NEW YORK, NEW YORK: Blu-ray (UA, 1977) MGM/Fox Home Video
Fall is a great time to revisit movies, even some that are ‘less than’
good; to cozy up to a flick from the past as the sun sets earlier - the
perfect elixir to ease the pang of saying farewell to those lazy days of
summer. The films of Martin Scorsese are of particular interest here; although,
not so much his monumentally satisfying and renown masterworks. These endure.
Yet, and arguably, even more fascinating are Scorsese’s flubs that paved the way
for his preeminence as one of the 20th century’s most iconic and revered
directors. In this potpourri of second-tier Scorsese, we find New York, New
York (1977); the costly super-colossus of a movie musical, costarring the
Oscar-winning daughter of Hollywood royalty, Liza Minnelli, and, Robert DeNiro –
soon to become a beloved of Scorsese’s and utilized in just about every movie
the director made throughout the 1980’s and early nineties. New York, New
York was Scorsese’s serious attempt – too serious, in hindsight - at
resurrecting old-time Hollywood glamour in a pastiche, slavishly devoted to the
forties’ movie musical. That the net result owed more to the dour decade in
which it was created, rather than the lithe and lovely spectacles to have made
Liza’s mama – Judy Garland – one of MGM’s greatest stars, was indeed
unfortunate; mostly, for Scorsese, who incurred United Artists’ wrath, forcing
him to excise one of the movie’s better, and certainly more glamorous
production numbers, ‘Happy Endings’ from the final theatrical release.
It mattered not; the antagonistic chemistry between DeNiro and Minnelli had
fallen to pieces long before this – begun as playful sparing, but with DeNiro’s
streak of moodiness, thoroughly snuffing out the illumination from Minnelli’s
otherwise energetic, flame of victory as a heavily pancaked nightclub singer.
There are, in fact, moments when Minnelli’s make-up is so atrociously thick,
she almost appears to be performing in a Kabuki-esque death mask. It was also
something of a misfire that Minnelli and DeNiro’s acting styles never entirely
meshed, making the whirlwind romance between their characters -
jazz-saxophonist, Jimmy Doyle and WAC turned nightclub singer, Francine Evans -
and, their inevitable falling out, that much harder to digest.
For his part, Scorsese
endeavored to recreate the uber-rich look of vintage Technicolor; Boris Levin’s
stylized sets, a disconnect from reality without ever establishing that elusive
and otherworldly alternative to stand firmly in its place. A lot of New
York, New York does have that ‘studio-bound’ vintage quality, reminiscent
of B-grade MGM musicals gone to seed in the mid-1960’s; Theodora Van Runkle’s
costuming, busting out the spangles, baubles and beads, but never entirely
achieving a sense of timeless glamour. If anything, in reviewing New York,
New York today, one remains acutely aware it is a byproduct from the 1970’s;
its inescapably ‘dated’ quality looking even more ersatz than elegant. The screenplay by Earl Mac Rauch and Mardik
Martin wants desperately to capture and bottle that slick and stylized stichomythic
dialogue, so much a part of Metro’s vintage musical mélange; forgetting, first,
such badinage requires a very light touch from the actors delivering these
lines – and, for which both DeNiro and Minnelli are entirely unsuited – and second,
that by 1977, the era of suspension in disbelief for such magnificent
make-believe had passed quietly into the night, replaced by a grittier, faux
reality where actors barely grunted at each other, much less, delivered shoot-from-the-hip
lines of heavily scripted dialogue, but in an equally as bygone manner to
suggest such words as ‘off the cuff’. Scorsese, who had worked like hell to
convince United Artists he could helm a big and bloated box office musical, was
left with partial egg on his face after pre-screening his ‘rough cut’ for the
powers that be. Indeed, New York, New York left studio executives cold.
I suppose props
should be afforded UA for their blind faith in Scorsese. After all, by 1977,
few producers would have even touched the musical genre, much less given
Scorsese an almost ‘blank check’ to go ‘whole hog’ on his passion project.
