How Does It Feel? Scorsese Contemplates Art Through Music and Sound in Life Lessons

Stonehill College

From the SelectedWorks of Ron Leone

2017

How does it feel? Scorsese contemplates art through music and sound in Life Lessons. Ron Leone, Stonehill College Gabrielle Jaques

Available at: https://works.bepress.com/ron-leone/1/ MSMI 11:2 Autumn 17 https://doi.org/10.3828/msmi.2017.11

How Does it Feel? Scorsese Contemplates Art Through Music and Sound in Life Lessons

Ron Leone with Gabrielle R. Jaques

How Does it Feel?

Life Lessons, Martin Scorsese’s contribution to 1989’s New York Stories, tells the story of painter Lionel Dobie (Nick Nolte), and his young ingénue, Paulette (Rosanna Arquette). In the film, Scorsese ruminates on the life of the genius artist, whose personal relationships suffer for the sake of his art. He does this primarily through the film’s soundtrack, relying on pre-recorded rock music, and to a lesser degree, sound effects, to convey the chaos that surrounds and fuels Dobie’s art. Scorsese uses works from Italian composer Giacomo Puccini (‘Nessun Dorma’ from Turandot), British rock band Procol Harum (‘Conquistador’ and ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’), and, most importantly, a live version of iconic American songwriter Bob Dylan’s ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ to speak for, and through, his characters. In doing so, the director provides viewers with his most personal work on the life of the artist and the connection between personal suffering and artistic creation. Overlooked and autobiographical, Life Lessons predicts Scorsese’s use of sound and music in his masterpiece, GoodFellas.

At the opening ceremony for the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival, Martin Scorsese explained that, ‘For me, movies and music have been inseparable. They always have been and they always will be’ (CBS News, 2011). Thelma Schoonmacher, the editor who has cut all his feature films since Raging Bull in 1980 (18 as of this writing, plus various shorts, documentaries, and other projects), discussed how Scorsese uses pre-existing music as score, and makes surprising choices no one else would ever think of: ‘[He’s] a genius for putting music to film […] because he weaves the music into [it] in such an expert way’ (Ehrlich, 2013). On the Raging Bull DVD commentary track, Schoonmacher goes into greater detail about the director’s acumen for remembering, and using, music in his films, noting Scorsese’s

[I]ncredible memory for pieces of music that he’s heard throughout his life […]. He never forgets where he heard that piece of music for 188 11:2 Autumn 17 MSMI

Ron Leone with Gabrielle R. Jaques ♦ How Does it Feel?

the first time […]. These first moments when he hears these pieces of music seem to burn into his consciousness and he carries them around with him, sometimes for 20 or 30 years, and then, suddenly, the right place for them, in a film, occurs to him. (Raging Bull, 2011, from 00:11:14)

But for Schoonmacher, (Scorsese’s) genius comes at a price: ‘People expect artists to be too normal […]. I’ve been around enough of them now to see that they’re very extraordinary human beings who behave differently than ordinary human beings […]. They are not the same as us. People should just learn to accept that’ (Pevere, 2007). Among Scorsese and Schoonmacher’s collaborations is Life Lessons, part of the 1989 film New York Stories. As a follow-up to his most controversial film, The Last Temptation of Christ, and a precursor to his 1990 masterpiece, GoodFellas, Scorsese joined Woody Allen and Francis Ford Coppola to make New York Stories for Disney’s Buena Vista Pictures. Each director told his own ‘New York’ story and Scorsese’s entry, Life Lessons, introduced viewers to painter Lionel Dobie (Nick Nolte) and his young protégé, Paulette (Rosanna Arquette),1 chronicling their combustible personal and 1 Unlike the male professional relationships. Based (very) loosely on Alexei and Polina in characters in the film, who are identified by their Dostoevsky’s The Gambler, and featuring the actual paintings of tempestuous given name and surname, artist Chuck Connelly, Life Lessons is one of a small number of projects Paulette remains – like The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), Gangs of New York (2002), and mononymous – ‘just Silence (2016) – that Scorsese long intended to bring to the screen. Unlike Paulette’ – throughout the film. those works, epic in both scope and running time, the production of this 45-minute film presented Scorsese with a formidable challenge: two weeks of pre-production, four weeks of principal photography, followed by a truncated editing schedule with Schoonmacher (Keyser, 1992). New York Stories was neither a critical nor commercial success, receiving middling reviews and, according to IMDb.com, grossing just under $11M domestically on an estimated $15M budget (Internet Movie Database, 2014). It was even dismissed by Connelly, the ‘burgeoning artist and functioning alcoholic’ on whom Scorsese chose to model Dobie, as ‘clichéd, mundane, and no Raging Bull’ (O’Hare, 2015). Like Dobie, the fictional artist in the film who lays waste to human relationships, Connelly’s comments (along with others aimed at various New York gallery owners, buyers, etc.) sabotaged his career at a moment when it was poised to take off (ibid.). So, how is it that Life Lessons may very well stand as the director’s most significant filmic meditation on the nature of creation and the toll it takes on both the artist and those around him? Lester Keyser notes that Scorsese ‘told interviewers that he wanted to make “an enjoyable movie” that simultaneously dealt “with a serious issue – what’s the equation of MSMI 11:2 Autumn 17 189

Ron Leone with Gabrielle R. Jaques ♦ How Does it Feel?

pain in our lives to the work that we do”?’ (1992, pp.189–190). Scorsese investigated this ‘serious issue’ through the film’s soundtrack, which features an array of pre-existing music selections ranging from ‘Nessun Dorma’ (from Puccini’s Turandot) to, most notably, songs from Procol Harum, a prominent British rock band of the late 1960s and 1970s. But, above all, it is one song by another enigmatic American artist, Bob Dylan, that stands as the apogee of the film’s, and subsequently Scorsese’s, most trenchant commentary on the life of the artist and the casualties that surround it: ‘Like a Rolling Stone’, Dylan’s 1965 composition that critics hail as revolutionary, and the songwriter himself acknowledges as being transformative in his career (Cott, 2006). In an insightful essay on Scorsese’s use of music in GoodFellas, Julie Hubbert locates the gangster epic as the ‘turning point in Scorsese’s musical aesthetic and the evolution of his soundtrack practice’, that speaks to ‘a new and additional imperative for visual “movement”’ (2013, p.33). Life Lessons, with its short running time and almost guerilla-like production schedule, not only exemplifies this ‘new imperative’, but it anticipates aspects of Scorsese’s more challenging, unconventional, and complex use of music in his masterpiece. Hubbert rightfully acknowledges the ways Scorsese ‘privileges’ music in his compiled soundtracks, solidifying him as ‘one of cinema’s most musical auteurs’ (p.33), yet, despite discussing (in the text and endnotes) more than a dozen of his feature films spanning 30 years of his career, his cross-platform musical documentary work ranging from Woodstock in 1970 through George Harrison: Living in the Material World in 2011, and his work on Michael Jackson’s ‘Bad’ music video, Life Lessons is never mentioned. What Scorsese perfected in GoodFellas finds its foundation in Life Lessons. With this film Scorsese tells viewers that, for the artist, only the work matters, and the casualties of this singular devotion to craft are people and relationships. Like Scorsese, Dobie uses music to inspire artistic creation. Through Dobie, Scorsese uses diegetic music to assault and silence others, to challenge and provoke rivals, and, ultimately, to speak for himself in lieu of dialogue, epitomizing what Jay Beck calls the director’s ability to establish a ‘double articulation of meaning’ (2016, p.130) that he began developing in his early feature work. What we are left with, then, is Scorsese’s least obvious autobiographical film, featuring his most overlooked compilation score.

