Harvey Keitel!!!
Wow, how about the role Harvey Keitel played here as nutjob Ben. Ben just chewed up the scenery in his scenes with Alice.
Anyone else agree??
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MovieChat Forums > Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1975) Discussion > Harvey Keitel!!!
Harvey Keitel has always been one of my favorite actors and this is one of my favorite roles. The scene where he attacks his wife in the motel is harrowing. He should have at least been nominated for a supporting oscar that year.
We'll see who's the filthiest person alive! We'll just see!
Connie_n_Raymond_Marble says > Harvey Keitel has always been one of my favorite actors and this is one of my favorite roles. The scene where he attacks his wife in the motel is harrowing. He should have at least been nominated for a supporting oscar that year.I'm a recent Keitel fan after seeing him in Mean Streets. I may have seen him in other things but I don't remember. I think he's in a lot of violent movies which I avoid. Anyway, when he shows up in this movie I thought, wow, what a departure. He seems so calm and nice.
Then all of a sudden, out of the blue that scene came up and I was shocked. He played it so well. He was like a tornado that rages, ripping apart everything in its path, then after a few minutes it's all gone and again things are quiet. I love how he just calmly and with no hesitation arranges to meet with her as planned.
I laughed and laughed and laughed. I still laugh thinking about it. I can barely type thinking about it now. The fact she rushed out of town added to it. It's my favorite scene in the movie. I would have expected Keitel to not only get nominated but win. It's not often one gives a performance like that. Of course, Burstyn's reaction was spot on too.
Woman, man! That's the way it should be Tarzan. [Tarzan and his mate] share
Anyway, when he shows up in this movie I thought, wow, what a departure. He seems so calm and nice.
Then all of a sudden, out of the blue that scene came up and I was shocked. He played it so well. He was like a tornado that rages, ripping apart everything in its path, then after a few minutes it's all gone and again things are quiet. I love how he just calmly and with no hesitation arranges to meet with her as planned.
All of this. My thoughts exactly
I couldn't believe how nice Keitel was either and then the sudden change. It shocked me too and I'm not easily shocked
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Chewing up scenery means total over the top acting and is a negative. What Keitel does is give a totally convincing performance as an unreconstructed bastard - of which many exist. Chewing up the scenery - no! Giving a performance with chilling and terrifying power - sufficient to make Alice and her son flee for their lives - God yes!
Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore is a great film with a big heart... I love the opening shmalz with the (still powerful) punch into the present with Mott the Hoople - just one of the greatest grabbiest openings of all time.
I LOVE how Burstyn reacts when Keitel says she is to meet him after work. Keitel is also impressing in keeping his ambivalent looking face when he is in actuality tearing the womans psyche apart. Good stuff.
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Harvey Keitel is such a wonderful actor, very intense. I remember watching the "making of" for "ADLHA" and Ellen Burstyn commented that she was actually kinda "scared" while looking at Harvey shouting, breaking things and threatening her (Alice) in that famous scene. He's a great actor, no doubt about it.
Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.
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Very scary role. I told a friend who hadn't seen the movie but liked Scorsese about the film and he (jokingly) asked if Harvey Keitel gets a crazy scene. When i told him that yes, he does, my friend was astounded.
shareyeah i agree, he definately does do that.
shareHarvey's almost too convincing in that role. He's scary good. Pity the women who have to deal with men like that every day – for the rest of their lives.
shareI agree War-Ped - Ol' Harv is just a little tooo convincing when it came to that scene with his little pregnant wife and the kicking thing.. It looked to me like he enjoyed it! Like it was there all along and the harbored rage against women took that opportunity to emerge.
Scorsese hated pregnant women. He was ashamed to be seen with a "fat" woman. Doesn't say much for the quality of manhood in Marty, does it? He also became disinterested in his women after they had children because he had an oedipus complex and a major madonna/whore thing goin on. Elvis Presley had one too. He became sexually repulsed by Priscilla after their child was born, and had his mafia search Vegas looking for virgins during his gigs there) Scorsese's obsession permeated "Who's That Knocking At My Door" That scene in the car in "New York, New York" actually happened. Scorsese took that from his own life and had it written into the script. He often did that. I always figured that Martin Scorsese was closer to the pathetic loser character of Rupert Pupkin in "The King of Comedy" than to any other character in any other film of his. I guess these poor saps can't help it but ... man, I wouldn't wanna be married to one of'em.
Is that true about Marty hating pregnant women, Mavvy! I'd believe it. You know his cameo in "Taxi Driver," where he's the passenger spouting out about the n-word f-ing his wife? That scene was totally unnecessary and gratuitous and probably gives a great deal of insight into the man. (Is that what you meant by the "New York, New York" reference? I haven't seen that film in years but don't remember that scene.)
The thing is, he's a brilliant filmmaker – or at least he was in the '70s or '80s. I can't say I cared for "The Departed" or "Kings of New York," but when he was in his peak, he was unstoppable.
Marty actually listening to Ellen Burstyn's advice on how she should play Alice, because there's no way he had a clue what a single, independent woman would think or feel. Ellen's insight comes through here. Thankfully, Marty's misogyny does not.
