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Boxcar Bertha (1972)
A great improvement from "Who's That Knocking At My Door"
"Boxcar Bertha" (1972) tells the story of Bertha and her colleagues, who form a gang to exact revenge on the local railroad for disrupting their lives. The plot is not as complicated as with "Who's That Knocking At My Door", but it does not need to be as Martin Scorsese succeeds with a simpler, less convoluted plot. As usual Martin Scorsese excels with his ability to gather a group of individuals that clearly have a passion for creating a film with fantastic musical choices and cinematography. Martin Scorsese will go on to develop more complicated and successful films that capture our imaginations, but those works begin with understanding how to combine good musical choices and cinematography, such as those shown in "Who's That Knocking At My Door", with structured plot, such as with "Boxcar Bertha". Martin Scorsese is starting to show his genius as a filmmaker and I could not be happier!
Who's That Knocking at My Door (1967)
Scorsese's Beginning
"Who's That Knocking At My Door?" (1968) tells the story of J.R, a young Italian-American with Catholic upbringing, who enjoys his life alongside his drinking buddies until he meets and falls in love with a young women in New York City. Their relationship takes a turn for the worse when the young women reveals to J.R that she was raped in a previous relationship, challenging J.R's perspective on what makes a good partner. In Catholicism a good partner is most importantly a virgin, influencing J.R's sexual tendencies as he struggles to avoid losing his virginity till after he can marry this young women. However, the young women's previous sexual experience disqualifies her from ever being a good partner, instead relegating her to little more than a sinful "broad" thus ending their relationship.
"Who's That Knocking At My Door?" is 90 minutes long but the plot described above encompasses roughly only 30 minutes of screen time, with the majority of the story development coming towards the end. The additional 60 minutes of screen time features a variety of interesting visuals from J.R relaxing with his friends at parties to J.R having sex with prostitutes in a dream sequence. Furthermore, each of these scenes are interwoven with very interesting musical elements that together provide movie lovers with the glimpses of the talented Martin Scorsese of today.
Unfortunately, the 30 minutes of story and 60 minutes of interesting visuals and music did not work together. I was perplexed at multiple points, lost in confusion as to why specific scenes were not better utilized for story purposes or thrown away all together from the final cut of the film. I wish that J.R's interactions with his friends provided a contrast between the strict Catholic views of their community and the reality of how terrible rape actually is. It would have been better if J.R's friends would have taken turns making fun of this young rape victim while drinking, giving J.R an opportunity to defend this young rape victim, who he claims to love more than anything else. Instead, rather than redeeming his character he sexually fantasizes throughout dream sequences that have no place in film, let alone play boy.