I really REALLY wasn’t going to write about musicals again today. I just did a full string of musicals from 50s classics through 80s trifles, but this one popped on the television schedule and I just have to talk about it.

I previously covered New York, New York over at The Other Films as an example of movies that are outside the director’s wheelhouse. Though Martin Scorsese is very skilled at using music in every genre, and has even directed a couple of concert films, New York, New York is the only true musical of his career. Today, Scorsese defends it as an experiment about deconstructing the old narratives and exposing their sordid underbelly. And, considering that the theme of the 1970s New Hollywood was deconstructing the old mythologies and examining/exposing the masculine tropes that lie beneath, New York, New York is actually a film of its time.

The experiment of New York, New York was to take the old plot of an up-and-coming starlet who shacks up with a charismatic down-on-his-luck talented star in order to advance her career (think A Star Is Born or Holiday Inn), and see what happens when you turn off the charisma of that musician. Here, Liza Minelli is an up-and-coming singer who shacks up with Robert DeNiro, an alcoholic and abusive saxophonist who has absolutely no charisma or game whatsoever. Though many of the plot points are outright stolen from A Star Is Born, here they play much more disturbingly to the point that the movie could be renamed Spousal Abuse: The Musical!

Scorsese’s technical acumen here is top notch. The opening 25-minutes scene where we wheedle around a club at a USO show is the birth point of the nightclub scenes in Goodfellas. He recreates some gorgeous stagings recreating the romance of the past even as we’re dealing with the trauma of the actual plot. The Kander and Ebb (Chicago, Cabaret) musical numbers are phenomenal, spawning the now-iconic Theme From New York, New York when it was redone by Frank Sinatra in 1980. There’s so much technical skill on display here…

But, that plot. Oy vey. With a run time of 2:43, New York, New York runs even longer than the theatrical cut of A Star Is Born. But, we’re not here to celebrate. Scorsese is shoving misery in our face and wanting us to pick and dissect it. As an experiment, it’s a fascinating experience. As a movie, it’s a humiliating and miserable watch. As it has aged, we can see the value in the dissection of toxic masculinity – we’re hardly meant to empathize with Robert DeNiro even though he’s the “romantic” co-lead – but also the rampant sexism that Scorsese was trafficking in. It’s a conflicting experience and one worth dissecting.

I’m not entirely sure it was an experiment worth conducting in the first place.

New York, New York airs at 7:00pm on MGMHD.