Reel Thoughts

Under discussion:

Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore  (1974)

What's an Oscar Flashback (tm)?  Read here:

Next on my Netflix queue was Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (instantly viewed), for which Ellen Burstyn won the Best Actress Oscar; Diane Ladd was nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar; and Robert Getchell was nominated for the Best Original Screenplay Oscar (film year, 1974; awarding year, 1975).  The other nominees in these categories were:

Best Actress

Chinatown - Faye Dunaway
Claudine - Diahann Carroll
Lenny - Valerie Perrine
A Woman Under the Influence - Gena Rowlands

Best Supporting Actress

Murder on the Orient Express - Ingrid Bergman (Winner)

Blazing Saddles - Madeline Kahn
Day For Night - Valerie Cortese
The Godfather Part II - Talia Shire

Best Original Screenplay

Chinatown (Winner)

The Conversation
Day For Night
Harry and Tonto

This film represents the third of five Martin Scorsese films topping my Netflix queue, just in case you were keeping track.

In my brief, stream of consciousness study of some of Scorsese's earlier films, I elected to watch Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore because a) it appeared to be a softer side to Scorsese, with a woman protagonist even, and b) it was the film that formed the basis for the television sitcom "Alice," which I remember watching as a very young child, since it ran for nine years.  I might have floated the phrase "Kiss my grits!" a few times too, which I'm sure made my mother very happy.  I digress.  Scorsese has a thematically consistent filmography, with films that share common characteristics, plots, and messages, but there are a few aberrations, adventures, or experiments in which he was able to indulge.  This film represents one; it was a pet project for Burstyn, and I read that while she initially wanted Francis Ford Coppola to direct (though he was busy making an Oscar-winning sequel to his big gangster picture, something called The Godfather Part II), Coppola showed her "Mean Streets" and encouraged her to request Marty.  She readily agreed, and an odd partnership was born.

Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore tells the story of Alice Hyatt (Burstyn), a housewife unhappy but seemingly accepting of her life with her quasi-abusive trucker husband and her bratty son Tommy (Alfred Lutter) in New Mexico.  Her husband suddenly dies, however, and Alice sees this as an opportunity to pursue her childhood dream of a singing career, so she sells off most of what she owns for money, packs Tommy and a few remaining belongings in their station wagon, and sets out for Monterey, California.  The lack of money prevents them from getting that far, though.  First, they land in Phoenix, where she manages to get a job at a local bar but is terrorized by her apparently married, younger psychopath of a boyfriend named Ben (Harvey Keitel). After an outburst from him causes her to flee the scene without so much as a backward glance, she ultimately takes a waitressing job at Mel's Diner, for gruff cook Mel (Vic Tayback - who was also Mel on the TV show).  Here she meets outspoken waitress Flo (Ladd), spacy Vera (Valerie Curtin), and a handsome rancher named David (Kris Kristofferson).  As she begins to fall for David, she grows concerned that she may again be sacrificing her dreams of singing to a working housewife's life, even as David seems to be just what she and her lippy son need.

Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore is an interestingly predictable film. It plays out like any romantic comedy-drama, actually.  It's a pleasant picture focusing on the human condition: any domestic engineer could easily relate to Alice's struggles as a single mother and to her grief at the loss of her husband or to the regret she feels toward giving up her singing career in the first place.  Yet, it ends exactly when and how one would expect it to end.  It's a film that takes few risks and, therefore, feels marginally formulaic.

This, as it turns out, is an interesting position to take on a Scorsese film, since his films are frequently the opposite of formulaic (except, insofar as he is deviating from his own tried and true directorial formula).  It seems that he made a studio picture that feels like a studio picture.  There were hints of his trademark panache: quick camera wipes to set the scenes, an opening montage of Alice as a child that seemed to pay homage to Gone With the Wind and the Wizard of Oz (I actually thought that without having to read the plot summary at the top of this page), but otherwise, this film was more about being a star vehicle, a means by which to showcase Burstyn's performance, rather than a stretch for a hip, up and coming director. It also strikes me that Marty may not have known how to handle a female focal character; after all, this is his only film to feature a female lead and a female story.

Burstyn gave a fine performance.  Her singing voice aside (which was not actually that good, so the suspension of disbelief regarding any throng of patrons following her performances just couldn't be had), Alice experienced every emotion possible, and Burstyn convincingly portrayed all of them.  It's Alice's story, though, and if Burstyn could not handle the role, this film would have tanked like lead in water.  Diane Ladd as the charmingly abrasive Flo was also very funny, and Kris Kristofferson gave a fine performance - not too much of an acting stretch for him, either, but he was a well-matched love interest for Alice.

