So it is "back to school" time here- classes start this coming week. I am taking another class from Professor Nick Davis. He is a terrific speaker and so well versed in his field. Very interesting observations on everything we discussed in class last winter. I took a Spring class too, that one was my second from Professor Jake Smith.
From Nick Davis' last cinema class I took-
I will keep you posted on the class - below a couple of movie reviews of the film from the first class-
author "snoopy style" from a 2017 viewing:
John Wayne fan J.R. (Harvey Keitel) and his friends are local Italian petty ruffians on the streets of New York. He meets and gets engaged to a girl. When she tells him about being raped, he is disbelieving, angry, and heartbroken. With his religious conviction, he can't marry a non-virgin and returns to his old thug life.
The actors are all amateurs. This is Martin Scorsese's feature debut. It's a black and white indie. Harvey Keitel is still a student actor. Despite that, one can see the inherit skills of these guys. Scorsese is trying various camera moves. He's an artist playing with his paint. There is a real unpredictable sense of violence and there is his music sense. It's not polished by any means but one can see Scorsese trying something in almost every scene. There are scenes that ramble on but those have a visceral sense of uncertainty. The technical aspect varies and it can feel disjointed especially the dream sequences. The sexual dream comes out of nowhere which doesn't fit the rest of the movie. There is the ambient noise which may be deliberate but probably the byproduct of guerrilla student filmmaking. Keitel is exuding energy as the lead. He's the focus even at such a young age. I do wonder why the female lead has no name. To be fair, most characters do not have names. One would expect JR call her by her name at least once. Is it a continuing Scorsese limitation with female characters? I can only call up one strong female lead in his writing. There are a few more in his other works. It's probably a limitation of simply being a dude. It's hard to write what one doesn't know. Overall, this is a crystal ball that predicts Scorsese's rise as one of the great American directors.
The actors are all amateurs. This is Martin Scorsese's feature debut. It's a black and white indie. Harvey Keitel is still a student actor. Despite that, one can see the inherit skills of these guys. Scorsese is trying various camera moves. He's an artist playing with his paint. There is a real unpredictable sense of violence and there is his music sense. It's not polished by any means but one can see Scorsese trying something in almost every scene. There are scenes that ramble on but those have a visceral sense of uncertainty. The technical aspect varies and it can feel disjointed especially the dream sequences. The sexual dream comes out of nowhere which doesn't fit the rest of the movie. There is the ambient noise which may be deliberate but probably the byproduct of guerrilla student filmmaking. Keitel is exuding energy as the lead. He's the focus even at such a young age. I do wonder why the female lead has no name. To be fair, most characters do not have names. One would expect JR call her by her name at least once. Is it a continuing Scorsese limitation with female characters? I can only call up one strong female lead in his writing. There are a few more in his other works. It's probably a limitation of simply being a dude. It's hard to write what one doesn't know. Overall, this is a crystal ball that predicts Scorsese's rise as one of the great American directors.
author "bob" from a 2009 viewing:
This is a hard movie to review because it's essentially an amalgam of several different shorter student films, and some work better than others.
That said, at the crux of "Who's That Knocking at My Door" (the final mass-released version) is a complex character-study laden with Catholic guilt and burdened by all the inherent stigmas and traditions of growing up Italian-American.
Obviously Scorsese knew his source material very well. More than half of the players and virtually all the locations come straight from his own life. What's really cool about the film, though, is how honestly he portrays these sociological nuances. He doesn't tell you Keitel's character's views and attitudes are good or bad, they just "are" --- and it's obvious how the character developed them from a peek into his everyday world.
This bracing honesty is the most appealing thing about the film, along with some drop-dead gorgeous camera work and editing featured here. The first scene where Keitel meets Bethune on the ferry has got to be one of the most imaginatively-shot and enthrallingly staged boy-meets-girl moments on celluloid. Throughout the film, Scorsese overlays soundless scenes from the past and future, creating interesting juxtapositions, always engaging and challenging your perceptions.
With a lot of debuts there are missteps. I don't think that fairly characterizes this movie however. There are definitely parts that drag and don't work well but seen in the context of a shorter film, they would have been more effective. As they're all blended together here, the pacing sometimes suffers.
It's hard to imagine any of the fans of Scorsese's later works, which rely so heavily on hyper-real camera-work and tightly-structured story lines, to have the patience for "Who's That Knocking." But for those who really enjoy the thoughtfulness, subversiveness, and subtext of Scorsese's films, it's a treat to see their origins so prominently displayed.
That said, at the crux of "Who's That Knocking at My Door" (the final mass-released version) is a complex character-study laden with Catholic guilt and burdened by all the inherent stigmas and traditions of growing up Italian-American.
Obviously Scorsese knew his source material very well. More than half of the players and virtually all the locations come straight from his own life. What's really cool about the film, though, is how honestly he portrays these sociological nuances. He doesn't tell you Keitel's character's views and attitudes are good or bad, they just "are" --- and it's obvious how the character developed them from a peek into his everyday world.
This bracing honesty is the most appealing thing about the film, along with some drop-dead gorgeous camera work and editing featured here. The first scene where Keitel meets Bethune on the ferry has got to be one of the most imaginatively-shot and enthrallingly staged boy-meets-girl moments on celluloid. Throughout the film, Scorsese overlays soundless scenes from the past and future, creating interesting juxtapositions, always engaging and challenging your perceptions.
With a lot of debuts there are missteps. I don't think that fairly characterizes this movie however. There are definitely parts that drag and don't work well but seen in the context of a shorter film, they would have been more effective. As they're all blended together here, the pacing sometimes suffers.
It's hard to imagine any of the fans of Scorsese's later works, which rely so heavily on hyper-real camera-work and tightly-structured story lines, to have the patience for "Who's That Knocking." But for those who really enjoy the thoughtfulness, subversiveness, and subtext of Scorsese's films, it's a treat to see their origins so prominently displayed.
So it should be interesting- more to follow
