I'm not sure what it says about Martin Scorsese that my favorite movie so far in this series is the one that was only one-third directed by him. At least his third was my favorite of the three thirds.
New York Stories was his 1989 collaboration with Francis Ford Coppola and Woody Allen, in which they each made a 35- to 40-minute film about the city they love. I had hoped to make a little game of figuring out which one was Scorsese's without any further cues, not that it ultimately would have been much of a mystery, given that Allen and Mia Farrow appear in one of the films and Talia Shire appears in the other. The exercise was ultimately rendered moot by the fact that each film has its own opening credits sequence, but before that played, I'd pegged the first film, which I would learn is called Life Lessons, as Scorsese's just from the instant reliance on Procol Harum's "A Whiter Shade of Pale." That's a Scorsese choice through and through.
It features Nick Nolte as a talented abstract artist in the vein of Jackson Pollock (who get name-checked here). He's obsessed with the lesser, probably not actually talented artist who is his tenant in the giant loft space he owns and splatters with paint, which is presumably in the meat packing district. She's played by Rosanna Arquette during Arquette's peak fetching period. (That's not meant to be a lewd comment about Arquette, just that she's really adorable here, her slightly buck teeth peeking through her full lips in this way that's full of piss and vinegar and challenging anyone in her path.) They've had a bit of a relationship but she has dropped him for a performance artist played by Steve Buscemi, who has subsequently dropped her on a trip out of town, leaving them both miserable.
Nolte's Lionel Dobie is still devoted to her because he (rightly) believes that acting maturely is the only way he has a chance to get back together with her, though it's clear he hasn't got much of a chance. But there's a lot of passive aggressive playing of loud music -- when he paints, which seems to be all the time, he's always blaring some sort of classic rock -- and he's able to more or less see into her room, or at least see shapes of what's going on in there. It's not a healthy situation.
However, it does showcase a filmmaker at his healthiest. There have certainly been bits of technique by Scorsese that I admired in the three previous films in this series -- Who's That Knocking at My Door, New York New York and The Color of Money -- but never have I found him in bracing command of the tools of cinema as in this little film, which most people would probably consider a trifle. I should remind you, of course, that Scorsese was making splashy displays of his ability in the films around this period -- The Last Temptation of Christ is right before and Goodfellas is right after -- but I have obviously seen those films. For the purposes of this argument, I am comparing Life Lessons to the other films in this series, which left me less than impressed.
Thelma Schoonmaker's editing is certainly part of it. There are masterfully constructed sequences of Nolte slathering acrylic on canvas, somehow building toward a masterpiece that you believe might actually be a masterpiece. That's one thing I liked about Life Lessons, was the belief that the art was actually legitimate art and not some terrible facsimile that is supposed to be amazing if only the production designers cared enough about getting a good artist to do it. That goes for Buscemi's performance art as well. (And while we're on Buscemi for a moment here, it struck me as funny that he is described by Nolte as handsome, and not in a sarcastic way -- which is probably the last time anyone has ever used that word in connection with Buscemi.)
But back to that editing. It has that real Schoonmakerian (that's not a word) confidence that marries well with Marty's moving camera, which he uses to great effect here. The loft feels like a completely alive creative space anyway, what with Nolte slathering paint like a madman, but the camera and editing give it a further kinetic quality that makes it a joy to watch.
Technique aside, I just enjoyed this little slice of a story. We've all been in a situation where the thing we love and want is right outside our grasp, but keeps us hoping by never departing completely. It can result in a high degree of melancholy (making "A Whiter Shade of Pale" the perfect soundtrack) that we only hope does not bubble over into something darker (which does happen here, though only in a minor, low-stakes way). I really liked both of the lead performances. Nolte is always in command of his craft, especially when he's playing someone a bit eccentric, and I really believed Arquette as a woman drawn to the celebrity and obvious greatness of this mentor, but not to him physically or romantically, who also doesn't know what she's doing and has serious doubts about her own skills as an artist.
Those themes about art and artists also shine through, and they don't have to take a back seat to Marty's usual Catholic distractions. In fact, only in the space where Buscemi performs -- which appears to be an abandoned subway track -- was there any Christian iconography I could detect, in the form of a statue of some sort of angel. Scorsese wants to remind us his preoccupations are still there, but he can do other things as well.
It's really telling that I felt the urge to write a lot more, thematically, about the 35 minutes of this film than about the two hours, or sometimes two-plus hours, of the other three films I've watched.
While I'm here I suppose I should reserve a comment or two about the films by Coppola and Allen. Coppola's, the second, was easily the film's weak link. Called Life Without Zoe, it's a sort of flight of fancy co-written with Sofia, which deals with a young rich girl who favors dressing up in costumes as she prances her ways through balls and other elements of fantasy high privilege in New York. At my most charitable, I would call it cute -- knowing that Coppola the elder probably made it as a favor to this daughter, and that Coppola the younger would explore these notions much more convincingly in her future work, perhaps most notably Marie Antoinette.
Allen's Oedipus Wrecks was a hoot. It's very typical Allen material, dealing with a man (played by him) who feels bedeviled by his own nattering Jewish mother, who disapproves of his relationship with a shiksa (Farrow). When the three are attending a magician show, his mother is chosen to participate in an illusion where she climbs into a box that the magician pierces with multiple swords. When the magician opens the box, she's actually disappeared -- and she later turns up in the sky over New York City, like some sort of nattering God, who passes all her judgments and neuroses down to Allen except that everyone else in New York can also see, and more importantly here, her. It has a funny resolution and I was pleased to see Larry David appear in a cameo. (Though I'm not sure "cameo" would have applied at the time, since he wasn't famous -- I'm thinking of it that way largely in retrospect.)
Speaking of cameos, character actor Paul Herman has a small part in each of the three films. Nice touch.
So yeah, New York Stories left me feeling happy all around, and I think things will get better from here to finish the series, with The Age of Innocence due in October and Kundun due in December.
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