Scorsese and the Compilation Score In The Sounds of Commerce: Marketing Popular Film Music, Jeff Smith discusses the emergence and development of the compilation score as both a 190 11:2 Autumn 17 MSMI

Ron Leone with Gabrielle R. Jaques ♦ How Does it Feel?

challenge to classical Hollywood scoring practice and as a parallel to the rise of the ‘New Hollywood’ directors of the late 1960s. Smith acknowledges that compilation scores serve similar functions to the classical score in terms of underscoring the emotional arc of scenes or in providing structural unity to montages, and identifies unique advantages offered through effectively weaving pop songs into a filmic text. However, he notes that ‘well-known music of any kind […] [may] carry associational baggage for the spectator’ that could be distracting or conflict with the narrative (1998, p.164). While the potential to be a distraction exists, as we will see in Life Lessons, pop songs can serve multiple functions such as speaking for characters or commenting on a film’s action. Smith posits that the use of a familiar hit can be so powerful that ‘one need not have a thorough understanding of the song’s lyrics, but simply the minimal information supplied by the song’s title and chorus’ (p.167). The result is a two-tiered system of meaning, one that can be regarded by the less informed listener simply as background music, and by the more informed listener who possesses greater knowledge of the title, lyrics, artist, or any of its concomitant production or performance history as a far more expressive directorial device (ibid.). In interviews, Scorsese frequently discusses his formative years, when ‘popular music formed the soundtrack of my life […]. And so it was only natural that it would become such an important part of my work as a director, beginning with my first student films’ (Romney and Wootton, 1995, p.1). Indeed, no contemporary director has shaped the way music is used in films like Scorsese. Long before Coppola used The Doors’ ‘The End’ in Apocalypse Now, Scorsese featured the song in his NYU thesis film, Who’s That Knocking at My Door (from 00:41:58). There, nearly twenty years before making Life Lessons, Scorsese used the song as the soundtrack for J.R.’s (Harvey Keitel) sexual trysts with a bevy of ‘broads’, to use the character’s argot. Spliced into the middle of a conversation between J.R. and the unnamed ‘Girl’ (Zina Bethune), the sequence represents J.R.’s fantasy projection of ‘broads’ whom one has sex with, as opposed to the pure, virginal ‘girl’ with whom he’s apparently falling in love. The scene takes place in a spacious, bare, factory-like loft with a single bed in the middle of the open floor plan. In the montage’s various elements, J.R. shares the bed and surrounding space with different women in various sexual positions and practices, ending with a fully dressed J.R. spewing a deck of playing cards on a naked woman lying on the bed. Shot in slow motion, J.R. exits the frame as the woman turns away from him; the camera lingers on her as she lies motionlessly on the bed before cutting back to J.R. and the ‘Girl’ continuing their conversation on a New York street. MSMI 11:2 Autumn 17 191

Ron Leone with Gabrielle R. Jaques ♦ How Does it Feel?

This lengthy digression on Scorsese’s use of ‘The End’ merits attention because it demonstrates his understanding of how to implement popular music in film to function in myriad ways, a practice he continues to refine over more than 50 years of filmmaking. In Who’s That Knocking at My Door, as in Life Lessons and many other films, Scorsese uses popular music to establish structural rhythm, underscore the emotional impact of a scene (or offer counterpoint to it), and, perhaps most importantly, he relies on the lyrical content of popular songs to speak for his characters, comment on the action, and provide an additional layer of metre from which scenes are built. With ‘The End’, not only does Scorsese cut the sequence to the song’s tempo, he dances around his subjects with a handheld camera timed to the beat. The actors were, in fact, filmed with the song playing on set, a common Scorsese practice (Cooke, 2008). Beyond the rhythm of the song dictating the structure of the sequence, Scorsese also cuts and moves the camera in conjunction with specific song and lyric changes. Focusing on lyricist Jim Morrison’s spoken word Oedipal scenario that begins with ‘The killer awoke before dawn’, the sequence builds momentum and force as the lyrics and music intensify. As the song moves from verse to bridge, the images become increasingly disjointed and chaotic. Specific lyrics correspond to sexually charged moments in the montage. Formally, like many sequences in the film, it is shot without diegetic sound. There is no dialogue; in fact, there is no natural sound at all. The film also predicts two significant aspects Hubbert (2013) associates with Scorsese’s use of music in GoodFellas: the prioritisation of music over dialogue (this can be said for most of the film), and fast cutting to a song’s tempo and phrasing. Clearly, the groundwork for Scorsese’s musical aesthetic that explores the ‘dialectical relationship between the music, character portrayal, and the development of the story’ (Beck, 2016, p.130), which saw its peak in GoodFellas and he refined in Life Lessons, was present in his earliest feature-length work. A final consideration of Scorsese’s use of ‘The End’ that is relevant to an analysis of Life Lessons is whether the lyrics represent the director’s thoughts, the character’s, or both. Who’s That Knocking at My Door is an explicitly personal film for Scorsese, originally intended as part of a religious trilogy including Mean Streets, also starring Keitel as Charlie (Sangster, 2002). The film’s central conflict revolves around J.R.’s struggle with the ‘broad/girl’ dichotomy that exists in his and his friends’ minds. Whether ‘The End’ refers to the end of a romantic relationship, of childhood, or of innocence in general, its placement in the film implies J.R. being forced to confront his childish beliefs. Does the sequence represent J.R.’s recollections of past trysts, his fantasy projections, or is it meant to provide narrative justification for his sentiments? It’s not entirely 192 11:2 Autumn 17 MSMI

Ron Leone with Gabrielle R. Jaques ♦ How Does it Feel?

clear, nor is it clear that he hears the song as a form of internally diegetic sound. What emerges then is that its presence represents an authorial voice; it is Scorsese’s commentary on male-female relationships, and use of ‘The End’ here speaks to the inherent immaturity of J.R.’s worldview. In the nearly two decades between Who’s That Knocking at My Door and Life Lessons, Scorsese used music, especially songs’ lyrics, in increasingly interesting, nuanced ways, both diegetically and non-diegetically. In his second overtly personal feature film, Mean Streets, Scorsese shifted his focus to the contemplation of atonement. Charlie (Harvey Keitel) doubts the utility and validity of Catholic confession and penance; instead, he negotiates with God and concocts his own method of atonement, one that occurs ‘in the streets’. Early on in Mean Streets Scorsese introduces Charlie and his three friends: Michael (Richard Romanus), the inept but deadly serious gangster who bumbles his way through a series of low-level cons and scams; Tony (David Proval), the more mature, established bar owner where the boys and their friends hang out; and the unpredictable, volatile Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro), who is first shown blowing up a mailbox just for fun. However, Johnny’s grander entrance occurs a few minutes later at Tony’s bar. Arriving with two women, we hear Charlie’s voiceover: ‘Alright, OK, thanks a lot, Lord. Thanks a lot for opening my eyes. We talk about penance and you send this through the door. Well, we play by your rules, don’t we? Well, don’t we?’. The voiceover is followed by the opening chords of the Rolling Stones’ ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ over slow-motion shots of Charlie and then of Johnny and the two girls’ entrance along the length of the bar (from 00:12:00). We see characters speak, but we don’t hear what they say. Instead, voices and other ‘natural’ diegetic sounds are slowed down and disassociated from their on-screen sources. The dominant sound is Mick Jagger’s lyrics, ‘I was born in a crossfire hurricane’, ending with the song’s chorus, ‘I’m Jumpin’ Jack Flash, it’s a gas, gas, gas’. The song volume is brought down, suggesting it’s non-diegetic, and it makes way for the first moment in the scene where dialogue and human sources match: Charlie and Johnny greet each other with ‘Ayys’ and hug. In Mean Streets Scorsese created his blueprint for using music, song lyrics, voiceover narration, dialogue and sound effects alternately as dominant elements of sound, combined with effective use of silence, to create a seamless soundtrack that enhances, supports, or offers counterpoint to his films’ visuals. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, music continued to play an important role in Scorsese’s works. Running counter to the sound aesthetic he began to develop in his early works, for Taxi Driver he relied on the talents of legendary film composer Bernard Herrmann to write two contrasting, often colliding leifmotifs which would serve as his final compositions MSMI 11:2 Autumn 17 193

