Film Review
Martin Scorsese's full-blown tribute to the classic Hollywood musicalis easily one of the director's most ambitious films, but despiteits stunning production values and superb, show-stopping musicalnumbers, the film was a critical and commercial flop. When thefilm lost money on its initial release, its distributors insisted itsruntime be cut from 153 minutes to 137 minutes, thereby accentuatingthe film's uneven pacing and making it an even less attractive viewingproposition. Fortunately, the film was restored to its originallength in 1981 and we can now appreciate the film for what it is - abold experiment with the musical format which combines Scorsese'spenchant for gritty urban realism with the sugary artifice of theHollywood musical. The result is far from perfect, but the film'svery distinctive character, which owes something to the highlyimprobable pairing of Liza Minnelli and Robert De Niro, makes itwell-worth watching.
Scorsese made New York, New Yorkon the back of the worldwide success of Taxi Driver (1976), and thiscould account for the film's distinctly sombre mood and its occasionalmoments of shocking brutality. Robert De Niro's Jimmy Doyle isevery bit as complex a character as TaxiDriver's Travis Bickle, and you could easily believe they wereclose cousins. One of the reasons why the film was sounsuccessful is because De Niro's character is such a relentlesslynasty piece of work. Doyle is egoistical, violent, insensitiveand incapable of engaging with other people at anything more than asuperficial level. Yet, as unprepossessing as he is, De Nirocompels us to sympathise with him. The actor's genius for subtlyrevealing the troubled, desperately lonely soul beneath the rough machoexterior is what prevents his character from being merely a sad*sticbrute, and is what makes the film's downbeat ending so devastatinglymoving.
After her first major screen triumph with Cabaret (1972), Liza Minnellibadly needed another big screen success to convince producers andaudiences that she wasn't a one-hit wonder. New York, New York should have beenthat film. Minnelli's casting opposite De Niro, an actor whocould not provide a greater contrast to her fragile, almost child-likepersona, was daring but brilliant, and the singer-actress turns in oneof her most compelling, most nuanced screen performances, in a rolethat challenges her like no other. Minnelli is a capable actressbut her real talent is as a singer, and she is of course at her best inthe glitzy musical numbers, in particular the great closing titlenumber (Theme From New York, New York),which De Niro had rewritten for the film and which Frank Sinatra laterturned into a hit single.
For a film which is essentially about two people who, despite beingdeeply in love, find it impossible to communicate with one another,Scorsese could not have chosen a better combination than Minnelli andDe Niro, two actors who look as if they were born and raised on twototally different planets. That one or two of their scenes failto convince can be put down to Scorsese's keenness to allow his leadactors to improvise. The technique works well in a few places,allowing some genuine emotion to percolate up, but in others it lookssloppy and you can't helping wishing that more of De Niro's incoherentramblings had ended up on the cutting room floor. Fortunately,Scorsese's direction is as sharp and effective as ever, and so hisstars' embarrassing attacks of verbal diarrhea become unbearable inonly a few scenes. Needless to say, De Niro did not actually playthe saxophone in the film; he was in fact dubbed by the legendary jazzmusician Georgie Auld. The actor does however get to sing arefrain in one of the less distinguished musical numbers; you can seewhy he decided to stick with the day job.
The biggest casualty of the wholesale cuts that were made to the filmshortly after its first release was the elaborate song-and-dance number'Happy Endings', which reputedly cost around 300,000 dollars and wasclearly intended as a homage to the spectacular finales of the greatHollywood musicals. The sequence (now thankfully reinstated)seems incongruous, an exuberant flight of fancy away from the film'sunrelenting aura of circa 1940s gloom, but it is superbly choreographedand brilliantly wrong-foots the audience as to what then ensues, makingthe ending far more bitter and poignant than it would have been.The most likely reason why New York,New York failed at the box office was because, by the mid 1970s,the film musical had become an out-dated genre, an irrelevance at atime when cinema audiences preferred the gritty realism offered byincreasingly violent thrillers and cutting-edge dramas. MartinScorsese had the right idea, but he made the film a few years too latefor it to have any real impact. Instead of breathing new lifeinto the Hollywood musical, he only succeeded in hammering a few morenails into its coffin.
© James Travers 2012
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Next Martin Scorsese film:
Raging Bull (1980)
Film Synopsis
V-J Day, 1945. At a wild party in New York City to celebrate theend of the war, saxophone player Jimmy Doyle tries and fails to talkFrancine Evans, a small-time singer, into spending the night withhim. The next day, Francine accompanies Jimmy to an audition; hegets the gig when she agrees to be his singing partner. Notlong after, Jimmy receives a letter from Francine telling him that shehas left town, having found a better job with a popular danceband. Realising he is in love with Francine, Jimmy goes after herand, in his characteristically brusque manner, persuades her to marryhim. The marriage proves to be a disaster. When Francineannounces she is pregnant and wants to stay in New York instead oftravelling the country with Jimmy's new band, the couple's relationshipsoon hits the rocks. As Francine pursues a successful solosinging career in New York, Jimmy's fortunes take a turn for the worse...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by frenchfilms.org and must not be copied.
