#1
Posted: 7/5/07 at 1:16pm
Interesting article from Nerve.com's "When Good Directors Go Bad":
The setup: After the critical breakthrough of Mean Streets (1973), the Oscar-winning Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974), and the masterful Taxi Driver (1976), Martin Scorsese used his clout to pay homage to classical Hollywood musicals, with his own personal twist.
What went wrong?: While I don’t particularly like the previous films in this series, I actually sort of enjoy New York, New York. There’s a good amount in the film that works, especially the lovingly-directed musical sequences. Scorsese’s always been great with music, and that comes through here, the closest he’s come to making a flat-out musical. And it still boggles my mind that the title song, which sounds and feels like an old standard, is just one year older than I am.
But while it contains some memorable sequences, the film as a whole is kind of a mess. A big problem is the way Scorsese alternates between tightly-controlled musical numbers and loosey-goosey dialogue scenes that feel closer to Cassavetes than to Arthur Freed. Scorsese encouraged stars Robert De Niro and Liza Minnelli to improvise most of their lines, and while some good acting moments result, these scenes tend to drag, destroying the film’s sense of pacing.
It doesn't help that Minnelli is overmatched in these scenes. De Niro was at the height of his acting powers, and try as he might to draw her out, Minnelli couldn’t keep up. Minnelli’s stardom was due to her unique presence — an odd combination of tremulous and brassy, effectively used in everything from Cabaret to her recurring role on Arrested Development — but as an actress, she was limited.
New York, New York feels rudderless, as though Scorsese wasn’t in control of his vision. This is borne out by the film's ever-fluctuating runtime — the rough cut was four-and-a-half hours, then 155 minutes, down to 136 minutes for its original release, then restored to 163 for its present cut, available on DVD. Looking at these seesawing runtimes, it's clear that Scorsese didn’t have a firm handle on the project.
The end result is a movie that feels at war with itself, in which the musical numbers and the dialogue scenes don’t mesh well. Scorsese's aim was to make a musical that trafficked in more complex emotions than its ancestors, telling the story of creative people who were in love but couldn't live with each other. It’s an interesting experiment, and Scorsese admits that he didn’t know whether he could pull it off. Nonetheless, Scorsese should be commended for trying, even if the result didn’t quite pan out.
The fallout: Scorsese's drug problems escalated over the few years until he ended up in the hospital following a near-overdose. Thankfully, he was able to pull himself out of his addiction by committing to his work, creating one of the most storied filmographies of any contemporary filmmaker. — Paul Clark, nerve.com
The setup: After the critical breakthrough of Mean Streets (1973), the Oscar-winning Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974), and the masterful Taxi Driver (1976), Martin Scorsese used his clout to pay homage to classical Hollywood musicals, with his own personal twist.
What went wrong?: While I don’t particularly like the previous films in this series, I actually sort of enjoy New York, New York. There’s a good amount in the film that works, especially the lovingly-directed musical sequences. Scorsese’s always been great with music, and that comes through here, the closest he’s come to making a flat-out musical. And it still boggles my mind that the title song, which sounds and feels like an old standard, is just one year older than I am.
But while it contains some memorable sequences, the film as a whole is kind of a mess. A big problem is the way Scorsese alternates between tightly-controlled musical numbers and loosey-goosey dialogue scenes that feel closer to Cassavetes than to Arthur Freed. Scorsese encouraged stars Robert De Niro and Liza Minnelli to improvise most of their lines, and while some good acting moments result, these scenes tend to drag, destroying the film’s sense of pacing.
It doesn't help that Minnelli is overmatched in these scenes. De Niro was at the height of his acting powers, and try as he might to draw her out, Minnelli couldn’t keep up. Minnelli’s stardom was due to her unique presence — an odd combination of tremulous and brassy, effectively used in everything from Cabaret to her recurring role on Arrested Development — but as an actress, she was limited.
New York, New York feels rudderless, as though Scorsese wasn’t in control of his vision. This is borne out by the film's ever-fluctuating runtime — the rough cut was four-and-a-half hours, then 155 minutes, down to 136 minutes for its original release, then restored to 163 for its present cut, available on DVD. Looking at these seesawing runtimes, it's clear that Scorsese didn’t have a firm handle on the project.
The end result is a movie that feels at war with itself, in which the musical numbers and the dialogue scenes don’t mesh well. Scorsese's aim was to make a musical that trafficked in more complex emotions than its ancestors, telling the story of creative people who were in love but couldn't live with each other. It’s an interesting experiment, and Scorsese admits that he didn’t know whether he could pull it off. Nonetheless, Scorsese should be commended for trying, even if the result didn’t quite pan out.
The fallout: Scorsese's drug problems escalated over the few years until he ended up in the hospital following a near-overdose. Thankfully, he was able to pull himself out of his addiction by committing to his work, creating one of the most storied filmographies of any contemporary filmmaker. — Paul Clark, nerve.com
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