Ron Leone with Gabrielle R. Jaques ♦ How Does it Feel?

for the screen: a dissonant, driving percussive theme suggesting Travis Bickle’s (Robert De Niro) volatility and madness, and a serene, melancholy saxophone one echoing his isolation and loneliness. For Raging Bull, Scorsese used sound effects – from jet engines to wild animals – boxing commentary, and, to great effect, silence, in order to enhance and distinguish Jake LaMotta’s (Robert De Niro) various fights. But, it’s the scenes at home that feature some of his most subtle and careful uses of music and sound. There, as LaMotta argues with and threatens his first wife, we hear the delicate lyrics of the Ink Spots’ ‘Whispering Grass’ in the background. On the DVD commentary track, Scorsese discusses ‘pushing the [song’s] falsetto notes through the action, through the violence’ diegetically, as counter to the abrasive yelling in the cramped tenement apartment set (Raging Bull, 2011: from 00:11:06). Later in the film, during a romantic scene between Jake and his second wife, Vickie (Cathy Moriarty), diegetic sounds of children playing and music on radios can be heard wafting in the room through open windows. Scorsese’s ability to use sound and music to remind viewers of the many lives going on just outside their room reinforces the importance of LaMotta’s New York neighbourhood, and many of its inhabitants, in his life and career. As he does in Life Lessons, Scorsese frequently opens his films with popular music, reinforcing its importance to the director and its centrality to specific works. In Who’s That Knocking at My Door, a driving beat introduces a woman (Scorsese’s mother, Catherine Scorsese) making a calzone and serving it to children, intercut with close-ups of religious statues in the room (from 00:00:01). It’s followed by a street fight and opening credits, all choreographed to a DJ’s voice and Mitch Ryder and The Detroit Wheels’ ‘Jenny Take a Ride’, which is subsequently interrupted by a non-diegetic, musical exclamation of ‘Now wait a minute’, followed by a cut to a butcher chopping a rack of ribs. Most of the sequence is shot silent; there is no apparent diegetic sound. However, the percussive opening reverberates in the ‘Jenny’ beat, which is synched with the piece of wood being used as a weapon against a character. The cut to the butcher recalls the opening percussion work and piece of wood, though here his use of a cleaver suggests diegetic sound. Regardless, the entire sequence, like a few in the film, plays without dialogue, with music and sound effects providing the complete sonic picture.

Life Lessons and Music Despite its short runtime of roughly forty-five minutes, Life Lessons explores the complex, and often contradictory, process of artistic creation. In the film Scorsese uses music – and has Dobie use it – to investigate the 194 11:2 Autumn 17 MSMI

Ron Leone with Gabrielle R. Jaques ♦ How Does it Feel?

relationship between creativity (of art) and destruction (of people and relationships) in the artist’s life. Turbulent emotional relationships are the afterthought and byproduct of creation in the film, challenging the audience to consider what the life of an artist like Lionel Dobie involves. The film opens to a montage structured around Procol Harum’s ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ (from 00:00:46), a late 1960s rock song distinguished by its Hammond M-102 organ line.2 Used a total of six times in the 2 ‘A Whiter Shade of film, and recurring four times back-to-back at the beginning before any Pale’ was the debut single from Procol Harum and other musical pieces are introduced in the soundtrack, ‘A Whiter Shade was released in the UK of Pale’ returns between and under dialogue exchanges as Scorsese’s in May 1967, where it initial commentary on the artist’s contrasting relationships with work and spent six weeks at number people. With a melody derived from Bach’s ‘Air on a G-String’ (which 1 that summer. When the band released their Scorsese used previously in After Hours [1985]), the song’s ‘recurring eponymous debut album metaphor is of maritime disaster, and a parallel is drawn between romantic in December 1967, the conquest and the allure and peril of the sea’; its ‘protagonist [is] a callow track was not included on the UK release, but it was juvenile, far happier with a book than risking the emotional bruising appended as the lead track of relationships’ (Butler, in De Lisle, 1995). Scorsese uses the opening of a re-sequenced version sequences to foreshadow an urban disaster tale of celebrated artist Lionel of the album in the US. Dobie, a man rife with contradictions and feelings of ambivalence, but ultimately committed only to his art and never to his paramours. Visually, Scorsese populates the opening sequence with iris shots – self-reflexive, century-old camera techniques in which the frame shrinks down to a small circle (or vice versa) – generally ending (or beginning) on a specific element in the mise-en-scène. Iris shots of the artist’s paints and brushes give way to images of Dobie pacing restlessly, like a caged animal. Close-ups of his feet, face, hands – a dirty rag in one, a cigarette in the other – precede a tracking shot towards a bottle of cognac and a partially filled, finger print-smudged snifter on the floor. The pattern is interrupted, however, by a quickly paced three-shot sequence: Dobie steps on a tube of blue paint on the floor; the ejaculate hits a loft pole; a buzzer sounds and Dobie throws his paint-stained rag at it (captured in a single swish pan). Song lyrics speak to the protagonist’s sea sickness during this brief sequence, which Butler ascribes to the character’s ambivalence (ibid.), followed by a stilted visual: an iris shot isolating Dobie’s entire body in the middle of the frame. In contrast to earlier images of the artist’s tools, it’s a long shot. However, it’s not the distance of the shot that makes it stand out; it’s the length of time Scorsese holds the image of Dobie before having him move across the loft floor. Dobie stands, stationary, in the iris shot for almost three seconds waiting for the song lyric ‘The crowd called out for more’ to end before moving. As the iris shot expands to a full screen the camera tracks away from Dobie, revealing his cavernous loft/studio while song lyrics describe the ‘room MSMI 11:2 Autumn 17 195

Ron Leone with Gabrielle R. Jaques ♦ How Does it Feel?

