Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #51137 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-08-17
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Dubbed in: French
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 112 minutes

Customer Reviews

Scorsese's most personal film
Just for a change, a Scorsese film not set in New York! This film is such a personal story, it seems quite unlike anything else Scorsese has done. Apart from the outstanding performances he gets from his actors and the sometimes gut-wrenching realism that go with any Scorsese flick, this is a small film about a single mother trying hard to raise her son on her wits, optimism and a tight budget. Ellen Burstyn is totally convincing as Alice, bringing great sincerity and verve to a woman who seems almost beaten down by life, (to say nothing of her boyfriend) at the beginning of the film. Taking responsibility for herself she decides it's time to follow her dream. She packs up her meagre belongings and her kid, and takes off towards Phoenix, Arizona to become a famous singer. The grim reality of life on the road with an almost teenage boy doesn't take long to hit home - around tea time - and it begins to look as if the dull cycle of survival will start all over again. (Incidentally Mel's Diner, where Burstyn's character finds work as a waitress was the setting for an above average spin-off sit-com called 'Alice' with Vic Tayback retaining his role as the grouchy boss. The inimitable Diane Ladd also made an appearance in the series in the early 80s). Harvey Keitel and Jodie Foster both appear, pre-Taxi Driver, and Kris Kristofferson plays Alice's new beau who has a hard time wooing the man-wary Alice. But this is no sappy sentimal romance, it's a real drama about real people who make real mistakes and take life on the chin. This film is engrossing, moving, funny and grossly under-rated.

Mean Deserts
Although a stop-gap movie for Martin Scorsese, 'Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore' proved to be the pinnacle of Ellen Burstyn's career. Her academy award winning performance in this film crosses back and forth between careful tenderness and passionate intensity with intelligent ease. In most of his best work Scorsese encourages the actors in his films to play around with the script and improvise extensively. In 'Alice' he allows Burstyn's instincts about her character to come to the fore in the scene in the kitchen with Kris Kristofferson where she talks of her early showbiz career with her brother. Practically all of the dialogue was improvised by Burstyn herself, so much so that Scorsese had to cut the scene down to 3 minutes from 15! In fact there seems to have been a lot of cutting going on in this film. Alice's husband comes across as a totally unsympathetic character until you realize that much of his more tender scenes with Alice were cut in order to make the film move faster.

And move faster it does, for with Scorsese's deep aversion to static shots and his use of a hand-held camera in the small claustrophobic environments in which Alice and her son are confined, all the characters in this film look deeply unsettled in personality as well as in geography.

Ironically, filming had to be stopped on this movie for a couple of days because Ellen Burstyn had to go to the Oscars as she was nominated for her role in 'The Exorcist' that year. She returned unawarded to the work that would eventually reward her.

Disappointing & over-hyped
I feel like the boy in the story 'The Emperor's New Clothes' daring to shout out that in fact everybody else is praising nothing at all.

I finally watched this film because I was off work sick and had nothing better to do, and really can't understand why it's so famous.

The son is nothing but a precocious, indulged, whining, annoying brat.

The music was dire the first time round, and not something I wanted to re-encounter (Mott the HOOPLE? Marc BOLAN? )

I never cared about what happened to Alice: she was so stupid she decided to drive to Monterey from Socorro, New Mexico, by going in entirely the wrong direction. To go from Phoenix (a day's drive from her home, not much of a slog!) to Monterey via Tuscon is laughably pathetic.

And the ending - what a cop-out - true lurve with a convenient cowboy.

All in all, a life-draining experience. - I'd rather have the 1 hour and 45 mins of my life back, which I could spend doing something more entertaining - like loading the dishwasher.....