New York, New York is a two hour forty minute musical movie largely about a toxic relationship and I understand why it was Martin Scorsese’s first big flop. Some have blamed its poor reception on the kind of movie it was, of a style and tone Scorsese wasn’t known for, but I find that hard to believe. Even after only five films, he’d proven himself an extremely versatile director, and Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore found an audience. Sure this jazz musical love letter to New York City was following up Taxi Driver and its’ far more cynical take on the city, but then it’s also ‘from the director of Taxi Driver’ which itself was a big hit. Was it a matter of public appetite for musicals, or mere word of mouth and early critical reception that dissuaded viewers?
Irrespective of that, I was stunned to discover this movie was the origin of the titular song, which I’d assumed was much older (it’s definitely got the sound of something that might have come out of the Jazz scene of the 1950s)! “New York, New York” is so ubiquitous now, yet the movie that spawned it is a mere footnote in its directors’ otherwise illustrious filmography; and it’s unbelievable such a jovial, upbeat, idyllic, and utterly hopeful tune should belong to a movie that’s often fairly unpleasant (I also always imagined it as a dreamer or immigrants’ idealized impression of the city too, rather than that of an apparent lifelong native).
The signs are there pretty early on, from the opening on the celebratory aftermath of V-J Day in a nightclub where Robert De Niro’s swaggering saxophonist Jimmy Doyle is hitting on every woman he sees; and even for a time when such obnoxious “pick-up artist” behaviour was tolerated, it’s clearly going too far. What draws him to Liza Minnelli’s USO singer Francine Evans is seemingly her frequent and irritated rebuffs of him that he is incapable of backing down from. There is a certain charisma to De Niro’s performance here and an impression in the dialogue and staging that it’s supposed to be a funny scene, but it never once comes off that way -a bizarrely hostile start to what I assumed was supposed to become a classically romantic relationship. I was looking forward to seeing De Niro in that kind of role, but instead it wound up being a variation on his previous characters for Scorsese: the immature bravado of Johnny Boy, the off-putting entitlement of Travis Bickle, and the violent character of both.
It’s never at all clear why Francine goes for him, we’re never presented a sign of him winning her over or her even being charmed by his affectations beyond mild fascination. They meet in their hotel lobby the next day and are forced to share a taxi, then suddenly she’s accompanying him to an audition and singing “You Brought a New Kind of Love to Me” to his music for Dick Miller, and they’re booked as a double act. Next thing we know, there’s an ellipses where they’ve become a couple, already just ahead of their first of many temporary falling outs. It’s a turbulent relationship, but unlike other movies from around that time like The Way We Were, A Star is Born, and Annie Hall that strove to depict the realistic peaks and valleys and sometimes bitter ends of such romances, there’s no foundation of real love to Jimmy and Francine’s coupling -at least not one dotted with repeated bouts of toxicity and dysfunction.
I think Scorsese was going for that kind of honest look at a relationship, especially one between two performers. His own variation of A Star is Born if you will, only where both leads start from a place of relative obscurity. That and the jazz musical focus make the film retroactively quite reminiscent of the far superior La La Land, which seems to have adopted a number of plot and structural points from New York, New York -including a somewhat surrealistic musical sequence in the last act and a bittersweet ending where the protagonists only find success at the cost of their relationship. But of course in La La Land that finale IS bittersweet because that couple was legitimately warm and tangibly in love with each other, whereas in New York, New York the effect is more relief that Francine got out of an abusive marriage when she did.
Much of the movie is a pain to watch because of this, because at some level it’s unaware just how bad the control and abuse Jimmy puts Francine through is. At times it dresses the behaviour up as positive sides of the relationship. Jimmy’s sudden proposal for example, is very forceful and trapping; Francine’s response, though framed with subdued delight, is one of resignation nonetheless. The marriage itself is somewhat schizophrenic -it has its moments of genuine affection and a decent chemistry comes across between De Niro and Minnelli once in a while, but this only serves to highlight Jimmy’s dangerous, unpredictable nature and how false the illusions of contentedness are. His need for control over her career is played as a mere character flaw more than anything else. The only time the movie seems to understand how bad he is is his explosion of an argument with her at the end of the second act that brings about her premature childbirth. And of course there he seals any doubt he’s not a scumbag by leaving her at the hospital after promising not to, and opting to not even see his own child. At this point he’s meant to be beyond reproach, but the failure of the screenplay (and Scorsese’s direction if we’re being honest) is that he never wasn’t. Much like Cassavetes’ A Woman Under the Influence, what’s meant to be conveyed as a difficult relationship comes across as far worse, and the audience has no sympathies whatsoever with the terrible man in this dynamic. And it’s telling that the movie only gets good after that parting.
At the start of the third act, Scorsese really gets to indulge in that love for old-school Hollywood that supposedly drove this film. We get a great long sequence illustrating Francine’s rise to fame as a classic showy Broadway musical, complete with stunning broad imagery, fun choreography, a sense of whimsy absent from the rest of the film but greatly improving it, and of course Minnelli’s bombastic singing. There were a number of musical sequences before, effective distractions from the misguided drama, but here is where the film earns that musical moniker, and does so pretty well. The heightened reality really works wonders too, and I wish Scorsese had done the whole film like that. And of course it’s followed in no short order by “New York, New York”, written in-film by Jimmy which really strains credulity, and Minnelli knocks it out of the park too. The couple reunite after her performance, the only time there seems to be a real respect between them, and a maturity in each others’ absence. For Francine, she’s also clearly happy. And the movie makes the smart decision in foregoing a continuance of their relationship, with Francine backing out at the last minute from a dinner date with Jimmy. On its own this last act is pretty good, a melancholy look at the aftermath of a failed relationship, but it took far too long to get there.
And I’m also puzzled, as were many of the critics at the time, why Scorsese made a movie so ordinary. I can appreciate wanting to get out of the box of gritty crime stories like Mean Streets and Taxi Driver which he’d come to be associated with (and to some, still is). But he still could have made his love letter love story to New York more unique. It doesn’t even really match the look or tone of the classics Scorsese is attempting to homage. Apparently he wanted the sets designed to look artificial as a way of mimicking that old Hollywood style, but it’s not very noticeable.The only thing that really sets New York, New York apart is how unhealthy the relationship is, how unlikable Jimmy is, and this just works against the film at every turn.
Outside of the musical performances and some pretty filmmaking that does work as Scorsese intends, there’s not much to recommend about New York, New York. Certainly it was his weakest film up to that point, but it holds up even poorer over forty years later. And that song, which has a thesis completely at odds with the film itself, definitely deserves a much better movie to be attached to.
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