THE AGE OF INNOCENCE

Edith Wharton called it an age of innocence, a time when social constructs and expectations superseded individual wants and desires. The phrase was ironic because the basic human instincts remained: lust, greed, and selfishness. But they were hidden amongst a strict social code that everyone adhered to but no one read or was taught. Each member of this society learned the code through experience and patience. Hand gestures, facial expressions, choice of clothing, house decor, and dinner menus were all important. The slightest behavioral anomaly was admonished by society. It wasn't simply unacceptable; it was dangerous to the stability of their way of life.

Newland Archer lives in this world. It is the 1870s in growing New York City. We see houses of Victorian splendor, wardrobes of luxury, and facial expressions of precise choice. All spoken words are particular and thought out. Nothing is said or done without a strict interpretation of this society's code. And Archer appears to live comfortably in this world. He has asked May Welland for her hand in marriage. The engagement is accepted and celebrated by both families. There is not love between the two, but there is fondness. Archer and May say they love each other, but there is a sense of family loyalty. The families are marrying, not the couple. Marriage was about keeping the society going, a self-preservation of life hidden under layers of public expectations.

Archer then meets one of May's cousins at an opera. Her name is Ellen Olenska, and she has the most troubling of reputations. She has made two particularly bad choices. She first married a man outside of the society and moved to Europe. She then separated from him and returned to New York City. Her unacceptance was not spoken of but was instead observed through a silent neglect. Invitations to a dinner were ignored. Conversations were even more purposely chosen to glorify a more accepted "member's" successes while quietly scorning her failures.

Archer is taken with the countess. He admires and soon adores her independent thought. Olenska is clearly a deviant of sorts. She remains a member of the society, but she is bold enough to tell Archer of her troubles with it. She is a free thinker and acts upon such thoughts and feelings. He soon begins to peel off the layers of social behavior. Their love is rarely spoken of but immediately observable. Simple stares or choice words are all that is necessary to reveal this mutual love. What is interesting is that this love continues to feature many of the social mannerisms as anything else even though it would be so richly abhorred by the rest of their society.

As their love continues to grow, we begin to see the layers of resentment and horror peel off the others. May, who at first glance appears to be somewhat aloof and ignorant of their love, is instead fully aware of the love between Archer and Olenska. Her actions, premeditated and intelligently crafted, congeal with the other members of her family and her neighbors to separate the two of them. The methods are cold and unflinching. Furthermore, they are never spoken of. Everything is done in secret, behind closed doors. The code is at work here through an instinctive defense. Dinners are prepared, well-timed revelations are spread through the neighborhood, and all Archer and Olenska can do is to react in the interests of their society.

The Age of Innocence is a story about choosing society over individualism. It is a story of unrequited and forbidden love. The most poignant of love stories immerse themselves in selflessness and despair. The most maddening and heartfelt love stories are those that focus on the interdependence, the mutual need, and the dreaded threat of loss. Director Martin Scorsese is aware of these facts and carefully crafts this wonderful film around these constructs.

If After Hours is Scorsese's forgotten masterpiece, The Age of Innocence is Scorsese's neglected one. Countless critics revere the film as one of his most brilliant. But the story never caught on with the public at large. When watching the film, it is not surprising. The society Scorsese presents doesn't equate in any way with the society we now live in, one glorifying the individual desires and passions over the societal needs. Scorsese's sophisticated, careful presentation of each social event and conversation was probably too much for an impatient present public to take. Too bad. This is a film of genius observation and remarkable social commentary.

The Age of Innocence is told with a silent but powerful message. The quiet, rigorous society of facades and empty rituals and expectations is just as brutal as the mean streets of a pathologically "individual" society emanating throughout the globe today. Both social constructs contradict the simple human instincts running our emotions and motives. A society cannot be an exaggeration of itself or of individualism. Because at the heart of each type is the loss of the true human desires of happiness and love.

As May's plans to foil Archer's and Olenska's plans to fall in love and move away are revealed, we see Scorsese's purpose at work. Olenska moves away, back to Europe, only revealed to Archer through a string of social events and gestures that place him in a helpless turmoil. He lives on with May, has children, and lives through the society's strict codes. May dies several years later, long after Olenska has left. Archer's children have grown up. One of his children wants Archer to go to Europe. He wants Archer to see Olenska. Archer has never told his son the story and has not seen Olenska since her departure to Europe the many years before.

