Violence, intrigue, anger, corruption and even more violence: Whether warring gangs in “Gangs Of New York”, rowdy petty criminals in “Hexenkessel” or trigger-happy mafiosi in “GoodFellas – Three Decades in the Mafia”, New York master director Martin Scorsese usually paints a brutal, rough and unadorned picture of his hometown, no matter what historical epoch he enters. But exceptions confirm the rule and so Scorsese lets the metropolis shine in a completely different light in his opulent musical drama “New York, New York”, namely in one of the great feelings. In this New York musicians are passionate about making music, arguing passionately, but also passionately loved. Perhaps it is precisely this change in tone that is the reason that this wonderful and wondrous film, with which Scorsese bows deeply and visually before the classic Hollywood musical, is wrongly forgotten in the director’s oeuvre alongside his taxi drivers and wild bulls is.
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After Martin Scorsese won the Palme d’Or in 1976 for “Taxi Driver” at the Cannes Film Festival, he had come to a point in his career where he enjoyed the freedom of fools. It was the time of so-called New Hollywood, Francis Ford Coppola was working on “Apocalypse Now”, George Lucas on “Star Wars” and Scorsese was now able to fulfill one of his greatest cinema dreams: a musical in the style of the great classics of the studio Era of the 40s and 50s. But the production of “New York, New York” was to become a nightmare for the director. In view of all the freedoms and possibilities, he was gripped by a certain hubris (from which extravagant flops such as Michael Cimino’s western epic “Heaven’s Gate” or Coppola’s musical “ One with a heart “witness): The planned eleven weeks of shooting turned into 20 at the end and Scorsese exceeded the planned budget of seven million dollars by a whopping two million. In retrospect, the filmmaker sees himself as primarily responsible for the chaotic filming: “We started to get cocky. So away with the script! We improvised a lot and we exposed a lot of film. “
While the sometimes erratic plot about the troubled relationship between Jimmy Doyle and Francine Evans is likely to recognize traces of unfavorable production conditions, the staging of “New York, New York” is absolutely flawless. The twenty-minute opening sequence in front of and in the Tanzpalast, which can hardly be surpassed in opulence and effort, shows Scorsese’s mastery: the camera follows Jimmy, who almost disappears in the crowd, in a remarkable, carefully thought-out journey through the rampant hustle and bustle of exuberant dancing couples, scuffling sailors and Wildly honking cars on the streets to the crowded dance floor of a nightclub, covered with trickling glitter, where it is no less sensual and ecstatic. The exuberant, jubilant and at the same time unsteady mood is reinforced by the driving big band sounds and the precise cut to the rhythm of the music. In addition, László Kovács’ (“Easy Rider”) camera is literally unleashed: Extreme perspectives, dynamic rides and pointed zooms – here virtuosity and expressiveness go hand in hand.
Martin Scorsese even surpasses this spectacular start later: With a simply brilliant film-in-film sequence, he provides the absolute staging climax of “New York, New York” and one of the big scenes in his filmography, which is rich in masterpieces. It’s hard to believe that she of all people fell victim to the scissors in the original US theatrical version, which was shortened by almost half an hour, and was only reintegrated four years later in the length intended by the director. The number with the programmatic title “Happy Endings”, which devoured around 350,000 dollars and used five MGM sound stages on ten days of shooting, offers everything that musical fans love about the genre: magnificent decors, colorful backdrops and wonderfully choreographed , dance interludes detached from reality. Liza Minnelli transforms in these ten minutes from the cinema usher and waitress to the all-out-shining musical star, who in the end can even win the heart of the great love that was believed to be lost. The dream of romantic happiness, however, only becomes reality with this gracious homage to old Hollywood (cinema); behind the scenes, in the New Hollywood plot, Francine is denied the happy ending.
The cinema enthusiast Martin Scorsese takes a bow to musical legends such as Busby Berkeley (“Gold Digger of 1933”) and Stanley Donen (“Singin ‘in the Rain”) with this film and especially with the “Happy Endings” number, while he is Liza’s father Vincente Minnelli personally invited to the set: The director of genre milestones such as “An American in Paris” and “Meet Me In St. Louis” was a particularly important source of inspiration for the younger colleagues. But “New York, New York” is not a nostalgic trip despite the classic staging and choreography. The elaborate revival of the glorious old film palace times with the luxuriant decorations and colors contrasts with the decidedly modern acting style of Robert De Niro and Liza Minnelli. The artificiality of the backdrops contrasts with the raw veracity of their naturalistic representation. The often noticeably improvised dialogues lead to some painful protracted scenes, but on the other hand often give us extremely funny moments.
Oscar winner Liza Minnelli (“Cabaret”) is convincing in addition to her brilliant achievements as a singer, as a wife struggling with the difficult personality of her husband, as a tough career woman and as a passionate woman of life. In general, her Francine, whose eventful story is sometimes reminiscent of Lora Meredith played by Lana Turner in Douglas Sirk’s melodrama masterpiece “As long as there are people”, proves to be one of the strongest female characters in Martin Scorsese’s otherwise male-dominated work Years and decades after “New York, New York” told less and less about female main characters. Here Minnelli is on an equal footing with the director’s declared favorite actor: As an eternally frustrated saxophonist driven by constant inner restlessness, the two-time Oscar winner Robert De Niro embodies the notoriously jealous egomaniac for Scorsese for the first time “,” The King Of Comedy “as well as in” Casino “and he already gives this Jimmy Doyle an almost manic intensity.
When Jimmy takes on Francine in the opening sequence and later tells her in one of the most unusual and unromantic marriage proposals in film history that no one else besides him should have her, he does so with a disturbing intransigence: He is obsessed with himself Anti-hero – a figure who corresponds completely to the unadorned realism of New Hollywood cinema and no longer has anything in common with the virtuous Romeo from golden dream factory times. But even this devil, driven by his passions, who literally trumpets his heavily pregnant wife from the stage and leaves her a little later with her newborn baby, has a sense for the beautiful in the world. When, in a night scene, he observes a couple in love, who dance to the sounds of the New York street noise and forget everything around them, for a moment, like us, he becomes a moved spectator of the wondrous goings-on in this wondrous city that does it that way never existed. And Martin Scorsese once again draws the line from the new to the old, from the modern to the classic, from reality to dream and from dream to the timeless presence of real and deep cinema feelings.
Conclusion: With this opulent and exuberant declaration of love to his hometown and to the classic film musical, Martin Scorsese has created one of his most personal and at the same time most soulful works.
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