[…] humming harder, as the ceiling flew away’. In this meticulously constructed opening sequence driven by ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’, Scorsese establishes the structural rhythm music will provide for montages and character movement, how song lyrics relate to the film’s action, and, perhaps most importantly, that Dobie is acutely aware of both. At several points in the film, Dobie, as an extension of Scorsese, commandeers the soundtrack by slamming a tape into his cassette deck and turning the 3 Connelly was paid to volume up loud, linking two creative arts (music and painting)3 with a demonstrate painting third (filmmaking). Coupled with iris shots emphasising specific elements technique for Nolte, and the loft/studio set of mise-en-scène, the film offers opportunities to consider how the artist is based on Connelly’s experiences his environment. Dobie’s music speaks to and for him, while workspace. Connelly’s use iris shots indicate his ability to see the world and people in it as fleeting, of a garbage can lid as interchangeable fodder for his lasting, unique works of art. Before any a palette is also directly portrayed. However, dialogue is spoken, the opening montage portrays Dobie’s focus on his nowhere is it indicated music, brushes, and paints, while the music reminds us of the anonymous that he paints to music, crowd of acolytes and fans who ‘call out for more’. like the character Dobie. It’s no wonder Dobie uses lyrics to speak for himself, because, when he relies on his own words it is typically in an unfiltered torrent of inarticulate mumbling, incomplete thoughts, clichés, platitudes, worn-out anecdotes, and non-sequiturs. His words indict him as self-indulgent, egotistical, perhaps even delusional. If Paulette is an accurate prototype, his female protégés all eventually realise they are fodder for his art; they learn their ‘life lessons’. Dobie, for all his artistic genius, is stuck in a perpetual pattern of creation and destruction. As the opening sequence continues, the uninvited guest is revealed: gallery owner Phillip Fowler (Patrick O’Neal) has arrived to check on Dobie, whose show is only three weeks away. With no music to speak for him, Dobie recounts a nonsensical anecdote, uses clichés to reveal he is experiencing a creative crisis, and complains about having to retrieve his overly privileged assistant (Paulette) at the airport (which we soon learn is a lie). After Dobie dismisses Fowler by sending him down in the cage elevator he came up in, Scorsese employs a sound bridge of a jet landing, as the camera moves across Dobie’s face in close-up slow motion. It is the film’s first ‘audible’ camera move, in which Scorsese uses the sound of moving forms of transportation synced with tracking shots. The sound of the jet segues directly back into ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ (from 00:03:10), as the film cuts to an arrival gate at JFK Airport. Coincident with the song’s reappearance on the soundtrack, we see an iris shot of Paulette as she emerges from the terminal gate in slow motion, a shot strongly reminiscent of the introduction of Johnny Boy in Mean Streets. It is the only time in the film that Scorsese combines the visual technique of the iris with a shot of Paulette’s entire body. 196 11:2 Autumn 17 MSMI

Ron Leone with Gabrielle R. Jaques ♦ How Does it Feel?

Susan Felleman discusses aspects of how Dobie represents Scorsese in Life Lessons, going as far as stating that the director is ‘portraying himself’ in the film (2001, p.38). While Felleman makes some references to the music Scorsese uses in Life Lessons, primarily during Dobie’s painting sessions, its importance is downplayed in comparison to the visual flourishes that accompany most of the scenes, especially the tour de force ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ sequence later in the film. Other scholars give more attention to Scorsese’s (Dobie’s) use of music in Life Lessons, thus prioritizing its significance in the diegesis. Vincent LoBrutto (2007) notes that Dobie often controls song choice and volume, and attributes much of music’s function as reinforcing his mood or establishing a tone for a scene. Ronald S. Librach (1996) offers a closer reading of music’s functions in the film, analysing how songs and specific lyrics are reflected in different aspects of Dobie’s work. None speaks directly to the fact that every scene of Dobie painting features excessively loud music, and in almost every instance it is shown to be both diegetic and set in motion by the character himself. And, none acknowledges the possibility that music – not his relationship with Paulette and its accompanying conflicts – is the necessary element for creation, the true muse. While Paulette’s body will continue to be dissected and reduced to component parts through iris shots, or interchanged with pictorial nudes, music remains as a constant element tied to creation. As Paulette and Dobie return to the loft, he approaches the large, mostly blank canvas with a few scribbles on it as she ascends to her bedroom. ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ fades out and is replaced by a police car’s siren over three close-ups of Dobie from the side, back, and finally head-on. The song’s lyrics include the line ‘her face, at first just ghostly, turned a whiter shade of pale’, invoking painting imagery, colours and blank white canvases, and the markings on Dobie’s sprawling canvas seem, at first glance, to be random scribblings. But, as the camera tracks back, the canvas can be seen as an oversized, ersatz Rorschach test: words like ‘hell’, ‘beg’, and ‘cunt’ (with the ‘c’ as a smiley face), and a floating phallus approaching a partially drawn female torso are among the vaguely recognizable markings. The only distinguishable words and images on the white canvas invoked by the song’s lyrics reinforce the tumultuous Dobie–Paulette relationship introduced during the opening credits, and foreshadow the human being who will be deconstructed and ultimately dismissed from the loft and New York. Indeed, fragments of Paulette litter the basecoat of Dobie’s masterwork. Paulette has returned to pack up her things. She’s leaving New York; leaving Dobie. The transition and mise-en-scène here reveal important details of their shared physical space. At one point we see a shot from behind Dobie’s head as he looks up to Paulette’s bedroom, a visual motif MSMI 11:2 Autumn 17 197

Ron Leone with Gabrielle R. Jaques ♦ How Does it Feel?

repeated several times in the film. She is visible through a hole cut in the wall above a basketball hoop, the window to her bedroom where the backboard should be. This internal framing replicates the iris shots that function as both Dobie’s fetishistic gaze of Paulette and Scorsese’s of the artist, his tools, and his creative practice. Again we witness what happens when Dobie speaks; he tears apart in order to build up. First he belittles Paulette’s decision to go home, toying with her aspirations by asking if she’s ‘going to make a little studio in your parents’ garage, with the rusty hedge clippers hanging on a nail, and the pool stuff laying in the corner, and a broken sled, and mice’? Then he props her up, but only as an extension of himself, ‘You work for Lionel Dobie. You work for the Lion, baby’. Immediately following his moment of braggadocio, Dobie reminds Paulette of the benefits of working for ‘the lion’: ‘You stretch canvases. You run a few errands. You got your own room, a studio, life lessons that are precious, plus a salary […]’ If it sounds like a salesman’s pitch – and Nolte delivers it as one – it’s because it is; he repeats the same lines to another young woman – the next Paulette – at film’s end. Dobie may experience authentic emotions, but everything he says to keep Paulette in New York – in his lair – rings untrue, save for one point: he acknowledges that their sexual relationship is over. For the first time, Dobie is clearly identified as controlling the film’s soundtrack by putting a cassette in a paint-stained tape deck and pressing the play button as ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ makes its next appearance in the film. Felleman (2001) offers detailed analysis of the push and pull between Dobie and Paulette in the sequence that follows, as he draws upon the pain and humiliation of her rejection of him to spark his creation. Dobie alternates between his canvas in the cavernous downstairs space and two contrived visits to Paulette’s room over the course of the night. This section of the film includes a fantasy sequence that Librach compares to Godard’s Une femme mariée for its prioritization of artistic creation over sexual consummation (1996). Both Felleman and Librach locate Dobie’s power in the act of painting, propelled by a fetishisation of Paulette’s body parts and rejection of the artist. Overlooked is the power Dobie derives through music. With the return of ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ in the diegesis, Dobie leaves his canvas to begin shooting baskets. Underhand tosses become forceful overhand throws, and a cutaway to Paulette’s reaction to the noise while trying to have a phone conversation suggests that Dobie is using loud music and bouncing ball to antagonise and provoke her. The montage quickly devolves from layups and foul shots into Dobie simply hurling the basketball through the hole that serves as a window into Paulette’s room. Similar to Dobie’s ‘sales pitch’ to keep her in the loft, he attacks then capitulates, but only insofar as the gambit serves his own creative needs. 198 11:2 Autumn 17 MSMI

Ron Leone with Gabrielle R. Jaques ♦ How Does it Feel?

