Heaven or Hell?
Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese’s
film depictions of 1970’s New York City
David Lee
11.026 Downtown
Spring 2005
On a hot, steamy night in New York City, a lone cab driver cruises through
1970’s Times Square. Through his car windows we see dirty streets, porno theatres,
prostitutes, and drug dealers, amidst the flashy colorful neon lights of the famous square.
“All the animals come out at night - whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies,
dopers, junkies, sick, venal,” gripes the driver. “Someday a real rain will come and wash
all this scum off the streets.” A pulsing, downbeat jazz riff accompanies his monologue
as he encounters all manners of sleaze and lawlessness in his surreal world of urban
decay.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the city, a neurotic New York comedian and a
pretentious Philadelphia intellectual are returning from an opening at the MOMA
(Museum of Modern Art). Still wearing their tuxedo and dress, they discuss their lives
and their analysts in a late night diner, before ending up on a bench by the Hudson River
with a beautiful view of the Queensboro bridge. “Boy, this is really a great city, I don’t
care what anybody says,” gushes the comedian. “Really a knockout, you know?” The
soothing melodies of Gershwin’s “Someone to Watch Over Me” celebrate the coming of
dawn as their relationship begins to flourish.
Are these two scenes really taking place in the same city? For some, 1970’s New
York was the epitome of crime-ridden, dirty, decaying urban cores, ravaged by white
flight and the faltering inner city job market. For others, 1970’s New York was a
romantic and nostalgic place to live, the culmination of America’s intellectual and
cultural achievements. However, many Americans who grew up in the suburbs their
entire lives (including myself) experienced New York City primarily through pop culture,
in television shows and movies. In the rose-colored (or soot-covered) lens of Hollywood
moviemaking, New York City can take on any number of identities, yet often represents
all American cities as well. Thus, any attempt to look at attitudes towards the urban core
historically should take into account the kinds of movies made about iconic cities like
New York and Los Angeles.
In the case of New York City in the 1970’s, two directors are clearly identified
with creating unique and resonant images of that city. One is Woody Allen, a prolific
Manhattan-based filmmaker famous for his intellectual wit and his quintessential New
York Jewish persona. His films are often set and shot in Manhattan, each with a romantic
and nostalgic view of the city. The other is Martin Scorsese, another New York native
with closer ties to his Little Italy home neighborhood. His films are set in all five
boroughs of New York but mostly shot in Hollywood studios, and his most famous
portrayal of New York is the dark and dangerous hellhole of Taxi Driver.
Although Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese are contemporaries of each other, as
well as Francis Ford Coppola, Brian de Palma, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg (the
‘movie brats’ of the 1970’s), their influences and the pictures they paint of New York are
stylistically very different. However, Woody Allen more faithful to reality in his movies
than Scorsese? Does Scorsese have an overly pessimistic view of the American city, or
do his movies suggest a broader perspective on the diverse city? By looking at select
movies from both directors, as well as their contributions to the New York Stories short
movie collection, I hope to illuminate some of the finer points of their depictions of New
York City.
Taxi Driver
Martin Scorsese’s notorious film about a maladjusted taxi driver still provides one
of that decade’s most powerful and lasting images of New York City. Made as a labor of
love during the run-up to producing the bigger budget (but largely unsuccessful) New
York, New York, the movie Taxi Driver was released in 1976, starring Robert De Niro as
Travis Bickle, the titular taxi driver. In the movie, Travis is a shell-shocked Vietnam
veteran struggling to readjust to “normal life” in the big city. He grows increasingly
disillusioned with the crime-ridden neighborhoods through which he drives, and violently
lashes out at both established politicians and street hustlers and pimps. In the ensuing
bloodbath he partly redeems himself by rescuing a child prostitute back to her family.