Criticism of this film and its story has centered on the fact that Alice's choice between family and career is too oversimplified, too trite, too black-and-white to be realistic.  I don't subscribe to that notion.  Every woman is different, and especially in earlier decades like the 70s in the years following flower children and burning bras, many women were still following traditional routes of playing house and raising children for their working husbands.  To pretend that there was some kind of universal surge in career women so shortly after Vietnam and Woodstock would be disingenuous at least; I think the working girl trend witnessed a sharp rise in the 80s, and, let's face it, not all women today juggle both career and family. Thus, I don't think Alice's decision was too pat or oversimpliified; it was realistic, and her ending nervous breakdown and ensuing demands of David, suggesting that the two can be blended, proves to be poignant sociological commentary.

Still, that's as much intellectual dimension as I'm willing to ascribe to this picture. The bottom line is that it plays like apple pie without the ice cream.  It's delicious and comforting but lacks that special something that really makes the taste buds tingle.  I believed Alice and her story, and I swooned over handsome David, and laughed at Flo and Vera and Mel, but ultimately, this is just another romance in the annals of romance films that could have been directed by anyone.  The fact that Scorsese directed it is surprising but easily forgotten once the picture begins to play.

Incidentally, the fact that Faye Dunaway was nominated but did not win for Chinatown is a bit of a shocker.  Granted, most of that film found her character amidst stoic secrecy, and Dunaway could be over-the-top (particularly during her big reveal in that film), but her performance was surrounded by a much better story.  In the end, though, Burstyn probably deserved her Oscar.

As to ratings, I feel that Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore merits an 8 for being very good but with minor flaws.  The picture was very well made, even as it was predictable, and taking few risks doesn't mean it's flawed, but still, I think Burstyn could have done with some singing lessons for a little more refinement; she was very soft-voiced and unconvincing, and dreams or no, the viewer has to believe she really has something to toy with sacrificing in order for this whole picture to work.  As to the test, it doesn't pass.  Like apple pie without the ice cream (or, at least, Cool Whip), it was an indulgence that was great one or maybe a handful of times.  Next time, I would like the ice cream, so I'll keep shopping for a Marty film to add to my collection.

Under discussion:

Mean Streets  (1973)

This film represents the second of five Martin Scorsese films topping my Netflix queue, just in case you were keeping track.

Mean Streets is Marty's highly touted review of the life of gangsters in New York City's Little Italy.  In many ways, it's an interesting early look at a director and his trademarks that began largely with this film, and that he's never quite abandoned.  I mostly wanted to see Mean Streets out of academic curiosity, in an effort to compare Marty's recent films, like The Departed, to something from earlier in his career.  Aside from its timing in Scorsese's filmography, I knew almost nothing about the film prior to viewing.

Mean Streets is less of a tale and more of a study of one man's place in his immediate surroundings, which turn out to be a rough niche of NYC in the 70s.  Charlie (Harvey Keitel) spends most of the movie attempting to reconcile his ambitions toward being a respectable gangster and his Catholic faith, particularly his wish to emulate St. Francis.  The film follows his exploits in attempting to protect and mentor Johnny Boy (Robert DeNiro), his slightly psychotic friend with a penchant for gambling and an equally potent penchant for being unable to pay his debts, and in trying to secure the love of his epileptic girlfriend Teresa (Amy Robinson), who wants to move out of her apartment for better quarters and wants Charlie to move in with her.  The plot, such as it is, is divided between Charlie and Teresa's tempestuous romance, complicated by Charlie's almost fanatical wish to remain tough in the eyes of his kingpin uncle and other members of the gang, and getting Johnny Boy out of trouble as Charlie's cousin demands repayment of loans given to Johnny Boy and as other loan sharks chase down the characteristically reactive and not necessarily intelligent man. Incidentally, Johnny Boy seems very much a precursor to the Tommy character played by Joe Pesci in GoodFellas.

Mean Streets was raw, gritty, and in-your-face.  Marty, using simple camera techniques (likely thanks to a shoestring budget and the fact that it was made in 1973) such as handheld shots, provided an almost documentary-style to the filmmaking in this movie, effecting an uncompromised realism. The darkness and the danger threatening to consume Charlie and Johnny Boy on a daily basis were palpable; there is no question that their chosen line of work is hazardous and dirty.  

Yet, the film boasted a first look at trademarks seemingly characteristic of all of Marty's films.  First, there was a quirky soundtrack of 50s and 60s doo-wop and other straight rock-n-roll, which was apparently gleaned from Marty's own record collection (scratches and all).  Charlie almost becomes something of a character study, another primary focus on redemption and guilt. His thoughts are highlighted with voiceover narration (provided by Marty, incidentally), and the soul of the film centers on Charlie's internal struggles to reconcile his place in the grand scheme of his environment.