Interesting too, that New York, New York’s total implosion at the box
office did little to kill the career momentum in Scorsese’s upward trajectory,
despite its status as an unmitigated turkey. There are many reasons why the
musical in general proved not viable in the 1970's. The short answer is audience’s
tastes had veered toward realism – a quality not sustainable within the musical’s
artifice. So too, had the retirement and/or death of many of the artisans who
created such song and dance magic at MGM and elsewhere during Hollywood’s glory
days, leave the wellspring of talent that knew how to make movie musicals with
a decided deficit. As the balance of
power continued to shift away from the remaining old guard to the ‘new’
Hollywood soon to replace it wholesale, the outlook for bigger – and better – Hollywood
musicals dwindled. Metro entered its death throes, hastened by the studio’s
acquisition and sell-off to Las Vegas financier, Kirk Kerkorian, the virtual
cornerstone in movie musicals ceasing operations before being broken down to
bedrock and sold off piecemeal to the highest bidder. Even so, Scorsese - a
huge fan of those pictures concocted decades earlier at Hollywood’s premiere ‘dream
factory’ – strove to bring back that happier time. Thus, New York, New York
was as much his homage to MGM as the halcyon daydream and artificial landscape once
populated by the likes of Garland, Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire.
If only New
York, New York had shared the benefit of any of these great stars – or rather,
at least their experience, it might have survived as a fascinating failure with
a little song and dance folded in. The score, mostly by John Kander, to feature
the iconic title tune, ‘There Goes the Ball Game’, ‘But the World
Goes 'Round’, and, the aforementioned ‘Happy Endings’ – the latter,
a shameless riff on Garland’s stylized ballet sequence from Cukor’s 1954 remake
of A Star is Born; herein, rechristened with Minnelli playing a perky
movie usherette who find romance and heartbreak on her way to becoming a big-time
Broadway sensation – were serviceable. And these ‘new’ tunes were ably padded
out by some pop standards of their time, including Maurice Yvain’s ‘Billets
doux’, Sammy Fain’s ‘You Brought a New Kind of Love to Me’, Gershwin’s
‘The Man that I Love’, Richard Rodgers’ Blue Moon, and, Nacio
Herb Brown and Arthur Freed’s ‘You Are My Lucky Star.’ Alas, the re-purposed older stuff only made
one recall how much better it had played when originally recorded, while
drawing unnecessary comparisons between these trail-blazing Tin Pan Alley tunes
with the ‘less than iconic’ fluff Kander had written from scratch. Thus,
Scorsese was faced with a rather insurmountable challenge – to make a film that
remained faithful to the musical’s roots by evoking the very best from its
past, while adding a new, fresh and light touch that would invigorate opinion
and praise for the genre itself. He was only partially successful.
Plot wise: the
film opens with New York celebrating the end of WWII. Opinionated musician and
self-professed ladies’ man, Jimmy Doyle is on the make for a quick pick-up at
one of Manhattan’s swanky hot spots. But he finds more than an ample challenge
presented by his lady of choice; Francine Evans. Indeed, Francine’s a bright gal with a good
head on her shoulders. She is neither interested in Jimmy’s brash come-on, nor
about to entertain a wham-bam, thank you ma’am, even if there is a war on. After
a rough start, Francine quietly warms to Jimmy’s smooth operating. Over the
course of the next forty-eight hours, their romance will go from practically
non-existent to three-alarm fire – primarily after Jimmy’s star as a saxophone
player begins to rise. Before long, he has formed his own big band with
Francine as his lead singer. They tour the country and celebrate their success as
they fall in love. However, when Francine becomes pregnant, Jimmy decides it is
time to pitch his star to another singer and another town. The separation is
made all the more bitter when Jimmy’s star begins to slip while Francine finds
her career at the cusp of hitting the big time in the movies and on Broadway –
venues that Jimmy aspires to, but will never reach without Francine’s help and
talent to back him up. Knowing how greatly Jimmy values his self-determination
to achieve his own success on his own terms, Francine affords him his big
opportunity without ever letting on she has opened the right doors for his
ambitions. Jimmy attends her big return to the nightclub circuit where she wows
the crowd with a blistering rendition of the movie’s title tune. It brings the
crowd to its knees. Only now, Jimmy realizes, perhaps for the very first time,
he and Francine want different things out of life – their journey together at
an end.
New York, New
York was always a gamble at best, even if the picture’s chemistry had been ‘pitch
perfect’ and the casting just right. Scorsese went for all out homage to
Minnelli’s father – Vincente, and the resultant movie is, if nothing else, a
veritable feast for the eyes in all its lushly manufactured ‘in house’
style, vaguely reminiscent of the sort of work MGM’s art department was once
capable of delivering en masse. Regrettably,
New York, New York suffers irrevocably from Scorsese’s central casting.
