The Zen Kitchen

After Hours

When I first saw After Hours I was in high school. It had been recommended to me by a friend of mine, and I remember after viewing the end and shutting off the VCR and the TV that I wasn't sure exactly what I had just seen, but that it had been something special.

I watched it many more times after that, and appreciated it more and more with each viewing. The absurdism, the dark comedy, the claustrophobia, and the cast of insane characters all appealed to me more and more. I didn't know at the time exactly who Martin Scorsese was, though I knew the name, and now as I have grown older and turned into a film afficianado, now that I know that Scorsese is the director who made Raging Bull, Gangs of New York, Taxi Driver, and Goodfellas, many would probably find it odd that I pick this film - one of his two attempts at comedy - as his masterpiece.

Scorsese is known for his films about New York. All his films, in fact, are in one way or another about his relationship with the city of New York. After Hours is a film about a man just trying to make his way home after a bad meet-up with a woman he ran into in a coffee shop. On the way to meet her, all his money (a $20 bill) flies out the window of the taxi cab, and after it turns out his date is a psychotic and he runs away as fast as he can, his night turns into a Dark Comedy of Errors as he just tries to get back home. By the end of the evening he is being hunted down by an angry ex-boyfriend, a cab driver, 3 jilted women, and a vigilante mob which thinks he is responsible for robberies occurring in the neighborhood.

The way the film is shot gives a true feeling of claustrophobia even when Paul (our "hero") is on the streets. Dive bars, lofts, punk clubs, and small diners are the major set pieces used, but even when the scene turns to a wide open street corner or the dance floor of a club the angles and zooms make it seem as if the world is closing in on Paul. He wants to get home, he wants to run, but with every step he just becomes more and more trapped.

How did I know, even as long ago as high school, that I would relate so well to Paul's plight? The man is not a saint, not by a long shot, but he does nothing to deserve the treatment he gets in this film. He makes mistakes, that's for sure, but every mistake doesn't just set him back, it ruins him. The most minor of slips ends up becoming an insurmountable obstacle. His money flies out the window of the cab? The same cab driver shows up later to take all his money from him when he finally gets his hands on some. He meets a bartender who is willing to do him an act of charity in return for going to check on the bartender's apartment? He is hunted by a vigilante mob who assumes he must be a burglar since they don't recognize him coming out of the bartender's apartment. He leaves a girl on a date who turns out to be a raving lunatic when she seemed nice enough at their first meeting? The girl kills herself, and this girl just happens to be the girlfriend of the bartender who offered him charity. And so on.

I feel like this most of the time. It seems every good deed I do, if not ignored entirely, actually comes back to bite me, while my mistakes come back and bite me far harder than it seems they should in a reasonable world. In one scene, one of the few scenes where the claustrophobic camera pulls back from our hero, we see Paul screaming to God in the sky, "What do you want from me?!" To this, I can very much relate.

Even in high school, it seemed as if some part of me must have known that my life was destined to be taken up by late nights, insane women, and harsh punishment for every little misstep, and often even for acts of kindness. Paul. I feel your pain. But, in addition to that, you're able to make me look at my own life and laugh. Its just one person in an insane world. Even when that person is myself, I can look at Paul and see that taking things too seriously will only make it worse.

And for that, Paul, and Mister Scorsese, I thank you.

Paul: (after witnessing a murder through a window) "I'll probably get blamed for that."

posted by Shaun @ 2:48 AM