Prior to Dobie’s first visit to her room this night, there’s almost no dialogue except when his errant shot lands in her bed (Paulette screams ‘Ow … Lionel, for God’s sakes’; ‘sorry’ he replies). Under the pretence of asking whether the music he’s blasting is too loud, Dobie adds to the cacophony of noise made with his basketball when he abruptly and loudly shuts a window during her phone call. The sequence can be viewed as a collision of compulsions: the art (music) to which Dobie’s painting is choreographed clashing with the human being (Paulette) reduced to body parts and buried in that painting. He returns to his work, set now to Cream’s ‘Politician’ on the soundtrack. We don’t see him slam a new tape in the cassette player, but its similarity in volume and reverberation to ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ suggests its presence in the diegesis. Felleman acknowledges the song’s theme of power relating to Dobie, and his use here of a black-and-white photo of a female nude literally under his foot reinforces the connection (2001). Dobie returns upstairs later in the night with a new ruse, the search for a missing brush. On the soundtrack, ‘Politician’ fades out entirely as a backlit Dobie’s imposing shadow completely consumes the sleeping Paulette. She wakes, and, for perhaps the first time in the film, he says something honest, uttering two fleeting lines during their exchange. After a POV iris shot of her foot, he admits to wanting to kiss it, emphasizing that ‘it’s nothing personal’. Later, after declaring his love for Paulette and having her say she doesn’t love him, he retorts, ‘So what’? Dobie’s two moments of truth are intertwined with a declaration of alleged love and an awkward bromide about being her errand boy. Most importantly, they also cue a reappearance of ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ accompanying a fantasy sequence. The fantasy sequence recalls Scorsese’s use of ‘The End’ in Who’s That Knocking at My Door, and Felleman asserts, initially at least, that it represents Paulette’s fantasy projection of Dobie as an idealised romantic partner, prompted by him asking her if she wants him to get her anything (2001). She then appears to reverse her stance, in keeping with Librach’s claim that being set to ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ associates the sequence foremost with Dobie, not Paulette (1996). The chiaroscuro fantasy is shot in cool, blue tones and features images of Paulette’s various body parts, as if posing for the master painter. Paulette, who has made it clear that their sexual relationship is over, smiles in apparent acknowledgement of his prowess, in what Librach calls a moment of ‘comic irony’ (p.138). Jolted back into reality by the sound effect of a passing car horn, and told by Paulette she doesn’t love him, Dobie returns to his work. The song this time is Ray Charles’s 1958 version of ‘(Night Time Is) The Right Time’ (from 00:15:00). Like ‘Politician’, we do not see Dobie play the music on MSMI 11:2 Autumn 17 199

Ron Leone with Gabrielle R. Jaques ♦ How Does it Feel?

screen, although its volume again suggests that he is painting to loud diegetic music. Music volume, whether clearly sourced or not, drowns out all other diegetic sounds when Dobie paints. This includes dialogue, as we will see in the ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ sequence. Considered in conjunction with the iris shots, Scorsese is offering a glimpse into the artist’s worldview by doubling his work as the film’s actual director with Dobie as its fictional painter. The artist – the genius who is ‘not the same as us’ – must limit his perspective in order to create. Scorsese combines the visual and sonic elements to emphasise the importance of the artist’s found inspirations (in a song or a woman’s ankle) and jettisoning of that which is unimportant (people beyond their component parts). As the plot’s first night ends, it’s clear that Dobie needs music to paint and the pain he inflicts on others informs his art. Later in the film, Dobie and Paulette attend a party together and have an argument in which Dobie warns her about how foolish she looks talking with, according to him, the well-known lothario Reuben Toro (Jesse Borrego). She responds angrily and soon leaves the party with the handsome artist. As much as she may be attracted to Toro, Dobie’s point-of-view shot of the two leaving the party, highlighting Paulette’s facial expression, suggests this is more about ‘the Lion’ than ‘the Bull’. Dobie returns home to find a curtain in the opening to Paulette’s room, as soft light and her giggles emanate from within. He proceeds to the 4 Also from Procol canvas, but, on the way, slams a cassette of Procol Harum’s ‘Conquistador’4 Harum’s 1967 debut into the tape deck (from 00:25:40). The diegetic song’s volume again is album. high, and another painting montage is set in motion. Off-screen, Toro is in Paulette’s bed, and the montage features a still camera and wide shot of the canvas, now mostly filled in with colour and images. In lieu of camera movement, lap dissolves give us three separate Dobies on screen simultaneously. ‘Conquistador’, used to describe Portuguese and Spanish sailors who colonised countries outside Europe in the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries, here serves as Dobie’s salvo towards his romantic rival. After hitting the play button, the final verses of the song are heard on the soundtrack at a suppressive volume level:

Conquistador there is no time I must pay my respect And though I came to jeer at you I leave now with regret And as the gloom begins to fall I see there is no aureole And though you came with sword held high You did not conquer, only die 200 11:2 Autumn 17 MSMI

Ron Leone with Gabrielle R. Jaques ♦ How Does it Feel?

The song’s chorus follows: ‘And though I hoped for something to find/I could see no maze to unwind’. Through this song choice, Scorsese adds layers of meaning. Referencing Toro’s Latino background on the one hand, it also reinforces themes of male conquest and domination – perhaps even survival considering the characters’ names as correlatives for wild animals – in the name of artistic creation. As Dobie returns to the stereo and lowers the volume, it is clear that Scorsese, as he has done since his earliest films, is eschewing dialogue to allow the song’s lyrics to speak for his character. Dobie addresses Toro directly with his musical selection; the young artist is no match for the true conqueror, shown through dissolves in tripartite fashion no less. Felleman recognised the one-sided nature of their conflict reverberating in the musical selection, noting that ‘Toro may have slept with Paulette but he, Dobie, is the better painter […] [and] Toro’s sexual conquest is nothing to his artistic one’ (2001, p.38). The sequence does not end there. Similar to when Lionel was snapped back into reality from his fantasy sequence, a sound effect of a vehicle in motion – this time it’s a police car siren – can be heard.5 The sound 5 Scorsese frequently effect suggests a passage of time (though it is contradicted by a static uses sound effects like this that suggest motion, visual), and is followed by Dobie turning the stereo volume back up. from jet engines and Now, ‘Conquistador’ has been replaced, appropriately enough, by the sirens to speeding cars aria ‘Nessun Dorma’ (‘None shall sleep’) from Puccini’s Turandot (from and screeching tyres, and 00:26:25). As the tenor sings (in Italian): rely on the Doppler effect as it relates to hearing sound that moves towards None shall sleep! and away from listeners. Even you, O Princess, in your cold bedroom The use of these sounds But my secret is hidden within me; none will know my name! reinforces the ephemeral On your mouth I will say it when the light shines! nature of the characters And my kiss will dissolve the silence that makes you mine Dobie uses in his art, and their transient role in creating his permanent Dobie sits, shirt off, covered in paint, as if in a daze. Suddenly, something works. catches his eye. He rises from the chair and the camera moves with him, stopping long enough to allow him to walk into a close-up. The eyeline is familiar; he is not looking at his canvas – his creation – but is instead gazing forlornly into Paulette’s now-darkened bedroom. The sequence ends with a cut to a tracking shot, in close-up, of the canvas. Is Dobie revelling in a successful conquest over Toro? Or is he suffering, tormented by her indiscretion mere feet away from his lair? The visuals suggest the latter; the music leaves no doubt it’s the former. Dobie’s struggle to win over Paulette is similar to Prince Calaf’s struggle to win the aloof Princess Turandot in Turandot. Both men yearn and lust for cold, nigh unattainable women (recall the cool blues of Dobie’s fantasy). A common theme throughout history, from Petrarch and Laura MSMI 11:2 Autumn 17 201

Ron Leone with Gabrielle R. Jaques ♦ How Does it Feel?

