Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore – 1974 Scorsese

There are long periods in which we are just watching great acting and writing – rare for a Scorsese film—but a few flourishes from the auteur, including that Wizard of Oz-like opening, elevate it over the standard strong docudrama

Ellen Burstyn gives a tour-de-force here in the lead- she won the Oscar for it. The ensemble is incredible as well. Diane Ladd (supporting nom), a young and eccentric Jody Foster, Kris Kristofferson’s easy charm— Harvey Keitel is too much of a New Yorker to pull off the Cowboy role here- but I’d argue it’s still a solid supporting performance—the scene where he breaks the glass—the domestic abuse— breathtaking—powerful
Almost Douglas Sirk-like opening titles— like a melodrama from the 40’s or 50’s—Chinatown did the same thing in 1974—very nostalgic but in this case, paired with the intended homage to Wizard of Oz prologue—it’s also a formal device and a bit of a parody (as if to say, life is not a fairy tale, what comes to follow after the gorgeously saturated-in-red-studio backlot opening is real). Even in that opening we get the “Before I beat the living daylights out of you” and “Blow it out their ass” rawness of a 1974 Scorsese film. The transition from the primary color prologue to the rest of the film has an awkward transition—not quite as smooth as Wizard’s use of the door opening.

We’re back in the modern day as we have rock music and we’re floating into Burstyn’s bedroom via Scorsese’s roving camera—it’s a stunning first 5 minutes
There’s no triple-edit like from the opening of Mean Streets (pulled from Varda’s Cleo From 5 to 7) but I do love this shot- from either Bergman or Varda’s La Pointe Courte

Burstyn is witty and world worn—raw
I wrote about this when discussing Chazelle’s First Man as a follow-up to La La Land but I think this is a bit of an intentional offspeed pitch flex for Scorsese. It’s the opposite in so many ways from Mean Streets (directly before) and Taxi Driver (directly after). It’s female-centric, suburban, long road trips…
Burstyn’s soul-mate here is her son and their rapport and chemistry (with Alfred Lutter III from Bad News Bears a few years later) is special. Authentic, funny
The writing is top-shelf- a few lines echo some of Nicholson’s Five Easy Pieces stuff—“would you mind turning around for me?” and Burstyn replies “I don’t sing with my ass”
It’s Scorsese so the solid pop/rock soundtrack- “Daniel” from Elton John. Dolly’s “I Will Always Love You”
I think the film could benefit from one less song from Burstyn. It’s a lot of singing for someone who doesn’t have a great voice

Diane Ladd is fire here (I didn’t catch her but apparently her daughter in real life Laura Dern is in the film somewhere towards the end). Ladd has some great one-liners. “I could lay under you, eat fried chicken, and do a crossword puzzle.” She’s hilarious—a great character (Flo) but she knocks it out of the park
Like most of Scorsese’s work aside from The Departed there’s no plot here
According to Burstyn—Scorsese threatened to take his name off the film if Warners removed his opening
Simon Miraudo Quickflix “Despite the early stylistic flourishes, Alice is a mostly naturalistic venture from Scorsese, and not that indicative of what would follow in his career. But it’s a fantastic combination of these two seemingly divisive styles”
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