The opening sequence of Taxi Driver is a hazy, impressionistic view of New York
streets through the eyes of Travis Bickle. Street lamps and red neon lights blur and slide
across the screen, people walk by bathed in red light, and steam rising from the ground
alludes to a place not too far above Hell. This is New York through the eyes of a
druggie, or an insomniac. Periodically we see an extreme close-up of Travis’ eyes, as
different colors of light wash over his face. It reminds us that this scene, and perhaps the
rest of the movie, is a distorted view of the world seen through his eyes.
An impressionistic image of New York from a taxicab windshield in the
opening sequence of Taxi Driver.
Soon after, he is on the streets again, trolling through neighborhoods that more
discerning drivers might avoid. Now we have a better view of the streets, yet with the
exception of one shot of Times Square through the back windshield, we are mostly
disoriented. We see strip clubs, porno theatres, delis, prostitutes, and their patrons, all
glowing with neon colors and fluorescent lights. Everything is damp, in a sort of neverending humid summer night that refuses to completely wash away all the collecting sweat
and dirt and sin. Scorsese remarked, “We shot the film during a very hot summer and
there’s an atmosphere at night that’s like a seeping virus… a strange disease creeps along
the streets of the city… we would slide along after it.”1 Travis experiences this
atmosphere everywhere he goes, and since we are for the most part unable to distinguish
exactly where in New York he is, it starts to feel like all of New York carries that same
atmosphere of lingering vice.
1
Scorsese, Martin. Scorsese on Scorsese. Faber and Faber Limited, London, 1996. p. 54 & 60.
Streets of sin as seen through Travis Bickle’s eyes in Taxi Driver.
Nothing seems naturally lit; we only see a world of neon and green
haze.
Travis is almost always alone, unable to make real friends or interact
constructively with women. For all his freedom (financial independence, a car to drive
anywhere he pleases) he has little control over his life, with a messy apartment and a
solitary nighttime existence. “Loneliness has followed me my whole life,” writes Travis
in his diary. “Everywhere. In bars, in cars, sidewalks, stores, everywhere. There's no
escape. I'm God's lonely man.” Travis is a veteran of war, transported from the steamy
jungles of Vietnam to the urban jungle of New York, but finding it no less treacherous.
The rampant sexuality, violence within the ethnic neighborhoods, and constant wet
atmosphere all contribute to the urban jungle identity.
The buildings we see in Scorsese’s New York are often dilapidated and in need of
repair. Scorsese comments, “When you live in a city, there’s a constant sense that the
buildings are getting old, things are breaking down, the bridges and subways need
repairing. At the same time society is in a state of decay; the police force are not doing
their job… So that sense of frustration goes in swings of the pendulum...”2 In a shot
where Woody Allen might choose to highlight the architecture and charm of an old
building, Scorsese uses its decay to hint at the moral decay of the people around it. The
recurring visual stigma of buildings falling apart around Travis mirrors his own perceived
breakdown and growing need for redemption.
Travis among the broken streets and buildings in Taxi Driver. He is
currently maintaining a clean-cut appearance, which he will abandon
later on.
If New York can be likened to a jungle battleground, the eventual bloodbath when
Travis goes on a shooting spree against criminals takes place in the trenches. The seedy,
dilapidated hotel where he kills the three men controlling Iris (a child prostitute he is
trying to liberate) is full of earth tones, dark reds and black shadows. Travis’ olive jacket
and “savage” haircut fits into this environment, in contrast with the brightly colored
daytime scene where he attempts to assassinate presidential candidate Charles Palantine.
He is chased away by Secret Service agents (the one time you ever see law enforcement
2
Scorsese, Martin. Scorsese on Scorsese. Faber and Faber Limited, London, 1996. p. 60.
in action); in terms of social stratification, he is not welcome to fight at the political level,
but must instead take his vigilante justice to the lower rungs of society. Travis clearly
belongs in the shots of the seedy hotel, but sticks out like a sore thumb in “high society”.