And as they wait outside to go up to Olenska, Newland sits on the bench and tells his son to go up without him. His son is incredulous and does not understand the decision. Newland tells his son, "Tell her I'm old-fashioned." So he goes up. The camera sits on Newland, his face full of regret, despair, and resignation. He then gets up and walks away. The scene is a master stroke, one of the greatest in all of film. Never has unfulfilled love seemed so tragic. Newland chose society and not himself, and he lost everything because of it. But even now, he remains tied to his societal norms. He has never escaped it.

The acting in the film is superb. Daniel Day-Lewis plays Newland Archer with reserve, with his character's urges squirming under the surface. Michelle Pfeiffer plays Olenska with a bemused anguish. She gives the countess an air of rebellious scorn of the society she stills clings to. And Winona Ryder plays May at first with one-dimensionalness, only slowly revealing her true intelligence and complexity. These performances must be pitch-perfect because the tone of the movie would fall apart without the nuances the characters require.

And Scorsese's direction is brilliant. His restless camera here has a stubborn patience, with very slow continuous motion in the cinematography. Each scene feels like a curiosity, almost like a person stretching his/her neck in to hear the secret one is telling another. Scorsese also employs theatrical lights, colors, and sounds to emphasize scenes of particular importance, especially when an individual's choice is made in the rigid facade of the social codes the film demands. Scorsese's attention to detail here is astonishing.

I have seen this film many times. I like it more each time. It is perhaps Scorsese's greatest work. Each of his films is a meditation on individual desires in surroundings that do not allow for them. Never has it felt so demanding, so painfully tragic, so excruciatingly poignant as in this film. When I look at Newland walking away from that bench, walking away once again from Olenska and the life he really wanted, I remember a line he uttered earlier in the film: "You gave me my first glimpse of a real life. Then you asked me to go on with the false one. No one can endure that." And I remember that Olenska was the only one who ever had the decency to ask him to.

AFTER HOURS

There is a moment in this film when it is understood that the events of poor Paul Hackett's bad night become both hysterical and nightmarish. Paul returns to Marcy's apartment to find her dead. She dies of an apparent suicide. Paul is astonished. Why did she do it? Maybe he believes he is somehow responsible. After all, he did desert her just hours earlier. And yet, as the great Martin Scorsese illustrates, maybe Paul is responsible in an entirely different way. Perhaps it is his abnormal normalcy in a city of thorough peculiarity that results in this disastrous single night.

This is Martin Scorsese's most underrated film. It is so, I suspect, because it is a stark contrast to his many popular, great features (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, GoodFellas, The Departed). At least, it appears to be. But if one watches the film closely, there are many striking similarities. For one, Scorsese paints Manhattan as the surface of hell, with the steamy manholes, the wet and worn pavement, the nearly excruciating night. At the center is a character striving for some sort of grandeur, much like Jake La Motta or Travis Bickle.

Paul Hackett is a word processor. He has the most normal job you can think of, and its mundaneness is simply illustrated by an up-and-coming employer (played by Bronson Pinchot). There is such promise in his voice, but Paul Hackett has a reserved sense of indifference. Maybe even failure. He goes to a diner after work. He's alone, reading a book. It is hard not to wonder if this is a ritual to him. Day after day of work and nothing thereafter.

This night is different, though, because he is approached by a woman named Marcy (Rosanna Arquette). They chit-chat about nothing in particular, but there is an uncomfortable spark between the two. She gives him her number and leaves. He returns home after a while and gets the nerve to call her. Well, actually her roommate, who sells a needless product. The roommate gives the phone to Marcy. They again hit it off, and she asks him to come over to her place.

There is a build-up here that at the time is hard to see. There is an expectation of humor or drama that refuses to show itself. This is part of Scorsese's mastery. He refuses to stoop to cheap tricks or predictable plot devices. It's a clever build-up of suspense. There are many times in the film where I go, "Oh, don't do that..." or "Oh, no..." and nothing happens. Well, nothing particularly bad or hilarious happens. Just events that, one by one, begin to build up to one comedic calamity.

