scorsese classic for me, re-imagining those great '40s and '50s musicals for the '70s, with De Niro's Jmmy Doyle the man we love to hate ... this is Liza's other great role.
• CABARET - the other great '70s musical - Fosse also stunned us with ALL THAT JAZZ in '79
• THE GODFATHERS - I have to bundle Coppola's majestic twosome together .... then there is his APOCALYPSE NOW ...
• HAROLD AND MAUDE - Hal Ashby's cult classic still works
• NASHVILLE - after the great MASH, McCABE & MRS MILLER, IMAGES and THE LONG GOODBYE Altman gave us his magnum opus in 1975 - America seems even madder now ...
• CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND - Spielberg's space opus we loved  (never cared for STAR WARS).
• ANNIE HALL - Woody and Keaton - with MANHATTAN and INTERIORS following, after their early items like LOVE AND DEATH ..
• AUTUMN SONATA - A late Bergman, with the other Bergman (Ingrid) and Liv Ullmann providing an acting masterclass, its very affecting too. 
• FOX AND HIS FRIENDS - a terrific Fassbinder, as good as his FEAR EATS THE SOUL
• SEVEN BEAUTIES - Lina Wertmuler's searing drama still stuns now
• THE DEER HUNTER - Cimino's opus
• NETWORK - Finch, Dunaway, Holden etc excel in Lumet's searing drama by Chayefsky.

Thats 20 then - other interesting Euro films included Bunuel's DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE, Bergman's CRIES AND WHISPERS, Truffaut's DAY FOR NIGHT, the Taviani's PADRE PADRONE, Scola's A SPECIAL DAY, and for some fun, Richard Lester's THREE & FOUR MUSKETEERS, and also his tense JUGGERNAUT, lovely ROBIN AND MARIAN, and more hi-jinks in ROYAL FLASH, and Ridley Scott's ALIEN. Thats my 1970s in a nutshell, plus of course THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR, THE PARALLAX VIEW, De Sica's GARDEN  OF THE FINZI CONTINI, Visconti's LUDWIG and Bertolucci's THE CONFORMIST and 1900, Blier's outrageous LES VALSEUSES in '74, then those Romy Schneider French films .... while Helmut's DORIAN GRAY in 1970 ramped up the trash level, as did JUST A GIGOLO in '78 and BLOODLINE in 1979. 

Favourite movie stills .... an occasional series.

1950s: EAST OF EDEN: More on Dean, Richard Davalos and Julie Harris at labels ..... 

1960s: BLOW-UP - David and Vanessa and that perfectly 1960s studio space ...

1970s: NEW YORK NEW YORK, De Niro and Liza in Scorsese's powerhouse musical drama, a new A STAR IS BORN ...

1980s: BODY HEAT: Kathleen Turner's sizzling walk past dumb William Hurt in Lawrence Kasdan's sizzling modern noir.

Different choices, next time. 

The taxi driver scores an ace in the hole

Or The Chuck Tatum /Travis Bickle show ...

Watching two searing dramas one after the other left one limp on the sofa. I had not seen Billy Wilder's 1951 ACE IN THE HOLE for years (its before my time obviously, I only started going to the movies in 1954 when I was 8) and maybe only ever saw it once so it was rather unfamiliar to me, whereas we over-dosed on Scorsese's TAXI DRIVER back in 1976, and in that pre-video age, went to it several times and even got the soundtrack album, but again I had not seen it for a long time ...

Chuck Tatum (Kirk Douglas), a ruthless former New York newspaper reporter now trapped in a dead-end job at a New Mexico newspaper, sees his way out by covering the story of a man trapped inside a mine. He sees this as his way back to the big time and New York. When Tatum's first story appears, crowds begin arriving at the mine site to watch the unfolding rescue. Although the man, Leo Minosa, can be rescued in about a day, Tatutm gets the local corrupt sheriff and the mining engineer to prolong the rescue by using a drilling process that will take about a week, thus ensuring that Tatum can milk the story for all its worth, as crowds gather to see what happens. It becomes a carnival as everyone is out to make a fast buck. 

This Wilder film is a dark allegory and he outdid himself in cynicism and savage wit with this assault on the trashy press which was a colossal flop at the time, even changing the title to THE BIG CARNIVAL did not help - Wilder stuck to proven hits and successful plays for most of the 50s after that. Kirk Douglas plays another heel (THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL) and is the man you love to hate. 

