A Martin SCORSESE special...
If you want to understand a director, you should see where he started and how he evolved, that's why I'm going to talk about the first 3 short movies of the great director Martin Scorsese.
- Episode 1:
What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like This (1963)
His first short film student project.
Plot: A writer named Algernon (but called Harry by his friends) buys a picture of a boat on a lake, and his obsession with it renders normal life impossible. He attempts to function again by consulting an analyst and becoming married, but eventually succumbs to his strange anxiety by disappearing into the picture.-IMDB
You can notice from this film, the distinct Scorsese characteristics that will pop out in many of his later features: The narrator, the jovial music, the introduction to the main character's past in the first person, photo montages...
The very contrasted Black and White is definitely a great add to the cinematography, reminding us of the signature Antonioni b&w aesthetic.
One of the weak points of this movie though, is the redundancy, between sound/narrator and image. Although it adds some humour, after a while, it just gets old.
After watching that short, you can't but notice how peaceful and poetic the story is, even the ending can be considered as "happy", something that will rarely happen in Scorsese movies to come.
NEXT
Episode 2: It's Not Just You, Murray! (1964)
Episode 3: The Big Shave (1967)