The wounded warrior. Travis Bickle fights evil on shared turf – the
dark, earth-toned, urban jungle – at the conclusion of Taxi Driver.
The surface world.
Travis has little place amongst the ‘normal’
clothing and manner of New York upper-middle-class society in Taxi
Driver.
Manhattan
An obvious Woody Allen movie to start with is Manhattan, one of his most
successful movies to date. Released in 1979 and shot in widescreen black-and-white
format, it is as much a love letter to the island of Manhattan as it is a dramatic comedy
about two couples and their affairs. Manhattan focuses on Isaac Davis (played by
Woody Allen), a New York television comedy writer dating a high school senior, and his
best friend Yale, who is having an affair with Mary. Isaac, Yale and Mary are all welleducated, outspoken and insecure, trying to fulfill their needs for creative self-expression
and love in a city filled with many distractions. In his quest for soul-searching, Isaac
quits his job to write an autobiography, dumps his 17-year old girlfriend Tracy, and
begins dating Mary. Mary, a grating but attractive pseudo-intellectual, leaves her
unfulfilling affair with Yale for a burgeoning romance with Isaac, but ultimately runs
away with Yale. Reassessing his life, Isaac spends time with his son, reunites with
Tracy, and realizes what he has worth living for.
The opening sequence to Manhattan is a montage of shots of city life: the
Manhattan skyline, diners and delis, parades on streets, snow-covered parks, giant ferries,
hotels and museums, stadiums, and Broadway. With George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in
Blue” playing in the background, Isaac narrates the opening chapter of his autobiography.
He attempts several times to begin his chapter with “He adored New York City,” trying
to explain his simultaneous love for the place (self-referentially describing it as “still a
town that existed in black-and-white and pulsated to the great tunes of George
Gershwin”) and disgust for the culture (“the same lack of individual integrity to cause so
many people to take the easy way out”). For all his complaints, however, it is clear that
the montage is dedicated to illustrating his love, not disgust, for New York. Each shot is
synchronized with the Gershwin tune that picks up strongly after Isaac finishes speaking.
All daytime shots are made under clear skies, and nighttime shots are made in the winter,
avoiding the steamy and damp look of streets in favor of clean, snowy parks. Instead of
porno theatres and seedy bars, we see Broadway, Radio City Music Hall, art museums,
and Shakespeare in Central Park. There is only one shot in the montage that could be
considered negative, that of a pile of garbage bags on a sidewalk, but Allen places it next
to a classy hotel with well-dressed patrons. All in all, his presentation of New York is
just as Isaac’s character would have seen it: overly romanticized, localized in Manhattan,
grandiose, upper and middle-class, and consisting mostly of classy old buildings and
cultural institutions.
A typical scene in the opening sequence of Manhattan, taking full
advantage of the bright skyline, Central Park, and romantic imagery.
As the story unfolds, however, we begin to see cracks in this idealized image. A
story like Manhattan could only have taken place in New York City, a city so large that
Yale and Mary can have an extramarital affair and Isaac (who is 42) can date a high
school student. Yale and Mary engage in anonymous trysts in crowded cafes and
department stores like Bloomingdales, and rarely connect beyond sex in hotels and
pseudo-intellectual musings. Their characters can exist because they surround
themselves with like-minded, morally ambiguous phonies, the kind that Isaac encounters
at the Museum of Modern Art. Their problem-filled relationship contrasts with that
between Isaac and Mary, which begins with the beautiful nighttime scene of the
Queensboro Bridge and blossoms during rowboat rides in Central Park and intimate
indoor apartment scenes. When Yale intrudes on their relationship by trying to woo
Mary back, he is seemingly stranded, calling from a pay phone on a busy, noisy street.