Jan Sterling too plays another sneering, trashy blonde, a real hard-boiled number who won't kneel to pray, as it "bags her nylons". She is the trapped man's wife and runs that forlorn diner which does not make any money - soon, though the cash register is ringing as she caters to the crowds arriving - she too wants to get away, as Chuck slaps her around and gets her to act the part of the concerned wife, only he goes too far ... 

The film undoubtedly exaggerates not only the greed of the reporter and of local traders but also ghoulishness of the public. In the end, though, it all backfires on him as the trapped man dies, thus making him effectively guilty of manslaughter, as the public and the media circus leave.  Presumably back then, the heel has to pay for his callousness, it might be a different ending today, as we are used to television cashing in on tragedies ... Co-written by Wilder and Lesser Samuels and Walter Newman, not his usual collaborators. 

TAXI DRIVER. The plot of Scorsese's classic is too well known to go into again, but here it is anyway:

Travis Bickle is an ex-Marine and Vietnam War veteran living in New York City. As he suffers from insomnia, he spends his time working as a taxi driver at night, watching porn movies at seedy cinemas during the day, He is a loner who sees New York as a cesspool. His one bright spot in New York humanity is Betsy, a worker on the presidential nomination campaign of Senator Charles Palantine. He becomes obsessed with her, but takes her to the porn cinema when she agrees to a date with him..He then wants to save Iris, a twelve-year-old runaway and prostitute who he believes wants out of the profession and under the thumb of her pimp, and he may also want to shoot the senator. so the scene is set for a showdown of savage intensity. 

After years of seeing De Niro in lesser movies or movies one does not need to see at all, one forgot how stunning he was in TAXI DRIVER, and of course MEAN STREETS. I particularly like NEW YORK NEW YORK and then there was RAGING BULL and GOODFELLAS, among others (1900, THE DEER HUNTER). 
But Travis Bickle is his iconic role, "God's loney man" the classic loner going out of his mind, whether alone in his room ("You talking to me?"), or his eyes in close-up as he drives that big yellow taxi as the brilliant Bernard Herrmann score plays - and then that final shoot-out. Everyone is excellent here: Jodie Foster, Harvey Kietel, Cybill Shepherd, Peter Boyle, even Scorsese himself in that cameo as the client spying on his wife, and of course Paul Schrader's script. It was the film of 1976 for most of us.  

The Age of Innocence, 1993

I saw THE AGE OF INNOCENCE back in 1993 but had rather forgotten it and had certainly forgot how opulent and lush and sumptuous it looks - it certainly looks like Scorsese's hommage to Visconti - that early scene of Daniel Day Lewis arriving at the grand soiree as the camera pans and glides around certainly suggests Burt Lancaster at the ball in THE LEOPARD, while other scenes suggest SENSO or Visconti's last film L'INNOCENTE in 1976 - this Scorsese film is certainly its equal in showing us the grand surroundings and soirees of the period, and those costumes ...

Society scion Newland Archer is engaged to May Welland, but his well-ordered life is upset when he meets May's unconventional cousin, the Countess Olenska. At first, Newland becomes a defender of the Countess, whose separation from her abusive husband makes her a social outcast in the restrictive high society of late-19th Century New York, but he finds in her a companion spirit and they fall in love.

It is of course Edith Wharton's classic novel (published in 1920) which has become a labour of love for Martin Scorsese in his first period picture, and this one certainly delivers in spades, as one of the most marvellous costume dramas ever - up there with Kubrick's BARRY LYNDON and those Visconti films (and it also suggests Ivory's THE EUROPEANS with that other visiting Countess from Europe, and then theres Jeremy Irons in SWANN IN LOVE) with a superb cast, and brilliant production work, edited by Scorsese regular Thelma Schoonmaker, with an Elmer Bernstein score and the voice-over narration is by Joanne Woodward! 

Daniel Day-Lewis commands the screen as usual as Newland Archer, that prisoner of the conventions and social rules of his social class; with Michelle Pfeiffer as the Countess Olenska, and Winona Ryder as May Welland, Newland's wife, seemingly innocent and naive but really manipulative and cunning, as she thwarts Newland's plans. The supporting cast includes Sian Phillips as his mother, Alexis Smith, Richard E Grant, Geraldine Chaplin, Jonathan Pryce, Alec McEwan, scene-stealing Miriam Margolyes and an uncredited Claire Bloom, whom I unaccountably missed - I shall have to watch it again next time it is on. 

