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Director Martin Scorsese is best known for such gritty street dramas as Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, Gangs of New York and The Departed. This reputation, however, tends to overshadow the breadth of his many films. He has directed such divergent films as The Age of Innocence, Kundun and The Aviator. One of these films that is atypical to the Scorsese stereotype is the 1974 film, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.
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This movie stars Ellen Burstyn as Alice Hyatt, a woman stuck in an unhappy marriage until a Coke truck accident kills her husband. Her foul-mouthed son, Tommy, is superbly played by Alfred Lutter III (of Bad News Bears fame). Alice moves across the southwest in search of a job and a man, while subconsciously yearning to reclaim her lost innocence in the town of her youth.
Country music and vampire flick icon Kris Kristofferson plays the man who she falls for, in large part because of his well-developed facial hair. Her pleading “Can I touch your beard?,” in fact, begins their rollercoaster relationship.
The movie was nominated for numerous Golden Globes, and Burstyn received an Academy Award for best actress for her performance as Alice. Hers is only one of many memorable performances in this film, though. An overlooked actor – who received no nominations but definitely stood out in this film – was Scorsese mainstay Harvey Keitel. He first appears as an unusually normal character, but in true form does his thing by mid-film. Fans of Bad Lieutenant and Reservoir Dogs will appreciate this earlier example of his dramatic talent. Laura Dern also shines in her delightful uncredited role as a girl eating an ice cream cone.
Academy Award-winning actress Jodie Foster also makes an appearance in this film. Long before Panic Room and Flight Plan, she showed off her tough self-sufficiency playing an alcoholic ten-year-old with a prostitute for a mother. She befriends Tommy and shows him, briefly, the wild side of life.
This movie shows a realistic, though sometimes negative, view of families. Alice is caught up in the popular social trend of the time which contends that one shouldn’t punish children physically. Tommy, in turn, is a self-centered brat with little respect for authority. Alice’s dissatisfaction with her marriage translates into her secret gladness when her husband kicks it. While the Focus on the Family crowd might not appreciate such a depiction, the movie comes across as more true to what the institution of marriage involves for many people as a result of these details.
Scorsese’s direction of this film is a bit jarring at points, and the strangeness of some of the sequences points to an unusualness that is often overlooked in day to day life. Michael Medved ignorantly states that Scorsese is “grossly overrated,” but once again with this film Scorsese shows why he is the best director of his generation. While perhaps not his finest or most thought-provoking picture, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore does succeed in reaching into what American life truly is. It is certainly a classic worthy of watching.
