After Hours (1985)

on of the few comedies directed by Scorsese

Directed by Martin Scorsese.   

 

When Scorsese was attempting to film The Last Temptation of Christ, he had to stop because the studio could not financially support the project any longer.

He grew very disenchanted with the whole studio system. Dunne and Amy Robinson (who had been in Mean Streets) were by now producers so they gave the script to Scorsese and Tim Burton. Scorsese didn’t pay too  much attention at first, but when he looked at the Paul Hackett character, it seemed to reflect his life at the moment, and he became interested. After Hours brought Scorsese the Best Director Award at the ’86 Cannes Festival.

 

A NYC computer guy (Dunne) is shown at his job, breaking in a new employee at his office. After work, he meets Marcy (Rosanna Arquette) in a coffee shop , where she notices he is reading Miller’s Tropic of Cancer. A chat ensues, and she gives him her phone number. He calls her and she invites him to her loft apartment in So-ho. He takes a cab over on this rainy night. His $20 for cab fare blows out the window. Then EVERYTHING else goes downhill from there!  He discovers things about Marcy that frighten him. Then he begins to misinterpret everything that happens to him, and everyone he meets including Marcy’s roommate Kiki (Verna Bloom), the bartender Tom (John Heard) he meets, Julie (Teri Garr) the waitress at the bar.  The film is a dark comedy shot in the NYC streets at night.  It is one of the few funny movies Scorsese ever made and it was the first movie he made in the previous ten years without Robert De Niro.

 

Score is by Howard Shore, but it contains a few pop songs, something of which Scorsese is fond.