Film Review: A Study on "Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore" (1974) - [Essay #2 - Jan 2021]

The Voice of Monterey: A Study on "Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore"

*Super Spoilers*

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“She went to shit and the hogs ate her!” - Flo

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Table of Contents:

1. Summary

2. Production History

3. Script

4. Acting

5. Wardrobe & Makeup

6. Art Direction

7. Cinematography

8.     Editing

9. Sound

10. Conclusion

*Reading time approx: 15 minutes 30 Seconds

*Published January 16, 2021

*Watch the Film

*Listen to Soundtrack

*Listen to Essay

*Featured on IMDB

*Written by Bolivar T. Caceres                   

*Edited by Ricardo Esposito 

"New beginnings are risky. What's around the corner can occasionally be the incident that causes distress."

New beginnings are seldom twilit scenes on rural farmlands. They are often dangerous and treacherous, tomorrow uncertain. Putting yourself out there, traveling the road alone, is terrifying, but those who stick it through eventually experience undefinable liberation. Ellen Burstyn, Martin Scorsese, and their team deliver a raw film that portrays the difficulties on the onset of a new journey in the 1974 film Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. So, godspeed, Alice, godspeed!

                             

 

Summary:

A solitary eight-year-old Alice Wyatt skips down a familiar path, singing Alice Faye's "You'll Never Know', occasionally speaking to her doll. She walks by a single house, and through the front window, the audience sees Alice's future, a servile woman. The over-stylized rural landscape -- reminiscent of the Wizard of Oz -- seems in flames as if Alice lives in the center of perpetual fire. She highlights her confidence, her freedom with sudden impassioned curses. 

Twenty-seven years later, the film transports the audience inside that Kansasian house. In Socorro, New Mexico, Alice sews, mouthing her son's favorite rock music; Tommy lays between two speakers. Her truck-driver husband, reading a newspaper, yells his frustration at the loud noise, which reveals and begins the story's tragedy: Alice no longer has confidence, freedom, and her voice is someone else's. She's a servant to the man she loves. To please David, she cooks him a meal he's unwilling to appreciate, forcing Alice to hold a conversation with herself at the dinner table. Weird! 

After her husband's sudden death, she realizes her dependency on men left her dream suppressed. Traveling on the road with her son, who acts as her husband and confidant, she awakens her dream: to be better than Alice Faye and return to Monterey, California, to sing. As in life, nothing ever turns out as one wishes. 

In Phoenix, although Alice finally finds a bar owner to allow her to sing -- not without giving all of herself -- she finds a more assaultive man than Donald; Ben's violence is terrifying. With her lucky cap, she flees to Tucson, lands a job as a waitress, and finds love with a rancher, David. -- But this relationship is in trouble until Alice stands up for herself and her dream by finally speaking up to a man, to David. Before the credits, Alice and Tommy walk towards a Monterey sign in Tucson. Here, Alice is closer to her 8-year-old self than at the beginning of the film.

 

Production History:

Ellen Burstyn and Martin Scorsese's unique performances in their 1973 films, The Exorcist and Mean Streets, respectively, spurs studios to bid for these experts' creativity to tell seemingly trite narratives. During the shooting of The Exorcist, Warner Brothers present Burstyn with Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. She accepts the opportunity to tell an honest story about the modern woman's struggle. However, it's sad to note Burstyn wasn't Warner Brothers' first choice -- Shirley Maclaine, Diane Ross -- but life has a way of working out, as the film's narrative wishes to illuminate. It is the same for the director's seat: Coppola before Scorsese. With full creative control, Burstyn hesitates to work with a director known for directing men in harsh films. "What do you know about women?" She asks him. "Not much, but I'm hoping to learn." 

Script:

Robert Getchell is the screenwriter for this passionate character-driven screenplay. With the help of Burstyn and Scorsese, he takes the familiar road-trip movie tropes and gives it life by making it about a single mother running away from her troubles, trying desperately to find peace of mind and a little love -- no side order of pain, please. It's much more than this; it's about the human plight to be so free that there's no self-doubt. In the end, the labels of being a mother, a waitress, a Monterey singer, and a devoted lover no longer define Alice; she is content with being in Tuscon with her son with the prospects of a happy tomorrow. 

