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Martin Scorsese’s 1985 screwball noir has been rereleased. At the time, and even now, it stands out as a less typical Scorsese film – a project he took on from producer and star Griffin Dunne while his work on Last Temptation of Christ faced delays. Although he may have viewed it as simply “road work” at the time, After Hours has proven to be a more compelling watch. The overtly comedic and farcical elements have faded into the background, leaving behind a sense of unease and tension in a series of unromantic encounters and unnerving coincidences, leading up to a despondent dance to the tune of Peggy Lee’s “Is That All There Is?” This film is like a tall tale with a punchline, but it leaves a lingering, unsettling feeling – not quite a nightmare, but a strange dream that’s hard to shake upon waking.
It is certainly a very 1980s piece of work, and at the time was regarded as part of the “yuppie disaster” genre, about well-off and conceited white-collar New Yorkers in the Reagan bull market years being punished for their smugness by winding up catastrophically in the wrong part of town. After Hours was bracketed with Jonathan Demme’s Something Wild from 1986, and Tom Wolfe’s 1987 page-turner The Bonfire of the Vanities which was dismally filmed by Brian De Palma in 1990.
In the movie, Dunne portrays Paul, a character whose occupation involves teaching office employees in Manhattan how to operate outdated software on their computer terminals. During one of his lessons, a snobbish student makes a flippant comment about not needing to learn this as he plans to leave and establish his own publishing company. Paul is uninterested in this remark, due to both his boredom and his strong desire for a different path in life. Shortly after, Paul is leisurely reading a work by Henry Miller at a cafe and sparks a conversation with Marcy, an intriguing woman seated nearby, played by Rosanna Arquette.
Marcy invites him to her home, which she shares with Kiki, a sculptor (known as a “sculptress” in the past) played by Linda Fiorentino. They live in a large, bohemian loft apartment, a popular trend in the 1980s, that they can surprisingly afford. While Marcy is temporarily away, Paul playfully gives Kiki a neck massage and reveals a strange childhood memory. As a child, Paul had a tonsillectomy and was placed in a grown-up burn unit, where he had to wear a blindfold to prevent any distress. This memory triggers a series of unusual events in reality that make Paul feel in over his head. These events involve waitress Julie (Teri Garr), ice-cream truck saleswoman Gail (Catherine O’Hara), and melancholic club regular June (Verna Bloom).
One may need a strong will to come to the realization that the ending of the film is not actually a happy one, after the unconventional final scene. Someone has passed away, partially due to Paul’s actions, although he cannot be completely held accountable. However, this deceased individual is quickly forgotten as Scorsese slyly shifts our focus to Paul’s exaggerated sense of victimization. What does this all signify? The surreal unease in the film may draw inspiration from Kafka, a connection that Scorsese himself created, but the pessimism also echoes a somber Viennese caper by Arthur Schnitzler (whose novel, “Traumnovelle,” was adapted to New York by Kubrick as “Eyes Wide Shut”). Overall, a strange and powerful film.
Source: theguardian.com