This film also represents the first of a long series of DeNiro and Scorsese partnerships, and both he and Keitel offered very real, very engaging performances.  Johnny Boy, in particular, reminded me of, as I mentioned, a precursor to Tommy, or on a more basic level, an inspiration for the character of Bender in The Breakfast Club.  He knows he is in trouble, he know he is only making it worse for himself, but this knowledge only seems to fuel an attitude of self-defeat and further bad decisions and defiance in an effort to seem brave.  DeNiro clearly zeroed in on this quality and played it to his usual perfection.  Charlie and Johnny Boy's partnership is the most interesting focus of the film; the fact that Charlie feels compelled to attempt to help Johnny Boy out of his ever declining predicament as a means of finding redemption is the ultimate tragedy of the piece.

In many ways, Mean Streets seems to represent an early draft of the formula upon which Marty draws for his other gangster films; a blueprint that he pulls out for consideration whenever he revisits that world.  Formula creators are pioneering, naturally, but they also represent a time when the formula was imperfect, lacking the tweaks and improvements that come with the natural evolution of a director's (or other type of filmmaker's) filmmaking. For me, as real and as poetic as Charlie's struggles ultimately become, particularly in lieu of the grisly ending of this piece, the biggest flaw of this film is that the viewing audience is never provided any reason to care for Charlie, or Johnny Boy, or anyone else.  That lack of connection is less jarring once the Teresa character enters the picture, as she gives Charlie a softer, more human dimension.  Otherwise, the film, as it begins, feels like its making excuses for the Charlie character rather than giving the viewer all of his dimensions and letting the viewer decide for him or herself whether that redemption about which Charlie is so obsessed is actually deserved.  As a result, I felt disconnected from Mean Streets for much of the film, because Charlie's dimensions (and he's really the character of import; Johnny Boy and Teresa are more plot devices than flesh-and-blood characters themselves) did not really take full shape until near the end, and by then, it was too late to care about him or anyone else in the film, for that matter.  This lack of connection left me feeling somewhat empty about the piece (but, to be fair, some poetry can do that too).

That's not to say that Mean Streets did not have some great points. Like I said, the performances were good, and Marty's great filmmaking style clearly emerges in this film; it just wasn't the revelatory experience that some people have touted it as, and even though the stories/characters are largely dissimilar, I could not help feeling like Mean Streets was an early and rough draft of GoodFellas, a film that was executed more effectively, even if the same themes were not at the forefront.  As a result, I feel that Mean Streets warrants an 8 for being very good with minor flaws, but it does not pass the test because it's violent, and because I didn't love it.  Still, any Scorsese student should pick this film up if they have not; it's a great first look at a then-budding director whose contemporary achievement is unquestioned.

Under discussion:

GoodFellas  (1990)

What's the AFI Project, you ask?  For more information, or if you just enjoy my bemused ramblings, read here:http://www.spout.com/blogs/pippin06/archive/2008/3/1/25756.aspx

GoodFellas is on the following AFI lists:

The Original Top 100 (#94)
The Revised Top 100 (#92)
10 Top 10's (#2 Gangster)

The next five films topping my Netflix queue are Martin Scorsese films.  In my stream of consciousness queuing, I started adding Marty’s films with earnest in an effort to catch up.  I’ve seen a fair few, but I felt like I was missing some important entries, especially earlier ones, from one of the great directors.  The string used to include Raging Bull and Taxi Driver, but the AFI Project superseded the queue.  Here, the queue and the AFI Project happily coincide, as the first Scorsese film of the string also happens to be an AFI movie and one I have wanted to see since its release.  And why?  Gentle reader, do you recall a little cartoon from the 90s entitled the Animaniacs?  Well, GoodFellas had such a permutation upon pop culture, one of the regular shorts in the Animaniacs half hour included an overt nod to the film: three pigeons called the Good Feathers, mimicking the stars of this film (Ray Liotta, Robert DeNiro, and Joe Pesci), in their regular exploits to be the kings of the pigeon world.  I felt an emptiness not knowing the pop culture basis for this highly hilarious cartoon, which featured these pigeons named Bobby, Squib, and Pesto (guess how they correspond) and a regular spot in which Pesto blows up at Squib, opining, “Do you think I am [fill in the blank], here to amuse you, is that what you’re saying?” before promptly laying waste to poor Squib.  Thus, for many – important – reasons, I was dying to see this film.  I must say, it was quite fantastic and is now, officially, my favorite Scorsese film to date other than The Departed (I don’t care how good Raging Bull and Taxi Driver are, or are supposed to be, this was, by far, the most entertaining of the three).

