A Review : New York, New York (1977)

Hmm, I'm not sure how easy it's going to be to review this film. I want to try and balance the good aspects with the not so good. I'll see how it goes.

This film is, for one, quite long. Apparently the original was four and a half hours long so director Martin Scorsese had to cut it. Well it went through a series of cuts and then a restoration of extra material, before finally standing at 163 minutes. How did I bare it? I rarely noticed the length, such is the engagement I had with the film.

But engagement doesn't necessarily equal a flawless film experience. I did have issues with the film, mostly because it doesn't move in a typical, familiar way. It's not simply a musical, nor simply a dramatic love story nor simply a comedy (because actually a lot of it is comedic, sometimes awkwardly so--deliberatly I think). It aims to be all and then to transcend genres and be something else.

The film could be what you may call a homage to those technicolour musicals of the 40s and 50s. It has some of the most beautiful colours swirled together and you can just tell that the scenes are taking place on lush, romanticised sets that probably bear little resemblance to New York as it actually was. But at the same time the film wants to express truth and it does this through Liza Minelli (as Francine Evans) and Robert De Niro's (as Jimmy Doyle) tumultous relationship. There's a certain tension between the artifice and the attempted reality of emotions, and I'm not sure if it works. However, I will admit that this tension adds a certain poignancy to the film (it is somewhat reminescent of watching the 1954 version of A Star is Born, starring none other than Liza's mother, Judy Garland).

Another tidbit is the seeming bipolarity (a word?) within the film. It goes through certain hyperactive moments and tries to balance this with more subdued, tender scenes. I'm not sure, but this could partly be because of the following trivia: both Scorsese and Minelli have stated that the dialogue was mostly improvised (though taking cues from the script) to add to the seeming reality of the main characters' relationship. Apparently it was hard to edit these improvisations and still make the film seem like seamless viewing. And so it feels apparent in the film, for when I examine the film as a whole I get some points of disjointedness. But again, I can somehow rebut this by saying that the film becomes truer to real life this way. Sure, we love a flawless film, but they aren't life. If we were to review our lives as a film we wouldn't get such a seamlessness. This is where, as a film New York, New York has room for improvement, but as a piece of reality, it works much better. Interesting that it can become this within the bounds of a lavishly photographed film.

So it turns out that when I get to the bottom of things, the above mentioned aspects of the film don't bother me much at all; they're simply passing observations. Perhaps the uneasiness I really have with the film is Robert De Niro's performance. I'm sure it's written in his character to be a tryhard Joe Cool and to be at times overbearing, arrogant and chauvinistic. However, there were times when I found him to be overdoing it. Maybe this is a feminist's perspective, but one has to ask what Liza's Francine really saw in De Niro's Jimmy. But then it got me thinking that indeed he does have a bit of charm and when he's tender and subdued, he's very likeable. Plus, he's a talented saxophone player which somewhat gels with her singing skills.

And I suppose there's this: in filmdom fantasy, only the most perfect man will do for the heroine. He's got to be effortlessly funny like Cary Grant and never be overbearing. And yet, often as he does, De Niro is attempting here to portray a person, not a movie-star persona. However, unlikeable he can be in this role (sometimes hamming it up), he's being that much more truer to life. In life, nothing moves smoothly, nobody has quite the right lines like in the perfect comedy; and nobody has the right things to say in painful scenes.

And actually I can't deny that there are some scenes where De Niro really excels (in that, rather than getting choppy moments of overacting, you're getting a more complete character), and you feel all at once that he's fading into the background, that he's quite not so successful without Francine. That underneath the Joe Cool act there's a bit of self-loathing. No it's not likely the performance that is going to make it into the top De Niro performances list, but it deserves to be looked at for both its flaws and triumphs.

I think Liza's Francine comes across as much more sympathetic. Her character development is less jagged than De Niro's and we can gradually see her move from wall-flower-ish singer to confident star. She has a notable naturalistic acting (perhaps helped by the improvisations) and her emotion-charged scenes work well. On a somewhat more aesthetic note, she looks quite stunning in the film. I also want to bring attention to her big eyes that are particularly haunting in one close-up scene. Her singing moments are also note-worthy for being in turns entertaining and poignant.

