American Boy: A Profile of - Steven Prince

American Boy: A Profile of Steven Prince (1978)

*** (out of 4)

Sandwiched between New York, New York and The Last Waltz, director Martin Scorsese decided to make a short documentary on the life of Steven Prince. Don't know who Prince is? He's not wildly known but fans of Scorsese will recognize him as the gun salesman from Taxi Driver. Scorsese just puts the camera on Prince and lets him tell a variety of stories ranging from his heroin use to his early days growing up in New York with his parents. Scorsese is often times in the camera frame just listening, having fun and constantly laughing at the stories being told. This is a rather hard film to judge but it does only run 55-minutes so at least it doesn't go on too long. It's hard to judge because Prince is such a strange character that you can't help but keep watching him just to see what he's going to say next but at the same time I must admit that I didn't care too much for him. He certainly knows how to tell a story as his body movements are always moving along with the stories but I wondered how much of this was due to drugs. There's not too much visual style going on as Scorsese just keeps the camera on Prince and lets him do his thing. The interviews are well constructed but again, this is for fans of Scorsese who must see everything he's done. The film has gained a lot of attention over the past several years since Prince tells a story about an adrenaline shot that was pretty much lifted word for word by Tarantino in Pulp Fiction.

From the start of this hour-length documentary/interview/candid profile on road manager and sometimes actor Steven Prince, director Martin Scorsese sets up the show with him and Prince in a hot-tub, followed by a (not too aggressive) fight with Prince and another guy. This shows to not be a typical one-on-one, as the interviewee goes into specifics in anecdotes, incidents, and memories that usually end with a great laugh (Prince is a wonderful, if a little tired out, storyteller), or with something that's very much revealing on his life (in other words, saddening). For myself, I knew very little about the man before the interview (not the least of which that he was road manager for Neil Diamond, got hooked into a particular section of the drug community, and had a good view of life in NYC involving various types), except that he made an unmistakable impression as the traveling salesman in Taxi Driver.

But by the end of the (hard to find, most likely it can be found underground or on ebay) interview, with concise, hard, but fascinating questions from Scorsese, American Boy turns out to be just that, a guy who's gone through the good times and bad times of this country's bounties and dis-pleasures. It's even worth watching twice, especially for Scorsese fans (though there isn't a terrible amount of visual flair he can exercise here), in case something flies over one's head in the storytelling. Favorite stories include the Marijuana-Gorilla bit, Jack the Cop, a particular tale of a drug bust, and a certain recollection of a revival of a woman after an OD, later to become the primary influence on the climax of Tarantino's story Vincent Vega and Marsellus Wallace's Wife. Cool Neil Young song too.

Scorsese recorded and edited this rambling monologue of actor Steven Prince, aided and abetted by his associates, talking about drugs, shooting a man, and similar heartwarming subjects.

There's a story from FINAL CUT, the book about the HEAVEN'S GATE debacle. There's one point where the executives are meeting with Scorsese and DeNiro about making RAGING BULL. One of the suits says "I don't think people will want to see a movie about a cockroach." DeNiro got upset, and apparently rewrote the script. Yet to me, it remains a story about a cockroach, someone living on the edge, the dregs of society, putting them under the microscope dispassionately. I see this in many of Scorsese's movies, from BOXVAR BERTHA, a movie about hoboes, to HUGO, a movie about a boy who literally lives in the walls of a train station, to SILENCE, about outlawed Christians trying to keep their faith alive in Pre-Meiji Japan to.... well, choose your own example.

Scorsese offers us a portrait of the actor as a cockroach.

Although the movie is simply a document of an interview with Stephen Prince, the film becomes so much more. Scorsese truly gives the viewer an in depth view into the man's life; mostly due to Prince's wonderful role as a story teller. Some of the tales he tells are fascinating, some silly, some so outlandish you have to doubt their sincerity. Extremely entertaining, and a prerequisite for any Tarantino fan -- see the film and you'll see what I mean.

Peripherally, American Boy is about Martin Scorsese and his crew populating sporadic bit role player and sometime music groupie Steven Prince's living room while he recounts various stories from his life. Centrally, I don't know what it's about. I think it's about Steven Prince, and how the stories he tells may or may not inform the person he apparently is when Scorsese and his crew show up at his place to film him. The reason I watched all 55 minutes is not because I wasn't able to justify turning off a film directed by one of American cinema's greatest living assets, but because these anecdotes are very engrossing. That, and that alone, is the appeal of this piece. You want to hear a guy tell a story? Look here.

The way I felt when I was watching American Boy was anticipatory, expectant of some sort of culmination. Well, the anecdotes are increasingly personal, more and more poignant and evidently felt by the titular teller. End of movie. What I think Scorsese's intention was, aside from being determined to stay busy, involved embracing the slightest, most minute and everyday thing. The charm of the film is that we always expect much more out of a film, even the subtle and slight ones. But think about how many themes and meanings are buried within some of the most fleeting shots of a given Scorsese feature. Think about how much he can say in such a short breath, both with his films and in person.

He wants nothing more from us than to look and listen here. That's all. This guy, not a celebrity or a scholar or a notorious figure, just a dude. What's the situation? He's having his friend Marty over and Marty brought some of his own friends, and they have a camera and sound stuff. Martin Scorsese understands very clearly, much clearer than a lot of modern filmmakers, that a movie is exactly what it shows you, nothing more and nothing less.