NOTE: This review is from a DVD that’s part of the “Martin Scorsese Collection” Box Set. This movie can also be bought as a stand-alone disc.
When one thinks of a Martin Scorsese movie images of New York City at night or Robert DeNiro inhabiting a memorable character (usually a mobster or a deranged lunatic) immediately pop into one’s mind. As 1974’s “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” proves though, Scorsese can be just at home directing a rural drama with a strong female lead as well as a NYC mob drama in which Harvey Keitel blows his top. Keitel actually makes a memorable appearance in “ADLHA,” so the flawed Scorsese men we all know and love from his movies is still in this one. It’s just that here the brute men are the guest performers while a likable woman is at the center of the story. This is a first for any Scorsese feature film, and something the director has yet to try again in his current or future projects.
The movie focuses on Alice Hyatt (Ellen Burstyn), a single-mom widow with a desire to become a successful lounge singer in New Mexico (!). When Alice needs to make ends meet after her husband (played with redneck effectiveness by Billy Green Bush) dies in a car accident she has to take a job at a diner and postpone her showbiz plans. Even after the local bar owner throws her out during an audition doesn’t put an end to the woman’s dreams of making a living with her well-endowed pipes.
But Alice also has a knack for getting involved men who are abusive or put her wish for happiness below her own. Then one day Alice meets David (country music star Kris Kristofferson), a rancher that’s a cut above the men she’s used to but not perfect or willing to let Alice pursue her singing career. Will Alice follow her dreams? Or, for the sake of her and her son Tommy (Alfred Lutter), will she sacrifice her dreams and settle down with the only man that has tried to be both a friend to her and a father figure to her son?
Like most good movies of the 70’s “ADLHA” does a good job of portraying everyday people living their lives (warts and all) without manipulating the situations to manufacture happy and tender moments where there should be none. The movie’s rated PG but there are plenty of instances in which family squabbles reach the intensity of a “Raging Bull” fight (though not as bloody or violent). Alice’s search for elusive and fulfilling happiness in an era when women were still expected to be subjugated to the will of a man doesn’t resonate today as well as it did back when it came out in ‘74. The simplicity of the stories and the wealth of strong performances, including Harvey Keitel as Alice’s abusive boyfriend Ben and Diane Ladd as veteran seen-it-all waitress Flo, keep the movie from sinking into sappy melodrama. Blink and you’ll also miss a cameo by a pre-teen Jodie Foster, who went on to star alongside fellow “ADLHA” cast member Keitel in Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver” a few years later.
A pet project of star Ellen Burstyn’s at Warner Brothers, “ADLHA” was Scorsese’s first mainstream success as well as his first movie to win an Academy Award for one of its stars (the aforementioned Burstyn). It also inspired a long-running CBS situation comedy, a fact that the DVD’s special features fail to mention.
The Disc:
“ADLHA” celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, and Warner has delivered a good Widescreen Anamorphic (1:85:1) Video Transfer that doesn’t look too shabby. There are a handful of grain and dirt spots as well as annoying shimmering amplified by the lighting and film stock used back in ’74. At times Kent Wakeford’s cinematography makes many indoor scenes look as if they were shot with home video equipment, which ironically benefits the movie’s attempts at being realistic. The English & French Dolby Digital Mono Soundtracks are good for a dialogue-driven piece, with some occasional muffled voices interrupting the flow of audible, everyday conversations.
English, French & Spanish Subtitles are also included, along with the movie’s Theatrical Trailer and a Commentary Track that skips over silent portions (as does every DVD in the recently-released “Martin Scorsese Collection”). Director Scorsese and actors Burstyn & Kristofferson were recorded separately and their comments edited together, Criterion Collection style, in a track that’s insightful and informative about the making of the film. If you don’t want to sit through the commentary then the 19:52 min. documentary, ’Second Chances: The Making of “ADLHA”’ summarizes the same information and lets us peek at the actors talking about their recollections of the film.
Scorsese isn’t interviewed on-camera, which follows the same patterns of the other releases in the “Martin Scorsese Collection.” And BTW, is it me or does Ellen Burstyn look almost exactly the same today (2004) as she did back in ’74?
bottom line:
Solid performances by a troupe of good actors (particularly Ellen Burstyn in her Academy Award winning role) are the highlight of this 1974 drama that scored director Martin Scorsese his first commercial hit. Picture and sound are good on DVD considering the 30 year-old age of the original source material, but the excellent extras pick-up the slack. Worth a look for Scorsese fanatics that think their man can only direct mobster movies or overblown New York epics.
By - J.M. Vargas
1/2
