This frustrated nightmare-screwball turns Munch’s expressionistic ‘Scream’ into a twitchy and nervous Shriek.
After his passion project, the adaptation of Nikos Kazantzakis’ controversial The Last Temptation of Christ, was dropped at the last moment during the early 80’s, director Martin Scorsese had to re-adjust his focus. His next project needed to be small in size, but big in ambition. The result is After Hours, a somewhat forgotten Scorsese masterpiece that sadly has disappeared into the back of the drawer of history for most, but one that feels as fresh and surprising an entry to the cinematic juggernaut’s back catalogue as when it came out.
After Hours follows Paul Hackett, a bored computer word processor, played with a nervous, twitchy energy by Griffin Dunne. After a dull day on the job, he meets an elusive 'Hitchcockian blonde' called Marcy, played by Rosanne Arquette. Paul tries to impress Marcy and the two plan to meet up later that night. You see, Paul wants to “buy a plaster-of-Paris, bagel-shaped paperweight”, he says, as made by Marcy’s artist roommate Kiki – but all he really wants is to have a date with Marcy. In the cab ride over, Paul’s only money, a single 20-dollar bill, flies out the window. He is now stuck in SoHo. All he wants to do is go on a date. And that is why he must die?
This bizarre premise works wonders on the screen, better than the page could ever allow for, a testament to the dedication of its cast and crew. The film is a directorial tour-de-force of Scorsese, who with the help of auteur-editor Thelma Schoonmaker, creates a deranged nightmare-landscape in an unrelenting 97 minutes. Combining elements of the screwball comedy with film noir, Scorsese and his crew drive the plot at a 100 miles p/h through the streets of night-time Soho, never breaking, and never boring, on the brink of exhausting. As Scorsese remarked in a 1988 interview: “I had to get myself back in shape. Work out. And this was working out.” One might crave a protein-shake after viewing.
Howard Shore’s score adds a layer of nervous energy to the mix, relying on an insistent ticking of clocks combined with synthesizers that gradually permeate the air of SoHo, turning it into a swamp for Paul to wade through. But as with most Scorsese flicks, it’s the soundtrack that wins the day. It starts and ends with Mozart, ranges from Bach’s Air on the G-string – used in a surprisingly uncomfortable and unsoothing way – to Joni Mitchell and the Monkees, before moving on to the hardcore punk of Bad Brains Pay to Cum and Peggy Lee’s gleefully mourning Is That All There Is? – and any film using Bad Brains by default is fine by me. It is perhaps his most wide-ranging yet carefully executed use of soundtrack to date.
I discovered this film during one of the covid lockdowns and was struck by how it contradicted my situation. Paul is stuck in the nightlife of a never sleeping city, pulled and pushed back and forth by an enticing woman, chased by angry mobs, fleeing from club to club, hoping that once, just once, he is finally allowed to go home and rest. Meanwhile, I was stuck at home only wishing I could be as overstimulated as him. But I still shared a sense of his frustration, as some of Paul’s escapades ring just a little too true in their frighteningly funny way – especially his will they, won’t they kiss failures when Paul finally manages to be alone with Marcy in her room, seated on her bed – good grief.
And that’s exactly where Scorsese finds humour. He manages to channel his frustration and annoyance with the film industry by turning it into an insidious joke. When Paul meets Marcy’s roommate Kiki and sees the artwork she’s working on, he says: “It reminds me of that Edvard Munch painting. Was it the, eh, ‘The Shriek’?” “The Scream”, Kiki replies. You see, we don’t laugh really at Paul’s situation, as much as do these Muchian shrieks with him, each joke followed by the inevitable loosening of the collar, opening up another button, as nervous sweat forms on the forehead. After Hours manages to place us inside the head of its protagonist, whose skittish shrieks sound more and more like desperate cries with each passing minute. The film can feel like a nightmare cycle in the best way, comparable to Lawrence of Arabia as a ‘film without an end’, though considerably shorter. Its bravado and verve are contagious, and its sense of pressing paranoia is all too relatable. It doesn't lecture nor have a clear point. It’s film-making for film-making’s sake. And it just might be Scorsese’s best film for it.
5/5 stars
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