Paul takes a cab to Marcy's. Strangely, he only brings a twenty. He didn't really think about it at the time. And he loses it through the open window of the taxi. When the driver stops at Marcy's, Paul tries to explain how he has no money. And what happens? The taxi driver speeds off angrily. No melodramatic violence or spoken spiteful joke. Just a normal reaction.

But there is an exaggeration to the realistic behavior that slowly becomes more and more obvious. Marcy's roommate Kiki (Linda Fiorentino), it appears, has characteristics that suggest she is a masochist with strange sexual desires. Marcy describes a rape to Paul on their first date in a completely subdued, twisted manner. She also appears to have a craving for gross imagery, given her strange books. Paul understandably leaves.

So Paul enters a local bar, where he meets the bartender (John Heard) and a waitress (Teri Garr). Garr is especially terrific in this film; she gives her character a sense of dejection and anguish that makes her character a source of a strange mixture of comedy and terror. Meanwhile, John Heard plays the bartender like a beaten civilian who has probably seen so much that he has become a withdrawn observer. He seems cordial but paranoid, trusting yet cautious.

The waitress hates her job and asks Paul for help. The bartender is worried he left his apartment open for burglars to take advantage. He asks Paul for help. Paul does. But then Paul is accused by his neighbors of being the serial burglar in the neighborhood. Paul tries to help the waitress, but he quickly learns she is a lost cause. He returns to Marcy's only to find her dead. Scorsese is pouring it on now. His subtle beginnings give the film the exact momentum necessary to lead to a series of more outrageous, almost unbelievable events.

After Hours becomes almost operatic thereafter. Scenes involving a posse led by an obsessively paranoid woman with an ice cream truck, a strange artist and architect who literally encases Paul in her latest work, a near razor-balding experience at a party, and a strange cat-and-mouse game with keys lead to the film's ultimate conclusion: dawn. The film ends with a return to normalcy and another day at work, as if the craziness knows when the sun rises.

There are three directorial touches that make this film such a success. The first is casting. Griffin Dunne is wisely cast as the victim of this endless charade. Dunne is not very well known in the acting world. Fans of Frasier will recognize him as the man with the squeaky wheelchair. Dunne plays the part without one eccentricity or oddity; he straight-shoots the role. He emphasizes the normalcy to accentuate everyone else's outlandishness. Scorsese wisely supplies these roles with quirky comedians: Rosanna Arquette, Catherine O'Hara, Teri Garr, etc. And he gives these talented supporting players such unique roles. Each character is an exaggeration in outrageousness, but all are supplied quirks and individual character flaws that make them inexplicably real.

The second is a visual complement to the proceedings. Manhattan seems like a cold, empty hell with scenes of empty streets, run-down buildings, rust and dirt clinging to buildings. Scorsese also gives scenes distinctive monochromatic enhancements: the orange of Marcy's room, the bright yellow shirt Teri Garr's character wears, the bright lights of the ice cream truck. Scorsese also employs his famous constantly moving camera, which at times supplies even more tension to a scene. He is a visual director. Often his vision sustains and amplifies the story's tone. After Hours is one of his best examples of this at work.

The third directorial touch is his sophisticated labyrinthine method of storytelling. The film was written by Joseph Minion, who confidently and assuredly gives the proceedings a voice and a brain. Each character is a complex manifestation; each scene is absolutely necessary. The film is taut and concise. When no dialogue is necessary, none is supplied. Scorsese cleverly emphasizes a particularly important moment with sound, not with dialogue. Consider the hilariously innocent bells of the ice cream truck or the simple ring of the phone. He also connects scenes with sight and sound. I found it interesting that Teri Garr and Catherine O'Hara were wearing the same color of shirt. Note how characters who disappear from the movie at one point are cleverly re-introduced later on. There is a connection to the proceedings, but never does it feel forced. Instead, it feels necessary. Without it, there would be no explanation for the chain of impossibly bad events happening to poor Paul Hackett.

I first watched After Hours with a fellow film buff. He said after watching it that the movie was great because the film was so original for a premise so overused. I agree. The bad luck story has been used many times before and since, but there is no film like After Hours. And there never will be again. No genre fits the classification; no situational piece has ever been so precisely formulated. The familiarity, or perhaps simplicity, of the film's premise is its only unoriginal characteristic. What Scorsese has done is remarkable. He used a simple concept, created a complex world, and controlled it with a simple set of rules. The question and answer to complexity is simplicity. Brilliant.