Who's That Knocking at My Door

this was clearly originally conceived as a 30 minute short that scorsese decided to adapt into his first feature film. the central short focusing on the relationship between harvey keitel's j.r. and the girl is pretty solid considering the clear budget constraints. however, there is another hour smushed around it that is basically scorsese's demo real to studios showing off all of the different shots he can do. the scenes are aimless and mostly unconnected and honestly they all suck, but they have a lot of shots that are very reminiscent of bergman, fellini, and other autuer filmmakers. that... read more

Hard to see it without various contexts in mind but it is a solid if not slightly prototypical and juvenile early film. Marty is lost in the sauce here, his love for westerns, french new wave, crime films and blues music all mesh together in various ways as we follow a fresh faced Harvey Keitel through his everyday life as a budding romance blossoms with Zina Bethune. Keitel at times seems like a self-insert for Scorsese, largely filling his conversations with Bethune by rambling on about old John Wayne films, slightly timid compared to his machismo buddies, living adjacently to street crime... read more