Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #22693 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-06-13
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
• Formats: Box set, Dubbed, PAL, Special Edition
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Bulgarian, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Swedish
• Dubbed in: French, Polish, Spanish
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 156 minutes

Synopsis
Martin Scorsese's NEW YORK, NEW YORK is a sparkling, nostalgic look at the big-band era of the 1940s, as well as the MGM musicals of the 1940s and 1950s. The story concerns Jimmy Doyle (Robert De Niro), an aspiring saxophonist who meets and is at first rejected by singer Francine Evans (Liza Minelli). When they continue to bump into each other, a friendship blossoms, followed by romance, and then marriage. All the while, both musicians struggle to succeed at their craft, which begins to put an unbearable strain on their relationship. Eventually, this weight becomes too heavy to handle, leading the couple into a traumatic separation. Scorsese's obvious love for this era of music--as well as cinema--is overflowing throughout the picture, from the set pieces to the costumes to the musical numbers. Most striking is the brutally realistic depiction of a disintegrating marriage, filmed in a series of long, tense takes. De Niro and Minelli jump headlong into their characters, which results in a film that is a challenging viewing experience but emotionally rewarding to the dedicated viewer. As usual, Scorsese's meticulous visual presentation is flawless, as is the film's soundtrack, which recaptures the big-band era with reverence and passion.

Customer Reviews

A Badly Underrated Classic
This Film has long been one of my all time favourites. I was shocked and appaled to find only one [bad] review on amazon!

This is not just Martin Scorsese trying to do a 40s musical as most people seem to expect. It is a deeply disturbing film, with very complex characters. It seems at the start that Robert's harsh, almost mentally unstable, leading man seems too much for Liza's fragile leading lady but as the film goes on both characters evolve. You really do get involved with the lead roles, they're both terrifically acted.

That doesn't mean that musical sequences aren't some of the best I've seen, however. This singing (mainly done by Liza with a few guest apparences here and there) is perfect. Liza was in her prime in this film; she soars on numbers like "The World Goes Round" and "Just You, Just Me"; does a wonderful Peggy Lee impression with "There Goes The Ball Game" and proves she is just as much of a star as her mother in the breathtaking sequence "Happy Endings" (you have to watch the long version to get "Happy Endings", it was cut oringinally). The title song really is amazing and once experienced, Frank's version will never seem the same. (I'm not sure which high notes this other reviewer was criticing her on? her range is actually centered a little higher than her mothers so she seems quite at ease in this film.)

A stunning and very deep film. Greatly missunderstood but worth looking into. The sets are wonderfully exaggerated and the [mostly improvised] acting from the leads is truely brilliant.

Neither masterpiece nor disaster but something inbetween
Considering the chaotic, often drug-fuelled circumstances of its production, New York, New York seems a lot more disciplined and successful than it has any right to be. While there's never once a sense or flavor of New York - this is pure Hollywood all the way - Scorsese's mixture of stylised settings and naturalistic drama goes beyond the traditional happy ending and takes what starts out a standard boy-meets-girl musical plotline into darker emotional territory. It may lose its way towards the and (partially due to the overlong Happy Endings number taking us away from the characters for too long), but it gets a lot more right than it gets wrong, and has a great use of color. It was also interesting to compare the theatrical version and director's cut included on the DVD - surely the easiest restoration ever since Scorsese literally cut two reels and left the rest of the film intact.

The extras from the original laserdisc release are present and correct on a very impressive and comprehensive disc.

Boring, tedious, irritating movie...
This is a terribly boring, gloomy and depressing tedious movie....

This is my second viewing. I actually saw this film some years back on TV, and had put it on my list for future 'wants', as up until then, it had never been released on video - now we know why! I could not understand why I had put it on my wants list - I was simply perplexed, but then when at around half an hour before the end of the movie - it seemed to come alive, I guess that this was the portion I must have seen that had made me want it back then. It's interesting to note also that this was the only part of the film (the last half hour or so) where Robert De Niro did not appear - I found him and his character awful, and was grateful for the respite! I've never really seen any of his other movies, and I guess I don't want to. I read somewhere he's supposed to be one of the greatest actors of our time - I could not figure this one out... He couldn't act (well certainly not in this) and he isn't even attractive; I could not stand his constant chewing gum throughout every scene, and I just found him thoroughly irritating...

This was a poor film for Liza Minnelli; as we all know she is capable of so much better. I thought she sounded more like her mother than she's ever done in the last half hour which belonged to her, and was clearly the best part of the picture. I must be sounding dreadfully over critical here, but I also found the film lacking greatly in any authenticity. It was not convincing of the 1940s era - and if you pay close attention, many of the extras are wearing 1970s hairstyles, and their behaviour is just too modern to be convincing...

The high point to this movie (if the only one) is of course the performance of the title song, but then even that is marred by Liza's inability to reach the top notes (her mother could have done so with ease) I'm hating saying this, as I really love Liza, but simply being honest... : - {

This picture was terrible for me...