to Pip and Estella, the femme fatale trope links Life Lessons and Turandot. Paulette, like Turandot, is beautiful and cruel to her self-appointed suitor, Dobie, requiring him to prove his love. While Turandot tests the Prince with riddles and punishes with death, Paulette tests Dobie with dares to kiss policemen and punishes with withheld sex and intimacy. Dobie, like Calaf who is initially rebuffed by Turandot after passing her first test, bounces back from rejection quickly and with optimism, playing triumphant music and mocking Paulette and Toro’s one-night tryst. The two songs exemplify the familiar Dobie ‘push-pull’ seen in his discussion with Paulette about her leaving New York. With ‘Conquistador’, Dobie provokes; with ‘Nessun Dorma’, he reshapes the conflict that he orchestrated in the first place. Dobie, the would-be lover, envisions himself a heroic Calaf singing outside his love’s window. Calaf’s desire in ‘Nessun Dorma’ is to win over Turandot, but Dobie wins simply by having Paulette remain in his loft. Despite the end of their physical relationship, Dobie’s needs are satisfied by having Paulette near him to provide fuel for his work. The scene transitions to the next morning as ‘Nessun Dorma’ fades out. Here, Dobie, in last night’s tuxedo pants and an open, polka-dotted robe exposing his pudgy midsection, shakily pours himself a cup of coffee. He is joined by Toro, also in last night’s clothes, shirt open, revealing a toned belly, who asks for a cup. Dobie serves him, asking, ‘You a graffiti artist, Toro’? ‘Well, I wouldn’t say that’ he replies. Dobie, barely waiting for a reply, walks out of the frame, as a screeching tyre sound effect marks his exit. The camera tracks in on Toro, as, off-screen, we hear the familiar clicking of the tape deck’s play button, followed by the final strains of ‘Nessun Dorma’ (‘I will win!’) at an absurdly high volume, jolting Toro and abruptly shifting his gaze towards Dobie (from 00:28:16). The conqueror, using a beat-up garbage can lid as a palette, attacks the canvas with his brush. The scene’s visual coda follows, confirming what the music’s lyrics have been telling us all along: Dobie turns from the canvas, and, looking off-screen (at Toro), smiles broadly. The compilation score in the Toro section of Life Lessons essentially tells a ‘second level’ truth that is only revealed on the ‘first level’ by Dobie’s smug grin at scene’s end, and rewards the more informed listener familiar with the historical conquistador, the Puccini aria, or both (Smith, 1998). In Life Lessons, Scorsese relies heavily on ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ and ‘Conquistador’ to function in a variety of ways. However, it is a live performance of ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ by Bob Dylan and The Band that serves as the centrepiece of the film. While the song’s title evokes the theme of perpetual, cyclical movement, its use here reflects Scorsese’s ruminations on creativity and destruction representing two sides of the 202 11:2 Autumn 17 MSMI

Ron Leone with Gabrielle R. Jaques ♦ How Does it Feel?

same proverbial coin. Most importantly, it reveals more about Paulette and her attraction to Dobie – and by extension our fascination with the genius artist in general – than any other scene in the film. Dylan wrote ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ in 1965, at a time in his career when he was unhappy with the public’s expectations of him. He called the song a breakthrough at a time when he was considering quitting the music business (Cott, 2006). Biographer Robert Shelton considers the song to be ‘about the loss of innocence and the harshness of experience’ (2011, p.279). Thus, the song came along at a time of creative crisis for Dylan, and he speaks to issues of loneliness, alienation, self-doubt, and cynicism; further, high on the folk singer’s agenda here are resentment and retribution (Trager, 2004). The song’s length – at six minutes, nearly double the standard FM ‘radio-friendly’ length of the day – and its debut live performance – electric at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival – contribute to its enigmatic, yet legendary, status, culminating in 2014 with the handwritten lyrics being purchased at auction for $2 million. Recall that Felleman (2001) considers Dobie to be Scorsese’s portrayal of himself; likewise, Scorsese appears to admire Dylan for what he sees in himself. In 2005, Scorsese directed the documentary No Direction Home: Bob Dylan for PBS’s American Masters series. The two-part film chronicles Dylan’s life and work from 1961 to 1966. In publicity material for the film, Scorsese praises Dylan as an extraordinary musical artist ‘who weaves his influences so densely to create something so personal and unique’, while, in the same piece, the director is praised by American Masters creator Susan Lacy as ‘an artist with a singular vision who could fuse this [overwhelming amount of] material into a unique visual narrative’ (PBS, 2005). The choice of this particular recording of this particular song suggests the film genius (Scorsese) using the work of the musical genius (Dylan) to tell the story of a genius painter (Dobie), and reflects Scorsese’s recognition of the song’s multi-faceted cultural value and functionality (Smith, 1998). ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ appears twice in the film diegetically, the first time in what is, essentially, a montage without other diegetic sounds (from 00:17:38). Dialogue is de-emphasised and the music fills this sonic gap. In short, ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ speaks for characters who cannot, or will not, do it themselves. Immediately preceding the song’s appearance, in her studio in the loft, Paulette asks Dobie for an honest critique of her work; she pleads with him: ‘Just tell me what you think. Come on’. Dobie’s response is honest and chilling: ‘What the hell difference does it matter what I think’? An audible camera track – this time accompanied by the sound of a descending aeroplane – moves around Paulette, providing an over-the-shoulder shot of Dobie. He continues: ‘It’s yours. You make art MSMI 11:2 Autumn 17 203

Ron Leone with Gabrielle R. Jaques ♦ How Does it Feel?

because you have to, because you have no choice. It’s not about talent. It’s about no choice but to do it. Now, are you any good? Well, you’re twenty-two, so who knows? Who cares? You wanna give it up? You give it up, you weren’t a real artist to begin with’. On the final line he turns his back on the tearful Paulette and exits towards his studio space. Mumbling to himself about the stupidity of what he’s just said, Dobie slams the cassette deck door shut and bangs the play button; ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ begins playing loudly. Almost immediately, Scorsese cuts back into Paulette’s corner of the studio to show her on the phone, crying, talking to her mother about returning home. The off-screen diegetic song can be heard in the background. Interestingly, her mother’s voice cannot be heard; instead, Paulette ‘converses’ with the song’s lyrics. Paulette struggles to express her frustration: ‘I’m not … I can’t …’. The music offers no consolation: ‘You never turned around to see the frowns on all the jugglers and the clowns when they all came down to do tricks for you’. Paulette expresses to her mother a desire to go back to school, yet the reply is equally cold: ‘You never understood that it ain’t no good/You shouldn’t let other people get your kicks for you’. The ‘conversation’ ends with Paulette wiping tears from her eyes, expressing that she ‘just hate[s] it here’, and Dylan tauntingly asking ‘Ain’t it hard when you discover that/He really wasn’t where it’s at/After he took from you everything he could STEAL’? The live recording has Dylan and backing vocalists from The Band literally screaming the last word, and it is further emphasised by a cut to Paulette entering Dobie’s studio with a corresponding volume change. Julie Hubbert attends to Scorsese’s use of alternate (cover) versions of songs in GoodFellas as adding yet another layer of significance to the director’s work. By eschewing original versions and using stylistically different covers of ‘Unchained Melody’ and ‘My Way’ (the latter made famous by Frank Sinatra and covered by Sid Vicious in the film), she notes that Scorsese is not only interested in different arrangements, tempos, or vocal cadences, but in using what he calls ‘decadent’ versions of songs (2013, p.48). The guttural, raw live version of ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ used here reflects the same decadence Scorsese values in these covers. The familiar chorus from the original version returns with an added ferocity in the live recording, as backing vocals do not match Dylan’s precisely: ‘How does it feel/How does it feel/To be without a home/With no direction home/Like a complete unknown/Just like a rolling stone’? The result is assaultive, like a legion of voices grilling Paulette. She implores, ‘Lionel. Lionel. Turn the music down!’, her voice struggling to compete with the excessive volume. The last word of dialogue, Paulette’s drawn out ‘Lionelll’ occurs, and then Dylan’s lyrics do all the talking 204 11:2 Autumn 17 MSMI