For Woody, this outdoor street is as bad as New York gets: loud, impersonal, congested,
and selfish. These are the qualities that Woody distrusts and feels threaten the city the
most. “We have this opulent, relatively well-educated culture,” lamented Woody, “and
yet… we see people lose themselves… because they don’t deal with their sense of
spiritual emptiness.”3
Isaac Davis and Mary share an intimate moment by the Queensboro
bridge, in one of Manhattan’s most memorable and beautiful screen
images. Shots like this “enhance the city’s shapely contours and her
figure.”4
3
Time Magazine. April 30, 1979.
Kruth, Patricia. “The Color of New York”, from Cinema & Architecture: Melies, Mallet-Stevens,
Multimedia. British Film Institute, London, 1997.
4
Surprisingly enough, the nearly scandalous relationship between Isaac and Tracy
(the 17-year old) turns out to be the film’s most genuine. They too celebrate love in ways
only New York can provide; moonlit carriage rides through Central Park, dinners at
authentic pizzerias, and strolls through the Guggenheim Museum. Their romance,
however, is played out in brighter lighting, in well-lit interiors and daytime scenes, with
Tracy seemingly glowing in light-colored outfits. Even their nighttime carriage ride is
extremely illuminated, in contrast with Isaac and Mary’s encounter inside the Hayden
Planetarium where it was dark enough to barely make out silhouettes. Thus, although
Woody Allen shoots on-location, he occasionally alters the setting to match his vision of
how New York should look at that moment.
Isaac talks sweet to Tracy on a carriage ride through Central Park that
even he admits is “so cheesy.” Even at night, Tracy is radiant thanks
to some creative lighting.
In the end, Isaac reaches the conclusion that he really belongs with Tracy, and
runs off to her apartment to meet her. Here we are treated with a humorous tracking shot
of an out-of-shape Isaac jogging past parks and crowded streets to get to Tracy’s posh
apartment. This perhaps refers to a similar shot from an earlier, more romantic movie
ending in Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), when Holly Golightly chases after the man she
mistakenly rejected down a rainy New York street. Granted, in terms of desirability Isaac
Davis is no Audrey Hepburn, but the idea remains the same; after realizing their faults,
they must ‘rush for love’5 in order to save their relationships. In Isaac’s case, running
through his beloved New York gives him the confidence to face up to his mistakes and
win back Tracy, a confidence recognizable in the bouncing Gershwin march that plays as
he runs.
Audrey Hepburn and Woody Allen both make the ‘rush for love’
through crowded New York streets. Manhattan pays homage to (while
poking some fun at) Breakfast at Tiffany’s overly romantic happy
ending.
5
Fox, Julian. Woody: movies from Manhattan. The Overlook Press, New York, 1996. p. 114
New York Stories
In 1986, Woody Allen approached Martin Scorsese about making an episode film,
with three separate short films released collectively as New York Stories. The trio of
directors would be Woody, Scorsese, and Steven Spielberg, who was later replaced by
Francis Ford Coppola. Each director would make his own film, and not meet with the
other two until opening night. It was under these curious auspices that Woody Allen and
Martin Scorsese became co-directors for a single “movie” set in New York City.
Scorsese’s portion is titled “Life Lessons”, and centers on the professional and
emotional breakup between a middle-aged male artist named Lionel and his young (early
twenties) female assistant, Paulette. Faced with Paulette’s decision to leave the studio for
younger men and a more traditional education, Lionel begs her to stay, professing to love
her and feeding off the pain of rejection to produce his own art. Paulette finally makes
her exit just as Lionel finishes his upcoming art show, and he finds another
impressionable young female to take on as lover and apprentice.
Like other Scorsese films, “Life Lessons” shows little of recognizable outdoor
New York, concentrating on Lionel and Paulette in the studio and at various events. One
particularly interesting scene takes place in an abandoned and redecorated subway
station, where a young hip performance artist plays up an equally young and hip art
crowd. This contrasts with the upper class, formal events which Lionel frequents.