GoodFellas is narrated in flashback by Henry Hill (Liotta), as he tells of how he dreamt of being a gangster and ultimately ascended through the ranks of local gangsters populating his New York City neighborhood.  Based on a biography by Nicholas Pileggi, who co-wrote the screenplay with Marty, Hill eventually became an FBI informant, but his story starts with childhood.  He meets local boss Paulie Cicero (Paul Sorvino), becoming errand boy and eventual honorary member of his cadre of mobsters after he refuses to rat out his cohorts in court and becomes a “stand-up guy,” but because Hill is not Italian in descent (he is Irish instead), he cannot achieve higher ranks as a “made guy.”  Instead, he befriends his mentor Jimmy (DeNiro), who teaches him the ins and outs of the trade, namely petty and not so petty crimes, and his psychotic partner Tommy (Pesci), who tends to overreact to just about everything--and his overreactions almost always descend into violence.  Henry also marries (Lorraine Bracco) while maintaining a mistress and generally enjoys all of the perks of being a bigwig in crime, until his reckless dealings and behavior in the world of drugs and while accompanying the overly violent Tommy start to raise suspicion with the feds and compromise his standing with the gang, until he has no other choice but to save the lives of himself and his family.

As I indicated, I absolutely loved GoodFellas.  First, this is one of Marty’s most stylish, most hip, and most entertaining entries amongst his lineup of gangster films.  The pacing was tight and lightning quick; no moment was wasted or unimportant.  He employed some of his best and yet most subtle lighting and camera tricks to elicit some great moments, including freeze frames, colored frames, skewed angles, and one-camera shots.  His uncannily excellent taste in music also featured prominently in this film; another awesome soundtrack underscored and punctuated the frequently violent, frenetic, and sometimes funny action.

In fact, that’s another element of the film I quite enjoyed – never have I found egregious violence so funny, but for some reason, Joe Pesci’s Tommy just has that spark, and I think that’s what makes this film so unforgettable to many.  The performances by most everyone in the film but, particularly, by DeNiro and Pesci and especially Liotta, who came a long way from Shoeless Joe Jackson in Field of Dreams by the time he picked up this role, were great.  Scorsese spins a yarn from Henry Hill’s tale, making gangster life almost folksy and fun, and even as Jimmy, Tommy, and Henry boast their own spins on psychotic, the viewer connects with them instantly and cares about them, even if Tommy tends to enjoy murder far too much.  DeNiro brings his usual eccentricities to his role.  Pesci has never been so electric and so interesting to watch, and this supporting turn is far meatier and more interesting (and more psychotic) then his turn in Raging Bull; also, he won an Oscar for this performance.  Liotta, though, was really put through the paces, as Henry struggled to make himself a kingpin in the criminal world while simultaneously coming apart at the seams, particularly as his foray into drug trafficking becomes an addiction and his Achilles heel.  All of the acting ingredients in this film were mixed to perfection, save for one bad egg.

For me, that bad egg was Lorraine Bracco.  Don’t get me wrong, I think, in many ways, her jilted, abandoned wife complex was appropriate, and I’m sure Scorsese directed her to act as hysterical as possible throughout the film because that’s what an unsuspecting gangster’s wife would do.  The problem is, she screamed practically all of her line deliveries, and while her character should be sympathetic, given that she is the wife of a mobster who is given license to do what he wants, including keep a mistress in a schwanky apartment of her own in a not-so-secretive manner, she played her particular brand of psychosis full-tilt and to an extreme that made her character and her performance extremely unwatchable.  If that was the point, I find that disappointing and a bit sexist, though, granted, these traditionalist, morally ambiguous mobster-types are not exactly known for their membership in women’s liberation movements.  Still, her mass hysterics yielded ringing ears and averting eyes because the level of shrillness was so over the top, and whether directed that way or an acting choice of Bracco’s, I did not enjoy it.

Still, this is easily one of the best gangster films I have ever seen and, perhaps, the best outside of the Godfather trilogy.  The AFI seemed to think so, too, giving it rankings on both Greatest lists and on the ten top tens at number two in the Gangster category.

The art direction, cinematography, and costuming were, additionally, all top notch.  In fact, GoodFellas was simply an enjoyable film in just about every way (aside from the hysterics of Bracco’s performance) and, for that reason, I think it should receive an 8.5 on the patented ratings scale between minor flaws/very good and perfectly entertaining.  As to the patented test, I am not exactly sure of its pass/fail status.  I could see myself enjoying the film at least once more, but is it a film I would pull out and watch for kicks?  I guess the jury will be out on that decision or maybe another viewing on cable will help me make up my mind.  In the end, though, GoodFellas is a great film, deserving of its rankings, and definitely a must-see for the would-be Scorsese fan or lover of gangster films but also a must-see for any self-respecting film fan in general.