What makes this story so raw yet so sincere is how the screenplay grows after Scorsese's onboarding. Scorsese, new to this subject matter, takes two approaches. He allows for a great deal of improvisation, and two, daily, he sends edits for the next day's scenes to Getchell. Screenwriters seldom collaborate with the filmmakers after the completion of the purchased piece. It is this involvement that encourages this spontaneity that makes Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore life-like.

 

Acting:

In filmmaking, improvisation and experimentation encourage freedom of creativity that develops memorable character quirks. They're the primary reasons the uncredited casting team chooses Alfred Luther II to play Tommy after three hundred auditions. These approaches to acting result in a candidness unique to every actor and film. For the characters in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, it shows that quirks form to ease the burdens in their day-to-day life through their trauma and low spirits. It also displays each character's alterations on their journey.

 

Tommy, forced to leave home, tells his unstructured joke — "On the nuts! That's the punch line of the joke. "— to his only companion, his tired mother. It's the best joke throughout the film that one never quite understands until his mother (and then David) diverts his attention to the guitar. Like Alice, music becomes his passion. 

    Burstyn layers Alice with quirks. One, in particular, dissipates as she unearths her voice. In the presence of her lovers, under stress and pressure, awash with dread, Alice speaks to herself. Similar to when she strolls down the path, talking to her doll, in her youth. By the end of the film, she has enough confidence to declare her self-discovery loudly against David in a full restaurant. 

Other characters act the same. Flo uses ribaldry to cope with unrequited love and unwelcome attention, which ends up breaking Alice's barrier. Vera is a complete mess, but her devotion to reading makes a friend in Tommy. Although teary-eyed, Bea chomps on gum like a cool guy, watching her best friend drive off. Although Moe appears inflexible, he defends every one of his waitress's eccentricities like family. Even Jodie Foster, as Aubrey, has her "ripple" -- a distilled, carbonated table wine -- to lure a companion; in the end, ripple isn't necessary to make a connection with Tommy. "I don't think she's mature. I think she's nice!" Tommy defends Aubrey's openness. 

However, all of Alice's lovers are flat. Some are angry, irrational men. David's difference, save his ranch and horrible taste in music, is that he isn't too much like the men before him; he is willing to step back to allow Alice to shine. 

Wardrobe & Makeup:

Lucia De Martino and Lamber Mark's wardrobe and makeup exemplify Alice's place in her life, as well as her dreams. Just like her, its initial sense changes. While she sings in her fiery fairy tale, her dress is prim and proper. In the opening scene's lurid overproduction, Alice lives her dream of being a Hollywood voice. And confound it! She will be better than those before her! 

-- But at thirty-five years old, she's no longer living her dream. She wears a floral white house dress, and her makeup is bland. Although she has a subtle beauty behind her weary eyes, there's no more of that Hollywood-like piquancy. Her closest association to glamour is when her best friend Bea fits her for a horrid orange day dress. She clings to the idea that one day she may live her dream. Before she does, she must experience loss: leaving Socorro, wearing jeans, a shirt, bandana, and Bea's "lucky" hat.

In Phoenix, Alice earns a bar job, singing. She purchases showy cocktail dresses; her makeup is colorful. Alice feels closer to her dream than ever before. Soon, the glamour reveals to be no less dangerous than her life with Donald, when the married Ben threatens her to keep their relationship going if she enjoys her pretty face bruiseless. Frightened for her life, she's on the road back in her jeans, shirt, bandana, and lucky hat. 

When she arrives in Tucson, still longing for Monterey, her dream unshattered, she dolls herself up one last time. She finds employment at Mel and Ruby's cafe as a waitress. Her wardrobe is either her waitress uniform in the film's final act -- an apron dress -- or leisurewear -- jeans and a shirt or blouse. Her makeup is tasteful. She realizes that her dream might be far from glamorous and that she might not return to Monterey. Nevertheless, she doesn't give up her ambition to express herself, her wardrobe representing her independence and resilience. 

