Liza Minelli

(On Cable TV, January 2020) My working theory at the moment is that all 1970s movie musicals were terrible and/or depressing, and New York, New York only adds more fuel to it. There’s some logic to that theory—the 1970s were marked by excess, as Hollywood found itself freed from the constraints of the Production Code and compelled to look again at past Hollywood successes. But in typical Hollywoodian/American fashion, they went too far with their newfound freedoms and the result feels incredibly dated rather than timeless to twenty-first century audiences. There are other very specific problems with New York, New York: Director Martin Scorsese wanted to go big in an homage to musicals, to New York City, to jazz standards… and was largely (ahem; reportedly) fuelled by cocaine throughout the shooting of the film, upsetting the fine control a director should have over that kind of production. But then again, the project was flawed from the start: the entire thing revolves around an abusive, depressing relationship between rather unlikable characters. Robert de Niro is miscast here—while he’s fine as an explosive terrible man (essentially rehearsing Travis Bickle), there’s no world in which he feels right as a saxophonist. Liza Minelli does better because she can sing and her character is meant to be more pitiable, but her long wig here does nothing to make me like her more than usual. (I used to think that her short hair was what I didn’t like about her, but at least this film proves me wrong.) As for the rest, New York, New York is a depressing exercise, as it charts a doomed romance between two volatile characters. The tale’s darkness definitely fits the 1970s, but also limits the film’s more exuberant goals. The “Happy Endings” number is a blunt lie considering the rest of the movie, and for a film that tries to celebrate classic Hollywood musicals, it’s a self-limiting move. But it’s not a complete loss, and I don’t loathe it nearly as much as Cabaret—For better or for worse, this is a Scorsese film and it does have lavish sequences, striking images, untapped potential as a stylized musical, and it coasts a long way on its rousing rendition of the classic “New York, New York.” But as far as homages to classic musicals go—no. New York, New York is far too long, loose, glum and rarely as purely likable as the best of the genre that he’s trying to honour. What 1970s Hollywood hadn’t yet figured out in its rebellious adolescent phase is that sometime, happy funny romance is exactly what audiences want.