However, the problems of these diametrically opposed art communities (the hip and edgy
versus the academic and established) are the same: a predisposition to cheap
showmanship and womanizing. Both Lionel and the performance artist who Paulette
lusts for use vulgar jokes to entertain their fan base, and both use Paulette for sex and
ignore her personality. We saw this theme earlier in Taxi Driver, manifesting itself as a
political community and a prostitution ring with the same problems of dishonesty but
distinguished by socioeconomic class.
Above, the young ‘underground’ performance artist delights a crowd of
hipsters, while below, Lionel’s show is a success and attracts more
impressionable, young, out-of-town aspiring artists into Lionel’s
predatory fold. Both shots from “Life Lessons”, part 1 of New York
Stories.
Woody’s portion is aptly titled “Oedipus Wrecks”, as it expands on the character
of his overbearing mother whom he refers to in other movies (notably in Manhattan,
when he mentions her in passing as the “castrating Zionist”). Woody’s character,
Sheldon, is practically terrorized by his domineering mother, who mysteriously
disappears. At first panicked about his mother’s disappearance, Sheldon quickly realizes
he is much happier in her absence, but is again mortified when her face appears hovering
over the Manhattan skyline. Faced with the nightmare of having his mother embarrass
him in front of all of New York with baby pictures and stories of his childhood, he tries
vainly to exorcise her from the sky, but eventually finds that simply listening to his
mother solves most of his problems.
Woody again presents New York with flattering shots of the skyline, against
which Sheldon’s current romance with his fiancé will thrive. His mother’s face,
however, shatters the fantasy and installs itself as part of the skyline. The resulting New
York is a nightmare for the self-conscious Sheldon, where his anonymity is compromised
and every pedestrian knows his name and his embarrassing secrets. This is a New York
that has gone awry, but, as in Manhattan, its problems are psychoanalytical rather than
social or moral.
Above: Woody’s ideal skyline
transforms from the “city as a
woman” ideal to the “city as a
“mother”.
Left: Every New Yorker he
encounters has something
smarmy to say about his
predicament.
Conclusion
It would be presumptuous to assume that Taxi Driver represents a complete view
of New York City. Dark and gritty, its foundations are rooted in the very real problems
of post-Vietnam readjustment and the historical forces that caused the urban core to
decline economically and socially. Yet, it is also largely an impressionistic movie,
primarily seeking to convey the loneliness and paranoia of one man caught in between
two worlds he cannot comprehend and does not approve. Rejected from the culture of
the political elite, he looks with suspicion on places like Brooklyn and midtown
Manhattan over which he can claim moral superiority. Thematically, this links with
“Life Lessons” from New York Stories, which similarly dramatizes the experience of one
man feeding off of rejection in his personal world and in turn rejecting the young hipster
culture of the (literally) underground. In both cases, Scorsese presents New York as a
city of social stratification is responsible for cultivating these intense personalities, the
destructive behavior of Travis Bickle and the constructive artwork of Lionel Dobie.
It would also be wrong to assume that Woody Allen presents the most realistic
view of New York City in the 1970’s. Manhattan presents an idealized version of New
York, one that uses real locations and pays homage to the cultural history of the city, but
also one that is selective of the geography it conveys. “I presented a view of the city as
I’d like it to be and as it can be today, if you take the trouble to walk on the right streets,”
says Woody6. The message we draw from Manhattan and “Oedipus Wrecks” is clear.
New York City has the potential to be the greatest city on Earth, the most romantic,
elegant, intellectually stimulating, and architecturally charming, but it all depends on the
attitude of the individual. One who takes advantage of all the city has to offer (as Isaac
6
Fox, Julian. Woody: movies from Manhattan. The Overlook Press, New York, 1996. p. 109
Davis did in Manhattan) and learns to live with its faults (such as a ‘castrating Zionist’
mother hovering in the Manhattan skyline) will ultimately find happiness and perhaps
love in that crazy city. And perhaps for Woody, ‘crazy’ is not necessarily any form of
insult.