New York Stories

The anthology that include three short films that take place in New York City was made by three great American directors, Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, and Francis Ford Coppola.

"Life Lessons" directed by Martin Scorsese, literally took my breath away - it made me want to rewatch all Scorsese's films (with the one exception, GONY, though). What a magnificent work - visually it is as powerful as the painting Nolte's Lionel was painting. Combining in one short film Procul Harum's "A whiter shade of pale" and Puccini's "Nessun Dorma" from "Turandot" was a stroke of genius. This film is an ode to the power of talent; it is about greatness and curse of the gift, not about love to the woman. The best scene of the film and I'd say one of the best ever made about the Artist's work is Nolte triumphantly painting his masterpiece - his love, desire, lust, cries, whispers, tears, and humiliations magically transform with every stroke of his brush into the immortal, triumphant, brilliant work of art. By the time the painting is finished, he would need a new source of inspiration and self-torture, and the cycle will repeat over again. Devilishly clever portrait of an Artist as Not a Young Man. 9.5/10

I loved Woody Allen's "Oedipus Wrecks" and I think it is very funny and touching. Looks like Allen has met mothers or grandmothers like Mrs. Millstein in real life and his little gem is his love-hate letter to them. In the end, mom always knows what is best for her little boy. Mae Questel and Julie Kavner (Marge Simpson) were wonderful. Woody's face after his mom "disappears" and the scene when he practically makes love to the chicken drumstick are pure delight; also the commentary that New York is used to everything and readily accepts the crazy situation - it is so true. One of the best Allen's films I've seen lately - I am very glad that I finally saw it.

Larry David ("Seinfeld", "Curb Your Enthusiasm") plays the Theater Manager. It made me think if Estelle Costanza created by David and Mrs. Millstein (Woody's omnipresent mother) have a lot in common in making the lives of their sons miserable and smothering them with their merciless love? 9/10

Coppola's "Life Without Zoë" was much weaker than Scorsese's and Allan's stories and paled in comparison - this episode "from the lives of the reach and beautiful" was pretty and cute but you can skip it. 5/10

I have viewed the "Life Lessons" segment of New York Stories probably 80 times. I use the film religiously in my college writing classes.

The assignment I give my students is to define art for Lionel, for Paulette, and for themselves. After some analysis, students realize that a big problem between Lionel and Paulette is that they view art differently. Paulette constantly needs external validation ("Can you tell me if I'm any good or not") while for Lionel art is a compulsion - his life and art feed off each other. Students who are able to get past Lionel's somewhat dysfunctional personality are able to understand and discuss some very important concepts about what it is to be an artist.

I would highly recommend "Life Lessons" to anyone teaching art, aesthetics, writing, or theater classes. It's a great way to initiate a discussion about art.

Life Lessons - I've probably seen it 10 times. You can refer to it as a 'short', but I get so wrapped up in it that I almost consider it to be a full-length movie. It's very close to perfect.

Life Without Zoe - Past comments have stated that this is the weakest of the three. I don't like to think of any of the stories as weak. I think the order of the stories is what is important. First is the tense art world drama, then the fairytale-like Zoe. Zoe doesn't have the punch of Life Lessons, but it's a relaxing follow-up. Enchanted flutes, princesses, sheiks, diamonds, parties, sunsets. I hate to use the word 'cute', but that's what it is - very cute, and that's not a bad thing in this case.

Oedipus Wrecks - Leaves the movie ending on a very outrageous and very funny note. This short is better than several of his movies (and I'm a HUGE Woody Allen fan).

In New York Stories, three segments are shown back to back, and they are all engaging in their own ways however it's only 2/3 successful as a total motion picture. Martin Scorsese's Life Lessons is a good example of what caliber of work Scorsese had when he made those three student films in the 1960's. It is a film that has a lot of depth, but it is quite worth it for fans of the actors and those who could get interested in Richard Price's story.

Coppola, director of THE GODFATHER and APOCALYPSE NOW makes Life Without Zoe here, a film that is 180 degrees out of whack from those two movies in that it tells the story of a little rich girl whose best friend is a doorman and revolves around a rich boy's birthday party. In a way, it almost could appeal to kids, but it's the wrong place to put in between a story of artists by Scorsese and a comedy of mother and son troubles by Allen.

Which brings me to the last short film, Oedipus Wrecks, where Woody plays a character whose mother suddenly out of the blue disappears. This is a good showing of what Woody can do in comedy without having to have a picture length presentation (not that he makes many bad films by the way).

So, New York Stories is worth checking out for Life Lessons and Oedipus Wrecks, and there could be an audience somewhere for Life Without Zoe, although the biggest flaw of the movie comes that neither one can connect at all outside of the fact that they all take place in New York and are made by New York directors- in short- fascinating and imperfect in some ways. B+

"New York Stories" tells three tales of the Big Apple. Martin Scorsese's "Life Lessons" shows artist Lionel Dobie (Nick Nolte) trying to assess his relationships with people, Francis Ford Coppola's "Life without Zoe" shows a very mature girl, and Woody Allen's "Oedipus Wrecks" is about Sheldon Mills (played by Allen himself), a man who quite literally cannot get away from his mother.

I have to say that Scorsese did a very good job looking at troubled relationships, and Allen shows how hard it is to have certain kinds of people as parents (of course he often shows that). But Coppola's segment was so dull that I choose not to even write about it. But don't worry; the movie is overall really good, and we should assume that it really sucks to be Allen's character, given what happens in that segment.