Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974)

Directed by Martin Scorsese; written by Robert Getchell; shot by Kent L. Wakeford for Warner Bros on about $1.8 million. Ellen Burstyn — bankable after The Exorcist and sick of scripts "full of stereotypes" — found the script, judged it written "for Doris Day and Rock Hudson", asked Coppola who was good, screened Mean Streets, and hired Scorsese to rough it up (Criterion — At Home in the World). Burstyn won the Oscar for Best Actress; Diane Ladd and Getchell were nominated. Widowed Alice Hyatt drives from Socorro, New Mexico toward a singing career in Monterey and gets exactly as far as a diner in Tucson.

This is the hub note. Everything Alice-related links from here.

Scenes

• Alice — the prologue — the soundstage childhood; the film's thesis in ninety seconds and one cut. The current writing project.

What it demonstrates

Codes

The prologue is the wiki's canonical case of Colour and Setting as quotation, of Lighting that confesses its own artifice, and — at the cut — of Editing and Audio working as one blade: You'll Never Know, then Mott the Hoople. Burstyn's performance anchors Acting.

Conventions

A woman's-picture Formula crossed with a road movie; a 27-year ellipsis as Chronology; a double character introduction (Character); and the strangest Format afterlife in the wiki — the sitcom Alice (CBS, 1976–85).

Contexts

The women's picture, 1974 (Values, reception); Burstyn's star power as Commerce; the post-Code profanity of the prologue as a Control datum; and Scorsese's movie-memory as Personal context throughout.

Sources for this film

Criterion — At Home in the World for production history and reception; Burstyn — Lessons in Becoming Myself (2006) for the star's account; Scorsese on Scorsese (1989) for the director's; Biskind — Easy Riders, Raging Bulls (1998) for the era; Ebert — Alice review (1974) for a first-audience datum.