It’s odd too, as Liza Minnelli’s 1972 Oscar win for Cabaret certainly
proved she could carry a movie musical all by herself. And Bob Fosse’s grittier
direction of that movie illustrated the sturdy ballast a ‘traditional’
Hollywood musical could bear, to be expanded upon and fit into the less than
glamorous times of then ‘current’ pop culture standards. Yet, in New York,
New York, Minnelli appears either ill at ease, or simply unwell; straining
for her laughs, if showcasing those magnificent pipes that, like her mother,
could reach the back of the house, seemingly without even trying. If Minnelli’s
acting choices are frequently suspect, her vocal capabilities are never
anything less than enthralling. But the casting of DeNiro here is a colossal
mistake. Irrefutably, a very fine actor, DeNiro’s particular brand of cockiness
is out of step. Forced into the confines of both artifice and period, DeNiro’s schtick
tanks. Indeed, he sticks out like the proverbial ‘sore thumb’ or bull in a china
shop. And while rumors abound that
DeNiro was not altogether charmed while toiling on this project, quite simply, he
appears as though, to have little interest and virtually zero on-camera chemistry
with his leading lady.
This leaves Scorsese’s
stylish accoutrements, and, Rauch and Martin’s screenplay to do the heavy
lifting – a formidable task, for which neither attribute ever rises above mediocrity
to distinguish itself as high art. And
Scorsese’s methodical pacing – today, thought of as Teflon-coated perfection –
sincerely falters herein. At times, he almost seems to get the tempo, mood and
period just right, only to lapse into more contemporary strains that are
diametrically opposed to the sort of white-gloved fluff and joyful exuberance a
director like Vincente Minnelli, or even Charles Walters, could pull off blind-folded.
Scorsese, a peerless talent in his own
right, is not the right director to recapture the lithe and lovely essence of
the big and splashy Hollywood musical. Interesting, Scorsese’s contemporary,
Francis Ford Coppola did not take heed of his compatriot’s folly herein, diving
headstrong into his own musical debacle - One from the Heart - five
years later. As for New York, New York; it was not a success. Alarmed by
the movie’s 2 ½ hr. run time, UA insisted Scorsese cut out some of the musical
sequences. The greatest loss here was ‘Happy Endings’ – the lavishly
appointed ‘dream ballet’ that brought the movie’s plot to a screeching halt but
was meant to cap off its musical program with a proliferation of high-octane
song and dance. This sequence was re-instated when the movie was revived on
home video. It has remained a part of ‘the director’s cut’ ever since. Even
when paired down to just a little over 2-hours, New York, New York failed
to garner much interest from the public. With or without its theatrically
excised sequences, the picture remains awkwardly balanced. It was never
intended as an outright ‘feel good,’ yet it still possesses an unease in its
endeavor to be ‘serious’ movie with musical sequences feathered into its bittersweet
plot. In the end, it remains Scorsese’s mutt and cross to bear.
New York, New
York’s debut on Blu-ray is something of a perplexed and colossal
disappointment, cribbing from digital files merely up-converted to 1080p from transfer
elements struck for the now defunct DVD release. MGM/Fox Home Video, the
custodians of this title have really dropped the ball on this one. Color
density is never consistent. Opticals illustrate an amplification of film
grain, looking digitized and harsh, rather than indigenous to its source. Grain
structure on the whole is a mess – at times, so thick it practically breaks the
image to pieces, and at others, disappearing almost in its entirety to suggest
some untoward DNR has been shamelessly and indiscriminately applied. Framed in
1:66:1 what we have here is a thoroughly inconsistent rendering that ought to
have looked much better in hi-def than it does here. Fine details appear in
close-up, but seem to get lost under a soft patina or haze during long shots.
The original mono mix has been re-engineered in 5.1 Dolby Digital. The score is
the real benefactor, obviously spreading its lush orchestrations across all
channels. Dialogue still sounds tinny, and effects are never entirely
integrated. Extras are ported over from MGM/Fox’s 30th Anniversary
DVD edition and include the same audio commentary and intro from Martin
Scorsese, plus three featurettes devoted to the evolution of this production.
Bottom line: while New York, New York is definitely worth a glance –
especially for Scorsese aficionados, this disc is a skinflint nightmare at
best. We need a new master here – period!
FILM RATING (out
of 5 – 5 being the best)
3
VIDEO/AUDIO
1.5
EXTRAS
2.5
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