It may seem too long and too slow with nothing much happening for some, but its a film to savour and relish and lose oneself in, and then that perfect final scene, with the older Newland and his adult son, will make it all worthwhile, with lots of marvellous moments along the way. 
Of course New York in the late 19th Century must have been a building site with all those buildings going up, and also a melting pot with all those new arrivals, but we don't see any of that in this rarified world. Scorsese's film is also a worthy companion to all those Henry James and E.M. Forster adaptations. I shall probably now have to read the book and treat myself to the film on Blu-Ray ... Working my way through Scorsese's films it is a super re-discovery, like THE AVIATOR. I will have to see Day Lewis's amazing turn in GANGS OF NEW YORK again too.

All those directors !

Following on from the lists of actors and actresses we like, here is the Directors list .... its bigger than I imagined ! 

Michelangelo Antonioni  (right)

Alfred Hitchcock 

Howard Hawks 

Ingmar Bergman
David Lean
Michael Powell
Martin Scorsese

John Huston 

William Wyler 

Billy Wilder 

Joe Mankiewicz 

George Cukor 

Vincente Minnelli 
Josef Von Sternberg 

Orson Welles 

THE REST OF THE PANTHEON: 

Frank Borzage, Preston Sturges, John Ford, Frank Capra, Michael Curtiz, George Stevens, Fred Zinnemann, Alan J Pakula, Sidney Lumet, Stanley Kubrick, Steven Spielberg, Robert Altman, Michael Mann, Terrence Malick, Charles Walters.

OF THEIR TIME ('50s/'60s): 

Elia Kazan, Stanley Kramer, Douglas Sirk, Frank Tashlin, Otto Preminger, Nicholas Ray, Anthony Mann, Robert Rossen, Martin Ritt, Stanley Donen, John Frankenheimer, Richard Brooks, Jean Negulesco, John Sturges, Blake Edwards, Richard Quine, George Roy Hill, Robert Wise, Robert Mulligan, Richard Fleisher. 

CURRENT DIRECTORS: 

Mike Leigh, Francois Ozon, Pedro Almodovar, Nicholas Winding Refn, Christopher Nolan, David Fincher, Quentin Tarantino, Todd Haynes, Bill Condon, Ang Lee, Paul Schrader.

BRITISH: 

John Schlesinger, Joseph Losey*, Richard Lester*, John Boorman, Nicholas Roeg, Ridley Scott, Carol Reed, Clive Donner, Desmond Davis, Tony Richardson, Basil Dearden, J. Lee Thompson, Philip Leacock, Alexander McKendrick, Lewis Gilbert, Ronald Neame [* honorary Brits]  Right: Losey directs MODESTY BLAISE.

EUROPEAN (after Antonioni): 

Federico Fellini, Vittorio de Sica, Roberto Rossellini, Luchino Visconti, Jacques Demy, Agnes Varda, Louis Malle, Jean-Pierre Melville, Mauro Bolognini, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Bernardo Bertolucci, Max Ophuls, Luis Bunuel, Wim Wenders, Francois Truffaut, Rene Clement, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Claude Lelouch, Roger Vadim, Claude Sautet, Julian Duviver, Robert Hossein, Henri Verneuil.
Left and right: Agnes Varda and Jacques Demy.

WORLD CINEMA:

Ozu, Mizoguchi, Ray, Kurosawa, Jaime Humberto Hermosillo, Wong Kar-wai, Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

Hitch & Cary

Hungry like the wolf

Finally, I sit down with THE WOLF OF WALL STREET and am immediately sucked in and blown away. It must be Scorsese's best in decades - taking one back to the era of TAXI DRIVER, NEW YORK NEW YORK, RAGING BULL and GOODFELLAS. For some odd reason I still have not seen CASINO, didn't like CAPE FEAR, didn't think THE DEPARTED was that wonderful and have not (yet) seen SHUTTER ISLAND, and I enjoyed THE AVIATOR much more recently than when I saw it on release. Then there's GANGS OF NEW YORK ..... the dvd has been sitting on the shelf for years. But we love Marty's MY VOYAGE TO ITALY on what Italian cinema means to him, and his music documentaries. Its great that he is as busy as ever, in his early 70s, with several projects on the go. He must be THE premier American director of his generation. 

So, THE WOLF ..... Martin Scorsese directs this true story of New York stockbroker Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio). From the Amerian dream to corporate greed, Belfort goes from penny stocks and righteousness to IPQs and a life of corruption in the late 80s - earning him the title of "The Wolf of Wall Street". Money. Power. Women. Drugs. Temptations were for the taking and the threat of authority were irrelevant. For Jordan and his wolf pack, more was never enough.

