After Hours - Martin Scorsese
Theme and director’s intention:
1.” Martin Scorsese's "After Hours" is a comedy, according to the strict definition of that word: It ends happily, and there are indications along the way that we're not supposed to take it seriously. It is, however, the tensest comedy I can remember, building its nightmare situation step by insidious step until our laughter is hollow, or defensive ( Ebert).”
2.” MARTIN SCORSESE'S ''After Hours'' is not an easy comedy to get the hang of, that is, until you realize that it's as much about emotional disorientation as it is disorienting in itself (Canby).”
3. Released during a time of professional crisis, After Hours was later regarded by the director as being “like a rebirth." After his first attempt at adapting Nikos Kazantzakis’ The Last Temptation of Christ was aborted due to budgetary problems and protests by Christian fundamentalists, Scorsese decided to test himself and rediscover his independent roots (Collins).”
Separate elements and their relationship to the whole
1. This is the work of a master filmmaker who controls his effects so skillfully that I was drained by this film - so emotionally depleted that there was a moment, two-thirds of the way through, when I wondered if maybe I should leave the theater and gather my thoughts and come back later for the rest of the "comedy ( Ebert)."
2. “The best thing about ''After Hours,'' however, is the photography by Michael Ballhaus. At what I assume was Mr. Scorsese's direction, Mr. Ballhaus's camera takes on an aggressive, willful personality of its own (Canby).”
3. Former Fassbinder cinematographer Michael Ballhaus bestows the film with a slick Noirish aesthetic, while Scorsese and longtime editor Thelma Schoonmaker keep the film running at a brisk pace (Coillins).”
Objective evaluation of the film
1. “The result is a film that is so original, so particular, that we are uncertain from moment to moment exactly how to respond to it. The style of the film creates, in us, the same feeling that the events in the film create in the hero. Interesting ( Ebert).”
2. “Behind every comic turn of the film, there is a sense of menace that increases as Paul journeys ever deeper into this lunatic underworld. As was true with Mr. Scorsese's far more substantial ''King of Comedy,'' you can never be sure at any minute that ''After Hours'' isn't going to explode into a hysterical, not entirely unwarranted blood bath (Canby).”
3. Upon calling Marcy’s number, Paul is invited to her SoHo loft and thus begins his descent into the district’s dark, arty quarters. Paul’s first confrontation with the inauspiciousness of the night transpires when he helplessly watches his sole twenty dollar bill zip out of a taxi cab window. After quickly falling out with the increasingly quirky Marcy, Paul aspires to return home only to encounter another unfortunate experience preventing him from exiting the area (Collins).”
Subjective evaluation of the film
1. The movie earns its place on the list with his great films: "Mean Streets," "Taxi Driver" and "Raging Bull (Ebert).”
2. ''After Hours'' is not, ultimately, a satisfying film, but it's often vigorously unsettling. In this season of homogenized pap, that should be read as praise (Canby)”
3. In spite of all the visual and metaphoric darkness contained within the film, After Hours is a disturbingly funny film. The film’s black humor is perfectly realized in its emphasis on minute details and deadpan comedy, highlighted by Griffin Dunne’s excellent performance as the film’s hapless yuppie protagonist (Collins).”
The film’s level of ambition
1. "After Hours" is a brilliant film, one of the year's best. It is also a most curious film. It comes after Scorsese's "The King of Comedy," a film I thought was fascinating but unsuccessful, and continues Scorsese's attempt to combine comedy and satire with unrelenting pressure and a sense of all-pervading paranoia ( Ebert).”
2. The perfect orderliness of the music under the opening credits - Mozart's Sympthony in D major - provides the comic contrast to almost everything that comes after, in which nothing is balanced or predictable or entirely coherent (Canby).”
3. After Hours has become an almost forgotten fixture in the Scorsese canon. Nevertheless, this zany, overlooked gem is one of his greatest and tightest achievements (Collins).”
Words you found interesting.
1. For New Yorkers, parts of the film will no doubt play as a documentary. In what other city is everyday life such an unremitting challenge? ( Ebert)”
2. Even more surprising, considering that Mr. Scorsese grew up only a couple of blocks from where most of ''After Hours'' is set, the film's atmosphere seems second-hand, and even a little out of date (Canby).
3. Following on his earlier dark explorations of New York at night in Taxi Driver (1976), Scorsese converts SoHo into a lurid, claustrophobic landscape capable of eliciting Paul’s innermost fears and anxieties (Collins).”
Relationship to film movements/genres/ relation to other filmmakers’ work.
1."After Hours" is another chapter in Scorsese's continuing examination of Manhattan as a state of mind; if he hadn't already used the title "New York, New York," he could have used it this time. The movie earns its place on the list with his great films ( Ebert). “
2. ''After Hours'' is, at best, an entertaining tease, with individually arresting sequences that are well acted by Mr. Dunne and the others, but which leave you feeling somewhat conned. There is no satisfying resolution to the tension, as effectively built up here as it was in ''King of Comedy, ''Raging Bull'' and ''Taxi Driver (Canby).”
3. Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, Paul is transported to a strange locale from which he almost immediately wishes to leave in order to return to the cozy confines of home. Although Paul’s story, like Dorothy’s, shares several detours along the way, Paul’s predicament is a solitary one. There are no allies to share in his plight. Nor is there any discernible Wicked Witch blocking Paul’s path in After Hours, but rather a procession of them (Collins).”
Citation:
1. Ebert, roger. "RogerEbert.com." After Hours. Chicago Sun Times, 11 oct 1985. Web. 7 Feb 2012. <http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19851011/REVIEWS/510110301>.
2. Canby, Vincent. "The New York Times." After hours (1985). The New York Times, 13 sep 1985. Web. 7 Feb 2012 <http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9C07E7DD153AF930A2575AC0A963948260&partner=Rotten Tomatoes>.
3. Collins, Gary. "Film Reviews: After Hours." Noripcord. N.p., 10 Jan 2009. Web. 7 Feb 2012. <http://www.noripcord.com/reviews/film/after-hours>.
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