 

 

Cinematography:

New beginnings are risky. What's around the corner can occasionally be the incident that causes distress. Burstyn and Warner's Brothers' search to create a sincere and raw portrayal of these dangers leads them to cinematographer Kent L.Wakeford. He's familiar with Scorsese's gritty, artsy style, shooting Mean Streets in 1973. Wakeford and Scorsese's collaboration within the studio's standards creates something so unlike any Scorsese film. They keep Scorsese's preference for creative, flowy camera movement at a minimum with the studio's by-the-book static shots, without losing Scorsese's signature fondness for cinematic composition. 

A scene in the second act of the film showcases this blend beautifully. While performing Allie Wrubel's Gone with the Wind for the patrons at the bar enclosing her, the camera glides around her, the bar, around her prospective employer -- employing tracking shots -- but it never stops for a character's reflective glance or because here a static medium-long shot is standard. Oh! No close-up on the hands, please!

    Instead, Wakeford shoots a mixture of static shots alongside this performance. In post-production, Marcia Lucas sandwiches the tracking shots around these still camera segments. The previous scene cuts are in the standard reverse two-shot sequence. It's this blend, this consciousness to make the performance authentic, that personifies the emotional uncertainty the character feels on her journey; it's what the audience ends up feeling: the struggle between being yourself against some bossy personage, against standards. 

 

Editing:

The viewer forgets they're watching a movie. Although there are noticeable goofs, Marcia Lucas's editing blends the studio's guidelines, Scorsese's methodology, and Burstyn's characterizations in a compassionate film that seats the audience in the back of Alice's station wagon, rooting for her success. Not an easy task indeed, especially working with off-the-cuff takes. 

In the film's final act, a hopeless Alice confides in Flo in a bathroom stall about her troubles with David. During a UCTV interview, Actress Diane Ludd, Flo, divulges that this scene's takes are reshoots unauthorized by the studio, quick and spontaneous, raw and handheld.

Wakeford's wobbly handheld shot adds to the uncertainty in Alice's despair. Alice breaks down beside Flo in the middle of a shift. They run out of Moe's to the stall, in one long shaky handheld tracking shot, reminiscent of low-budget student films. It brings the audience right into Alice's emotion. It makes the moment severe.

Then, when the ladies are in the bathroom, Lucas manages to take these improvisational takes -- handheld shots -- mixed with the original takes -- reverse two-shots -- to construct a scene that personifies Alice's and the cast and crew's dilemma: should they follow the standards that made the old classic, or should they find liberation through self-expression, make their way. For the film industry, this mixture of following the establishment and random whims becomes a prevalent trend after the early 1970s. For Alice, a promising future and romance reward her risk for personal growth and self-expression. 

 

Sound:

Music plays as more than a background adhesiveness in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. It's also the feature that supports the story's progression and Alice's journey. It brings you closer to Alice's state of mind and character. The film opens up with "You never know," and all Alice wants in the entire world is to be a famous singer. After Donald's death, She wants to return to Monterey to sing, to recover her passions. 

Before she and Tommy leave Socorro, Tommy kicks the dirt hopelessly, hearing his mother struggle to sing Gone with the Wind. However, in Phoenix, the audience witnesses a brief snapshot of her promising career when she's a bar singer. Her voice isn't a Diana Ross, but it's nice: a little rough, a little soothing, perfect for a lounge. Alice's love for music affects her son. Tommy listens to rock music when the audience first meets him; later, he learns guitar; and at the end of the film, he comments, "Yeah, I like him too, I just hate his taste in music. He always said you could fight with somebody and still like him," referring to David. 

Although popular songs play in the background of Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore -- such as "Daniel" by Elton John and "I Will Always Love You" by Dolly Parton -- it's the adding of sound and music as a character trait that not only gives Alice purpose but the film its rhythm. 

 

Conclusion:

Scorsese allowing his team to express themselves, adding their voice and style to the piece, under studio regulations, constructs a film with characters that portray the ups and downs of new beginnings. In the end, although Alice walks towards a different Monterey, there's hope that she will continue to persevere and be happier than before.

Bolivar T. Caceres is a Bronx-based artist and writer. His poems appear on ShortEdition and Ariel Chart. He is also the author of the chapbook Outside My Garret Window, published in 2020. He currently writes for the quarterly film blog Film Studies Quarterly and the news blog New York Positivity. Connect with him on social media @BolivarTCaceres and at www.BtcArt.co.

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