Just by writing this review, I'm starting to see something very special in New York, New York. It's an interesting, bumpy experience (just like Francine and Jimmy's relationship). It made me laugh, cringe, feel uneasy and all the while my eyes received such a treat through the cinematography and art design. An intriguing blend of a film that somehow transports you back to post-war 40s through a 1970s Scorsese lens.

A Review: Taxi Driver (1976)

The alternate title for this entry was going to be 'Taxi Driver Or: How I Learned to Stop Postponing and Watch This Film' (a thinly veiled reworking of the film title 'Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb'--coincidentally another film I have to get around to).

There were a few reasons why I took my time in watching Taxi Driver. They are as follows.
1) It was really only recently that I got the urge to want to watch it.
2) I didn't have access to it--today I was lucky enough to find it on the cheap at a dvd store
3) Its R rating was a deterrence (I was expecting lots of violence--yes there's violence, but it wasn't over the t)

Even though I say I was avoiding it, I nonetheless had high expectations about it (It's considered one of Martin Scorsese's best, it's one of the landmarks of the American New Wave, it has much hype over at imdb and elsewere). When I have high expectations I tend to look more closely at every tendril of a film and anticipate the 'wow' moment. Of course, it never comes. But with Taxi Driver what did rush over me at the roll of the closing credits was still positive. The film has much going for it.

I could go on about a few different things. The music was probably the first thing that striked me. It was scored by Bernard Hermann (most known for scoring Hitchcock films--in fact some of the music in Taxi Driver could easily be substituted into a Hitchcock film, that's what I think anyway). There's two recurring music themes in this film. I don't know their titles, but one has this low, humming dangerous feel, and the other one has a more saxophone seedy/sensual sound to it (sort of reminds me of the music they sometimes put on soapies--except Taxi Driver is by no means a soapie). As it usually goes with motion picture music, Hermann's score helps in the creation of the film's atmosphere. The music anticipates the bleakness and loneliness to come.

Of the performances, Robert De Niro as the main character, Travis Bickle, is of course the standout. The intriguing thing about Travis is that if he were a guy in your suburb you'd cast him off as a loony and would want nothing to do with him. Yet since the film gives us a look into Travis' private world and as we're with him for most of the film, you can't help but feel sympathy for him.

Bickle is a Vietnam veteran who has now taken the path of a cab driver. His mundane existence consists of cab driving, taking pills and porn theatres. He's also a pretty observant person and we see that as he witnesses all the seediness and corruption of New York's nightlife. He feels growing despair towards these things and vows to 'clean up' the city. But cleaning up turns into a gun and violence fetish. De Niro portrays Travis' bundle of contradictions--as Bickle's one time love interest Betsy put it--really well (quite characteristically to his dedication to acting, he apparently spent many months refining his taxi driving skills and brushed up on his knowledge on insanity).

Yet the piece of acting that made my jaw figuratively drop was that from a young (12 years old in fact) Jodie Foster, portraying an underage prostitute. It was pretty astonishing to see her talk--and convincingly--about prostitution and the like. Foster's acting is really natural, there's nothing self-conscious about it. Her performance adds to the grittiness of the film.

And what to say about the director that is Martin Scorsese? (On a quick side-note, he actually plays a minor but significant character--a mentally unstable man plotting to kill his wife; he's pretty good).

I have seen six films of Scorsese (do I count The Aviator though? It's been quite a long time since I've seen it) and so far he has a flawless track record. His films flow well and all have smooth editing, it's such that it's hard for me to actually speak of Scorsese's directing and what it achieves. Except that it achieves what filmmaking should--he let's the story be told and to be told well. He also happens to be a daring director in my opinion, anyone would be to make something like 'Taxi Driver'. I think (as the cliche goes), if it were in lesser hands the film wouldn't have been quite as good. I think it was also a risky film because Scorsese seems to me the director who makes each project personal, he seems to put a lot into his films, and it's not unlike the risk that actors put when they're out on stage or in front of a stagecrew. You're exposed to scrutiny.

What can be said in short of Taxi Driver? Only that I think it's a film that's rightfully praised, except that I don't want to blow it out of proportion. It didn't have that loud spark, but alas sometimes the impact of that kind of film can quickly fizzle out anyway. No, I think Taxi Driver more quietly and deeply weaves into the consciousness and promises to stay there for longer.