Martin Scorsese always has great openings to his films (and great middles and ends mostly) but I particularly like this one, with the Wizard of Oz homage and the great Mott the Hoople song. I also think it's his most crowd-pleasing film.
shareFunny, I thought the beginning was kinda eerie. And red. Was it red on your screen? I honestly thought something was wrong with my tape. Why was it red??
share[deleted]
Yeah it was kind of red. I think it was meant to be surreal and dreamlike. I liked the intro because I thought it was audacious, even with the cheesy 70's transition into the present day. I also think the red was because that scene was supposed to take place during sunset, as well as being an homage to the golden age of Hollywood, when soundstages often looked like soundstages and not actual locations.
share[deleted]
I didn't get the opening sequence. It seemed creepy. Was Alice abused or something?
shareTerrible opening scene. It didn't tell us anything except that once Alice was a girl. The red wash was distracting to say the least. The girl who played her as a child was really hammy and silly. Terrible beginning, bad movie.
share
The first few frames were VERY similar to the beginning and end of Eastwood's "The Unforgiven".
The voice of the kid had that phony dubbed sound like a grownup's voice was substituted for a child's. It was odd though because it had that childlike dreamy quality and yet the kid was using some real rough language. It made me laugh.
share"I also think it´s his most crowd-pleasing film".
Crowd-pleasing, probably, but nevertheless it gets full points for doing that pleasing without pandering or condescending. It´s an honest piece of work - funny, sad and genuinely affecting. Not to mention directed with true inspiration, something we see less and less of the 21st century Marty. Screw the stuffy, overproduced bores like Gangs, Aviator or Sh-tter Island, it´s films like Alice or the even more underrated New York, New York deserve a much bigger audience than they´re getting.
And yes, the beginning´s a beautiful touch.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
[deleted]
The beginning is homage to The Wizard of Oz, that's why it looked that way
share