New York, New York

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: No
Watched With: Myself

Fascinating film. Did you know Martin Scorsese made a musical with Liza Minnelli and Robert De Niro? I certainly didn't. I couldn't even find a good trailer on youtube, so I uploaded this one myself. After just seeing New York trashed by aliens again in a big summer blockbuster I thought this might be a good remedy.

Biggest surprise was finding out this is originally where that New York, New York song Frank Sinatra made famous actually came from first. And that it's actually called "Theme from New York, New York" because of course "New York, New York" is already a song from the musical On The Town that is also pretty catchy but nevertheless sounds completely different.

But that's not the only song here, there are quite a few numbers. In fact in the 155 minute version that I watched with the big musical number added back in, basically the last 40 minutes is just Liza Minnelli singing her heart out. You get fatigued after a while but there's usually something nice to look at production value wise.

And that's what's really fascinating about this film. On the one hand, it's Scorsese and De Niro doing their gritty 70's improvised realism drama and on the other it's Minnelli doing a musical with heightened 40's inspired big studio sets, stylised costumes and an obvious artifice the old time musicals all had. These are very opposing styles and much like the characters in the film, they are big and they clash creating an unusual energy that is sometimes magic and sometimes a bit of a mess.

It's certainly a great showcase for both the stars. And Scorsese's love of those old musicals is blatantly obvious even though he's still straddling their style with his own. Ultimately it feels like an interesting and more often than not successful experiment.