Ron Leone with Gabrielle R. Jaques ♦ How Does it Feel?

for the remainder of the scene. At no point in the sequence does Dobie acknowledge Paulette’s presence or voice, appearing to be in a trance-like state as he paints. This scene represents the height of Scorsese’s use of music in the film, not only providing structural unity to the montage and action itself, but also speaking for his characters, and for himself. In this way, it can be viewed as a pre-eminent example of how the compilation score can meet the same demands as the classical score in terms of supporting the narrative, but also as an expressive device speaking for or commenting on characters (Beck, 2016). Ignored, Paulette circles around the giant canvas ostensibly to confront Dobie. A tracking shot portrays her point-of-view, followed by cuts to Dobie painting and close-ups of his garbage-can-lid palette, paints, and brush strokes. Here, Scorsese begins crosscutting between Dobie’s feverish painting and Paulette’s gaze. Her tears are gone. While propelling Dobie forward in his frenzied creative trance, the music and lyrics also speak to movement in terms of Paulette. She transitions from anger and frustration to an almost sexually charged look of awe, suggesting Dobie’s Svengali-like influence in her life. Here, as in previous examples, the song lyrics tell the story, as specific lines from the song accompany shots of either Dobie painting or Paulette watching him. The first time Paulette is shown watching Dobie paint while beginning her emotional transition, the pacing of the editing intensifies as shot lengths shorten. Critical cuts coincide not with the song’s rhythm but with different lyrical phrases. A disgusted Dylan sneers, ‘You used to be so amused/At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used’, followed by an exhortation to Paulette to ‘Go to him now, he calls you, you can’t refuse’, perfectly synced with alternating shots of Paulette, now almost smiling, and increasingly closer shots of Dobie’s paint. Of course, it is the final two lines of verse from ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ that prove to be most trenchant and cutting. The first, ‘When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose’, interrupts the established sequencing of the montage. Instead of cutting between Paulette looking and point-of-view shots of him painting, three high-angle shots getting closer to Dobie are used to signal that it is Dobie who has nothing, or perhaps is nothing compared to his art.6 The final line of verse, ‘You’re invisible/You got no 6 Dobie refers to himself secrets to CONCEAL’, returns to the original editing pattern established as the ‘invisible man’ in a conversation with Paulette in the montage, with shots of Paulette ending in a close-up alternating later in the film. with shots of Dobie painting. In a brilliant expansion of the ‘push-pull’, ‘destroy-create’ motif emblematic of Dobie’s treatment of others, especially his ingénue, he blasts ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ initially to silence and drown out Paulette. Battling song volume and fighting back tears, her attempt to confront him MSMI 11:2 Autumn 17 205

Ron Leone with Gabrielle R. Jaques ♦ How Does it Feel?

is easily rebuffed by Dylan and The Band. Where words failed Dobie in previous attempts to ‘pull’ Paulette back to him, here he successfully ‘speaks’ through song choice and brush strokes. Moreover, the lyrics of ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ tell both characters’ stories. As a person and an artist, Paulette is invisible, almost non-existent, beyond her parts that Dobie fetishises. And, while his art is quite visible, Dobie is not. All the secrets he conceals in life are on display in his art, as destruction of his and Paulette’s private lives is the catalyst for the creation of his sprawling, public art. As the song’s familiar chorus kicks in again with full vocal rage and intensity, the cutting of the montage and camera movements follow the lyrical progression. Interestingly, the crosscutting is no longer between Paulette and Dobie, now it is between painter and canvas, save for one brief, precise moment. During the line, ‘Like a complete unknown’, on the word ‘unknown’, Paulette makes her last appearance in the montage until its final image, a reverse tracking shot which connects Paulette’s gaze to Dobie’s frenetic painting (the only shot in the entire sequence where they share the frame). Thus, in this pivotal sequence, the song unifies the many thematic elements at play, and energises the feverish, aggressive pace of the painting. Like a choreographed dance, or, perhaps, the film’s surrogate sex scene, Dobie’s seductive brushstrokes and looping finger work entrance Paulette. Such a ‘dance’ reflects how creation and destruction are linked. Dobie, invisible in his work, suffers to create his masterworks while destroying people and relationships; Paulette, stimulated and anonymous, ultimately leaves the film with no last name or identity, but, as promised, valuable life lessons (‘Sometimes I feel like a human sacrifice’, she screams at Dobie later in the film). It is why this scene in particular, and Life Lessons as a whole, represents Scorsese’s deepest meditation on creation and the life of the artist. Considering Scorsese’s singular commitment to his art, and his admiration for Dylan’s musical genius, no other film in the director’s oeuvre can be seen as so uniquely autobiographical as Life Lessons. If Dobie can indeed be seen as a portrayal of Scorsese, the director is laying bare his statement on the all-consuming process of artistic creation, its special connection to music, and its human casualties. As noted previously, ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ appears diegetically in the film twice. Its second appearance (00:41:00) marks Paulette’s departure from the story. The song ‘speaks truth’ to counter Dobie’s lies as a different verse underscores their final exchange. Paulette, in an attempt to have an authentic, honest moment with Dobie, says: ‘If just once you came by my room, and said, “Gee, Paulette, you’re a terrible painter. Why don’t you get a job and enjoy li-”?’ Dobie doesn’t allow her to finish the sentence. He retorts: ‘Let me tell you something. You think I just use people, just 206 11:2 Autumn 17 MSMI

Ron Leone with Gabrielle R. Jaques ♦ How Does it Feel?

grind ’em up. Well you don’t know anything about me’. He continues, growing increasingly angry, ‘You don’t know how involved I get or how far down I go. Hell, I was married four times before you were even born, so don’t you tell me’, before his voice trails off. Then, returning his gaze to his garbage can lid palette and canvas, he repeats, almost in resignation, ‘Don’t you tell me’. Instead, the lyrics impart Paulette with her last life lesson: ‘You said you’d never compromise/With the mystery tramp, but now you realize/He’s not selling any alibis/As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes/And say, “Would you like to make a DEAL”?’ Paulette leaves New York a ‘complete unknown’ as Dobie returns to his work, and what was once a song defining Scorsese’s two main characters re-emerges as an expression of the isolation and paranoia of the tortured artist, be it director or painter. Like his use of ‘The End’ in Who’s That Knocking at My Door, Scorsese challenges viewers to consider ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ as the personal expression of himself, Dobie, or both. With the song still playing, Dobie, in close-up, is now using his fingers to add green to his work. As the song’s chorus plays ‘how does it feel? To be on your own, with no direction home’, he mutters to himself, ‘Chippies. You know why they call ’em that? Because they like to chip away at you, man. Take a little chip. That’s your art form. That’s your talent’. Suddenly seized by the moment, Dobie gasps, covers his mouth with a paint-soaked hand, and whispers ‘Oh, God’. Is this his life lesson? Does Dobie see some truth concealed in the off-screen painting? Or, are the aimlessness and loneliness of the song’s chorus revealing something true about the creative process of the painter? The director? Where a younger Scorsese used ‘The End’ to ruminate on relationships, Catholic guilt, and a sexual ‘double standard’ between women and men, his use of ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ here suggests his contemplation of the complex, difficult position inhabited by the genius artist ‘touched by the hand of God’. Alternatingly adversarial and revelatory, and exemplified throughout Life Lessons by Dobie’s pattern of destroying and creating, the artist inherently, and permanently, differs from the denizens of society that surround him. He sacrifices everything and everyone in the name of creation, and when confronted with this realisation is best served by continuing to move forward. The invocation of God by Dobie suggests that this is the director’s personal moment, not his character’s, reinforced by Scorsese’s decision not to resolve the shot by cutting to Dobie’s point of view. Indeed, Dobie, who must meet his impending exhibition deadline, cares little for self-analysis. His introspective moment is replaced by a Raging Bull-like assault of camera shutter clicks and flashes intercut with black-and-white still photos of a cleaned-up Dobie at his gallery opening. An attractive young MSMI 11:2 Autumn 17 207