So sayeth the blurb. Well, it plays like GOODFELLAS on acid as excess is piled on excess, the drug taking is industrial quality. We watch dazed and amazed and amused, like the scene where Jordan tries to get to his car and drive home while smashed on quaaludes, then of course nemesis is reached as the FBI start to close in ..... DiCaprio is sensational, aided by Jonah Hill, the shlub who becomes his right-hand man. Other standouts are Joanna Lumley as his wife's aunt, Jean Dujardin as the Swiss banker, Rob Reiner, Kyle Chandler, Matthew McConnaughy in a standout cameo, and more, more. Margot Robbie is just right too as Naomi, the trophy wife. That yacht ride in the storm is a zinger too ... there's practically 1,000 reviews of it on IMDB, raging from idolatory to rage about it, but love it or hate it its an American Epic. Its certainly a vast panorama of the greed and corruption which has unfolded since those heady 80s. On the negative side, it seems enamored with the alleged life story of a sociopathic, sleazeball swindler, and there is no character development - they start off sleazy and crass disgusting creeps and stay that way.

An alternative take is that its a very cleverly disguised narrative tale AS TOLD BY a con-man to us the audience. Jordan Belfort keeps embellishing his story with whores, drugs, orgies, huge mansions, enormous yachts with helipads, exploding airplanes, etc., because that is what will impress his audience. Somebody else said it was "a 3-hour fantasy concocted by a piggish frat boy on speed."

It is a stunning production, scripted by Terence Winter from Belfort's book; with a huge cast, and edited as usual by Thelma Schoonmaker, costumes by Sandy Powell - Leonardo is dressed by Armani, Marty's pal from The Band (THE LAST WALTZ) Robbie Robertson is 'executive music producer' and what a dazzler the soundtrack is with snatches of blues and rock classics by the likes of Howlin' Wolf (how appropriate) and John Lee Hooker. The three hours whiz by .... I think I want to see it again next week. Its a standout movie in a year of many standouts. 
Next we will be moving on to DALLAS BUYERS CLUB and THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL, as well as discovering whats INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS ....but first more fun and games with Schrader's CAT PEOPLE and Anita Ekberg's KILLER NUN, John Water's SERIAL MOM  and Faye's BEVERLY HILLS MADAM! Does Trash get any better ... ?

End of summer repeats: Millie, Pulp Fiction, Aviator ...

"In the Ritz elevator you just go up and down"

It seems like the end of summer here in the UK, as we face our second day of incessant rain, washing out a bank holiday yesterday, and much cooler weather - we were moaning about the heatwave the other week, but the nice thing about UK weather is that it changes all the time .... it may be a warm September and late autumn ... meanwhile, those tv repeats keep coming. It was bliss to chillax once again yesterday, with THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE, 

a favourite musical ever since my best friend Stanley and I saw it during its first run, at the old (then new) Odeon in St Martins Lane, London, in 1967 - as per my other reports on it here .... its certainly my favourite Julie Andrews film, I love the look of it, the great pastiche of the 1920s, Julie, Mary Tyler Moore, Bea Lillie as Mrs Meers with all those great lines we loved and repeated all the time ("Just a restless girl", "sad to be all along in the world", "please go, enjoy yourself", "I bet its juicy" etc). and then there is Carol Channing as jazz-baby Muzzy etc. The guys are fun too - John Gavin as Trevor Graydon guying himself and cute young James Fox's Jimmy (now a senior actor here, good to see him last year at the 50th anniversary screening of THE SERVANT - as per my posts on that - Fox label) as he launches the friendship dance into doing "The Tapioca" or in drag to trap white slaver Mrs Meers who thinks he will be alright for "a dark corner of the late shift" ..... George Roy Hill directs it all with a sure touch, its produced by Ross Hunter, and lensed by the great Russell Metty (THE MISFITS etc) and then theres Elmer Bernstein and Andre Previn sorting out the score and the songs ... whats not to love?

All I need to say about PULP FICTION is: was it really 20 years ago it blew us away - still does now, as does INGLORIOUS BASTERDS and KILL BILL .... they repay frequent (or at least annual) re-visits. 

