Résumé : New York is jubilant after the victory over Japan. Jimmy Doyle, saxophonist and young soldier, replaces his uniform with trendy clothes and goes to the Starlight Club where the party has already started. He meets Francine Evans, a young singer, and tries unsuccessfully to seduce her. But chance makes them meet again in the night, and the singer and the saxophonist will love each other, have a career, know the glory, separate and meet again ten years later
Our opinion : There are films that are said to be “cult”, adored by cinephiles throughout the ages and imitated by filmmakers throughout the world, but which in the eyes of their author have only a reduced interest. This is the case of New York, New York by Martin Scorsese, which the filmmaker regularly denigrates, even as we see it as a key work, moving and sumptuous.
At the premiere of New York New York, Martin Scorsese is at its worst. Under the influence of drugs (and he narrowly escaped), completely paranoid, he hired two bodyguards to ensure his safety and especially that of his film, of which he himself brought the reels to the cinema where the film was held. presentation. The success of Mean streets (1973), then his Palme d’Or for Taxi Driver (1976) did not in any way attenuate “Marty’s” feeling of being artistically on the margins and his fear of not being able to find funding to make cinema (an art he discovered and taught for a time in New York) . This sense of dread and abandonment has never left him, not even today. However, when one thinks of the current representatives of New York cinema, two names immediately spring to mind: Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese, pillars of an essentially audiovisual city. New York, New York is basically a cry of the heart dedicated to this city that saw the birth of Scorsese on November 17, 1942.
Scorsese begins filming New York, New York with the famous Happy endings, a sequence of pure pseudo-kitsch musical comedy, and makes its camera and its performers twirl in the most explosive, colorful and enchanting way. The filmmaker will admit living the happiest days of his life. And the sequence reflects, oh how happy feeling. Sadly short-lived happiness.
It’s a bit like the story of the film that is projected on the set. Scorsese gets bogged down in this very big production shot in homage to films of the 40s and 50s. A love story that will end badly. Francine, the singer (Liza Minnelli) and Jimmy, the saxophonist (Robert De Niro) will love each other, perform together in cabarets, but little by little artistic differences will get the better of their relationship. Exceeding budget and planning, settings too oppressive, psychology too painful, Scorsese will not manage, according to him, to give enough “space” to his main roles. And yet, how strong are the intimate scenes between the two protagonists! Strong by the bodies of the performers, often seized on the spot, like Francine, frozen in the back seat of a car, learning that Jimmy did not want their child.
Musical or musical drama, reflecting the anguish of a young filmmaker suffering at the idea of being an adult and abandoned by art and love, New York, New York is also, paradoxically, one of the most beautiful declarations in life, in cinema and in music. The song of a filmmaker, worshiping art with deep faith. And the question posed at the end of the film (when Francine decides not to take the exit door to join Jimmy) is perhaps this: should an artist sacrifice his art at the expense of feelings? The beauty of the film and its amorous winks (to Vincente Minnelli, Michael Powell or Stanley Donen) seem to answer it with another question: isn’t serving one’s art, already, love?
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