It was that scene where the Liza's character, dressed in a red coat and being heavily with child comes to the club to see her husband and meet up with mutual friends. She had not been out of the house for a long while and was lonely. She walks in only to be greeted with a disgusted embarrassed "I don't even want to know you" attitude from her husband. He had been sitting there with another woman and a couple of friends, drinking and eating at a table. She turns and leaves after trying her best to be apologetic that she even had the inclination to show up... He pushes her and follows her outside cussing her under his breath and pulls at her to get her out of sight while she attempts to hail a cab to get away from him because she's crying uncontrollably from shame and he's afraid of women's tears or something. Anyway, the screaming session happens in a car and I think he is driving. He starts wailing on her and at her, screaming at the top of his lungs how she's fat and ugly and is embarrassing him. She starts slapping him and screaming about how it's his baby and he ought to be man enough to love things the way they are. This marriage is not going to work. The last scene between the two end in a hospital room where she has gone into and delived the baby pre maturely. He's sorry and all that sh!t. He acts like some baby wiping his nose on the corner of her hospital sheet and walking out. I guess that's suppose to make us feel sory for this sick fucc who leaves his wife high and dry with a brand new baby to raise all by herself while he goes back to his "art" That's what happened in Scorsese's life. He did not raise his daughter. None of his relationships worked till after his mother died. Then he got married to a librarian..... weird sick fuc
I remember that creepy unneccessary scene in Taxi Driver. The 44 magnum scene.. Nobody needed to see that. He did it to get himself off. Perverted fucc! If you ask me Scorsese's 900 times the pervert David Carradine was. David loved having pregnant wives. He paraded them around with love in his eyes, carried vitamins to them, soft boiled them eggs and hand fed them. As far as I'm concerned the wrong people go out disgraced most of the time! Maybe one of these days Scorsese's closet will fly open and we'll see the skeletons he's got hidden.
I also enjoyed Alice and you can tell that Scorsese listened to a woman's thoughts on this one.
There's a book you should get at the library. It's called "Easy Riders and Raging Bulls" (how the rock and roll generation saved Hollywood) It goes into details. Starting with Bonnie and Clyde and Easy Rider and going all the way through the coked up seventies, hit's The Last Waltz, talks about the death of Hal Ashby and on and on and on. It came out in 1998. I know you will find it an extremely fascinating and eye-opening read. I sure did! It's written by Peter Buskind (the executive editor of Premiere and the former editor in chief of American film.) I loved American Film magazine. Too bad... Is Premier now gone to? Anyway, this guy has written some other books on Hollywood and movies. Just about everything I have touched on either came from Julia Phillip's account in her book "You'll Never Eat Lunch In This Town Again" or the other one I just mentioned.
IT'S A STRANGE WORLD JOHNNY AND THAT'S A FACT! ~ ~ The Merry Widow of Glorious Hill from Tennessee Williams' "Summer and Smoke"
I have a copy of "New York, New York," which I'll get to, like most of my films ... eventually. The scene sounds extremely downbeat but probably truer to life than we would care to admit. "Alice" seemed to open Scorsese's eyes to the fact that women are there for more reasons than to pleasure me, but he sure didn't go far with this newfound insight. Yes, his films are a realistic portrayal of how men see women, but it seems like he's missed many opportunities along the way to take it a step further and see the other side.
As for his personal life, none of this surprises me though filmmaking to me is like sausage – I'd rather just partake of the finished product than know what went into it. William Friedkin is another brilliant director with a sordid personal life. So is Woody Allen, for that matter. It's hard to deny the creepiness behind the camera, but if the film is good, it's good enough for me. Woody's are, Marty's aren't any more.
Someday I shall get around to "Easy Riders and Raging Bulls." I have seen the documentary, but apparently the author was very unhappy with it. And yes, Premiere is history, another sad casualty of publishing.
I didn't know there was a documentary to Easy Riders, Raging Bulls? Was it called "A Decade Under the Influence"? Yeah, alot of creeps get off by becoming film makers. Polanski, Hitchcock, Malle, Tarantino, ...the list is as long s your arm. I like to go indepth with movie makers. They make the films more interesting that way. I look for liitle clues n' stuff
It's titled "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex, Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood," the same as the book:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0359203/
I rented it from a local video store that has since closed, but I see it's in my library also.
It features interviews with a lot of the filmmakers and actors, though Friedkin refused to be a part of it – no surprise because he's apparently savaged in the book, right?
You two have been spouting off about Scorsese like you personally know him.
His scene as a character in Taxi Driver was necessary because it showed how close Travis was to madness every day of his life. It wasn't hard to slip into a twisted perspective of life when it's seething in the backseat of your cab. And Marty only played the role because the actor who was hired was unavailable.
As for his relationships with women, show me some hard evidence (though this is unlikely, as this thread is nine months old). No one is without flaws, but I highly doubt he is the sick bastard you are making him out to be.
I know, we do have a good assortment of male-hating women on this board reading all kinds of sexism into things because they want to find something wrong with men.
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Totally agree and never saw it coming. He scared the bleep out of me!
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