THE AVIATOR, 2004. I liked Scorsese’s Howard Hughes film a lot more now than I did back in 2004. One is bowled over by so many things, not least Cate Blanchett’s vivid cartoon portrayal of Katharine Hepburn – its audacious, but it works (Kate Beckinsale as Ava Gardner certainly doesn’t). Add in Jude Law for a minute or two as Errol Flynn and the film soars, just like Hughes does in his plane as takes Hepburn airborne in his plane and lets her fly it. Scorsese only shows us Hughes from the 1920s to the 1940s, with all that HELLS ANGELS movie-making, with Jean Harlow (Gwen Stefani). Leonardo Di Caprio captures the spendthrift madness of Hughes in his early prime, as he spends, spends and spends more to get his vision on screen. 

Nobody it seems can say no to him, as we watch his staff and companions like Noah Dietrich (John C. Reilly), and later his deadly foes like Alec Baldwin as Juan Trippe, CEO of Pan-American Airways, and Alan Alda as that very devious, corrupt politician. 
The basic facts about Hughes are present and correct, his unstoppable will and inner demons, including that Spruce Goose saga, and having starlets squirreled away all over town, as we see his growing obsession and OCD about health and germs and how he cannot open that washroom door … It is all vivid film-making, as the running time flies by, with Scorsese in his element, and all those fantastic planes and amazing set-pieces, and it has set me up to finally put on THE WOLF OF WALL STREET. It makes one wonder what Scorsese’s proposed Sinatra biopic would be like. 

Francine Evans & Jimmy Doyle go head to head again

Summer re-runs: as my Facebook friend Martin is having a mini-Scorsese season, here's another look at NEW YORK NEW YORK, one of my favourite Marty's, up there with TAXI DRIVER .... its perhaps his flawed masterpiece, his A STAR IS BORN !

Our "Sunday Times" recently ran a new interview with Robert De Niro in their 'Culture' magazine, the usual fawning stuff - as usual De Niro had nothing much to say (like when he was on tv last week on our Graham Norton Show, where he was just there to plug a silly new movie), the magazine interview by Bryan Appleyard name-checked those great Scorsese-De Niro collaborations MEAN STREETS, TAXI DRIVER, RAGING BULL, THE KING OF COMEDY, GOODFELLAS, CAPE FEAR, CASINO - but did not mention their 1977 NEW YORK NEW YORK which seems to be considered something of a flop these days.

I though loved it at the time, and went to its first run and saw it several times and also got the double vinyl gatefold soundtrack album - it was just before the home video explosion when a soundtrack album was the best souvenir available.

An egotistical saxophone player and a young singer meet on V-J Day and embark upon a strained and rocky romance, even as their careers begin a long uphill climb - he becomes a great jazz musician while she becomes a famous vocalist and movie star, can they rekindle their romance?

After the huge success of TAXI DRIVER, not just a cult movie but popular too, Scorsese was riding high, and was able to mount his follow-up on a big scale. Just as the story and situation mimic those of old musicals, NEW YORK NEW YORK's production design aims to recreate those movies' stylized, artificial sets and visuals. I understand it was a troubled (cocaine-fuelled apparantly) shoot which over-ran - the big "Happy Endings" number with Larry Kert (Liza's "Born in a Trunk"?) was removed, but everything about it worked for me. The colour and music, that great long opening sequence when we realise how obnoxious Jimmy Doyle is (for me his jazzman is as good as his Travis Bickle), those scenes of their doomed romance - the artificial trees in that scene in the snow, when he attacks Francine for getting pregnant.  The songs are great too, some in the '40s style of Peggy Lee, and Diahnne Abbot as the Harlem club singer whose  "Honeysuckle Rose" is in  the style of Billie Holiday. The title song by Liza, with that marvellous staging, is the definitive version (sorry, Frank). It and CABARET are Liza's defining moments, and it is certainly a great De Niro performance. It is really a movie buff's musical as Scorsese recreates '40s and '50s musicals - perhaps his A STAR IS BORN ?  Scorsese's opus too was cut from 163 minutes to about 130 for various releases. Its certainly though, as those French cinebuffs say, a film maudit ...
 

Perhaps the bittersweet ending where they both walk away from a proposed meeting did not work for audiences? and De Niro does not play for sympathy as Jimmy Doyle is certainly an abusive husband. 1977 was the era of SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER and STAR WARS and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, but surely the ANNIE HALL crowd would have embraced NEW YORK, NEW YORK?  Scorsese's later films with Leonardo DiCaprio do not work for me in the same way as his with De Niro. Now for THE WOLF OF WALL STREET, I just wasn't particularly interested in seeing SHUTTER ISLAND. We also loved his documentary on George Harrison and his documentary on Italian cinema ... (Scorsese label).