Ron Leone with Gabrielle R. Jaques ♦ How Does it Feel?

woman (Brigitte Bako) working at the gallery pours him a glass of wine and touches his hand ‘for luck’. To the lively bop of Django Reinhardt’s ‘Bolero de Django’ (from 00:43:10), a montage of the woman’s body parts – ear, neck, hands, mouth – is followed by Dobie’s pitch: ‘I need an assistant. I pay room and board and give life lessons that are priceless, plus a salary. You wouldn’t know anybody that needs a job, would ya?’ And, in yet another repetition of dialogue, she repeats his line from the previous scene, ‘Oh, God’. He introduces himself and asks her name, but we never hear it. Instead, the familiar Hammond organ line from ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ returns for the final time (from 00:44:40), bringing the film, and Dobie, full circle. An iris shot captures the two of them at the table, and through a dissolve they remain in place in what is now an empty room. As we hear the song’s opening line, ‘We skipped the light fandango’ over a fade to black, we know Dobie’s familiar dance is beginning again.

Conclusion: The GoodFellas Connection Scorsese followed up Life Lessons with his gangster opus, GoodFellas. Taking the musical lessons learned from his New York Stories contribution and expanding on the voiceover work he began experimenting with in Mean Streets, Scorsese wove his most formally complex soundtrack to date (Hubbert, 2013). Nowhere in his body of work does Scorsese integrate music (especially song lyrics), natural sound, and voiceover as effectively as he does in GoodFellas. From the film’s opening sequence, in which wise guys Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci), and Jimmy Conway (Robert De Niro) savagely finish off Billy Batts (Frank Vincent) in the trunk of their car, music and voiceover guide the visuals. Immediately following the murder, Henry’s voiceover begins: ‘As far back as I can remember I always wanted to be a gangster’; it then gives way to Tony Bennett’s ‘Rags to Riches’ (from 00:01:54). The song’s opening horns introduce the familiar tune over a freeze frame close-up of Henry, awash in red light. As Bennett begins singing, ‘You know I go from rags to riches’, Scorsese cuts away from the close-up to an opening title sequence by the legendary Saul Bass, with moving car sound effects ushering in individual credits, a nod to his use of sound in Life Lessons. ‘Rags to Riches’ may be the obvious choice to introduce the story of Henry’s life in the mafia as he graduates from errand boy to gangster kingpin, but the combination of music, song lyrics, and voiceover established here is quite complex (ibid.). Julie Hubbert’s analysis of GoodFellas in Arved Ashby’s Popular Music and the New Auteur: Visionary Filmmakers after MTV, a book that examines 208 11:2 Autumn 17 MSMI

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the impact of MTV and the music video on film music and sound, locates GoodFellas as the height of Scorsese’s cinematic genius, especially regarding his blending of music, voiceover narration, dialogue, and image in film. Emphasizing movement in a new way that reflects music video practice, Hubbert concludes that GoodFellas’ ‘soundtrack represents an expanded music aesthetic and a new soundtrack practice’ for, arguably, contemporary cinema’s most influential ‘musical auteur’ (2013, p.33). Life Lessons predicts some of the attributes Hubbert ascribes to Scorsese’s ‘expanded aesthetic’. For example, Scorsese’s use of moving vehicle sound effects and the reappearance of ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ to accentuate Dobie’s eternally kinetic nature in Life Lessons can be linked to the musical emphasis on movement so critical to GoodFellas’ new aesthetic. Like GoodFellas, the placement of much of the music in Life Lessons doesn’t appear as an ‘MTV moment’ where the film ‘clearly just changes gear, establishing a distinctively “modular” style’ (p.36). In GoodFellas, ‘Scorsese’s new style is not interruptive. It does not pursue a “modular” format of shifting back and forth from cinematic to video style and tempo’ (p.39). While it must be noted that this is not the case in terms of Life Lessons’ signature scene featuring ‘Like a Rolling Stone’, it does apply to many of the other examples discussed here. In a similar vein, most examples of compiled score in Life Lessons have a clear on-screen source, a familiar Scorsese practice from which he diverges for maximum effect in GoodFellas (p.39). Critical assessment of Scorsese’s compilation score in Life Lessons suggests that the director was experimenting with new ways to use music in film as he prepared for the groundbreaking GoodFellas soundtrack. GoodFellas is not only regarded as one of Scorsese’s best works, it is lauded as one of the great American films of the twentieth century (Ebert, 2008). Much of its acclaim can be traced to its powerful, inventive use of music and voiceover to propel the narrative forward, reveal characters’ motives and desires, and provide structural unity to a story covering decades of Hill’s life in the mafia. While Life Lessons has received compara- tively little critical recognition or scholarly attention, perhaps this work will help push it closer to his recognised masterpieces like Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and GoodFellas.

Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank Stonehill College for providing a Student Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) grant to begin work on this project, Kathryn Kalinak for reading and providing notes on an early draft, and the reviewers for their insightful feedback. MSMI 11:2 Autumn 17 209

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References

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Pevere, Geoff (2007) Scorsese’s Confident, Trusted Cutter. Available from: https:// www.thestar.com/opinion/columnists/2007/07/13/scorseses_confident_ trusted_cutter.html (Accessed: 30 August 2017). Romney, Jonathan & Wootton, Adrian (1995) Celluloid Jukebox: Popular Music and the Movies Since the 50s. London: British Film Institute. Sangster, Jim (2002) Scorsese. London: Virgin Books. Shelton, Robert (1986) No Direction Home: The Life and Music of Bob Dylan. New York: Ballantine Books. Smith, Jeff (1998).The Sounds of Commerce: Marketing Popular Film Music. New York: Columbia University Press. Trager, Oliver (2004) Keys to the Rain: The Definitive Bob Dylan Encyclopedia. New York: Billboard Books.

Media Cited

After Hours, Martin Scorsese, USA, 1985. Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola, USA, 1979. ‘Bad’ [music video] Michael Jackson, Martin Scorsese, Epic, USA, 1987. Gangs of New York, Martin Scorsese, USA/Italy, 2002. George Harrison: Living in the Material World, Martin Scorsese, USA, 2011. GoodFellas, Martin Scorsese, USA, 1990. The Last Temptation of Christ, Martin Scorsese, USA/Canada, 1988. Mean Streets, Martin Scorsese, USA, 1973. New York Stories [includes Life Lessons, Martin Scorsese; Life Without Zoe, Francis Coppola; Oedipus Wrecks, Woody Allen], USA, 1989. Raging Bull, Martin Scorsese, USA, 1980. 30th Anniversary Edition [DVD], Beverly Hills: MGM Home Entertainment, 2011. Silence, Martin Scorsese, USA/Taiwan/Mexico, 2016. Taxi Driver, Martin Scorsese, USA, 1976. Une femme mariée, Jean-Luc Godard, France, 1964. Who’s That Knocking at My Door, Martin Scorsese, USA, 1967. Woodstock, Michael Wadleigh, USA, 1970.