Original Screenplay Movie Script for Scorsese’s New York New York

Martin Scorsese, Mardik Martin and Earl Mac Rauch. NEW YORK NEW YORK original script. May 1976. Quarto. Brad bound, printed wrappers. First Edition Original script of Scorsese’s tribute to his hometown of New York City, which aimed to fuse the tradition of the classic Hollywood musical with the raw realism of Scorsese's oeuvre. 137 pages. Screenplay for one of Scorsese’s most ambitious and experimental films in near-fine condition.

New York, New York stars Robert De Niro and Liza Minnelli as Jimmy and Francine, a pair of musicians and lovers. Formally, this is Scorsese at his most ambitious. Like Scorsese’s last film Taxi Driver, New York, New (truncated) York, also begins with a shot of Manhattan; Unlike the gritty true-to-life style of his earlier work, now it's a painted backdrop. As a paean to Old Hollywood, the look and the storyline are deliberately artificial, with one catch: Scorsese, De Niro, and Minnelli would do six- or seven-hour improvisation sessions that Scorsese would tape, then bring home to study, and come back to set the next day with snippets that he wanted to film. Five hours of improvisation might become two pages of the script. The loose, insouciant structure recalls the abstract jazz compositions that horn player Jimmy (De Niro) is so fond of. And that dominated the nightclubs of Scorsese's hometown. The bold combination of realistic dialogue and swooning aesthetics makes it Scorsese’s most experimental film, as well as one of his most personal. New York, New York creates a sense of both spectacle and claustrophobia as De Niro’s Jimmy and Minelli’s Francine follow a doomed romance to the end; At the time, Scorsese’s new fame and addiction to cocaine was destroying his marriage. Jimmy, as a stand-in for Scorsese, is mean, mercurial, narcissistic, and melancholy; a doomed anti-hero with immedicable flaws. Francine, however, perseveres. In Scorsese’ universe of tragically flawed men, Francine is one of the few for whom things work out, in part because she expunges just such characters from her life. It’s personal indictment as cinematic sendoff, showing a side of Scorsese that has never been seen since. In near-fine condition. (Inventory #: 16299)