Raging Bulls and Goodfellas: Masculinity in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore

There was something precarious about the state of masculinity in the mid-seventies, just as there was something precarious about white superiority in the sixties or the French royalty in the late 18th century. A rebellion had taken place, the paradigm had shifted, and those left to make sense of the rubble had some trouble piecing it all together. Following the Women’s Liberation movement, the question of male identity was a metaphysical can of worms. Sexism aside, prior to the movement, men and women had set roles, roles that were unflinchingly rigid that defined their existence. Because of the historical bias, men were in power, and women sought to change this. When this happened, though, the things that were previously associated with masculinity (having a job, head of household, even sexual promiscuity) were all being subverted and commandeered by feminism. And so a void was opened in the soul of man that made him question what it means to be a man. It is out of this void that many of Martin Scorsese’s cinematic antiheroes are born.

As early as J.R. and as late as Billy Costigan and Howard Hughes, Scorsese seems drawn to characters of a certain haunted quality, a certain volatility. But this seems to be made most clear in his film Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. At surface value this film is about a woman and her son who have to make a living for themselves after her husband dies. Along the way she falls for several men, all but one of whom led to great disappointment. Even the last lets her down, but he wins her over in the end. The story is standard, the hero wins in the end, and the film wins an Oscar, none of which are trademarks of Scorsese’s canon. The interesting thing that is done here is his focus on the savage masculine characters.

There are three men in the story: her husband, Ben (played by Harvey Keitel), and David (Kris Kristofferson). Each of these characters in their brief time onscreen are painted more richly than Alice, not due to Ellen Burstyn’s lack of talent, but rather because (as Blake said about Milton) Scorsese is of the devil’s party. He explores the masculine condition naturally, even in a film that some would describe as feminist. Her lethargic husband is unstable, he lashes out at their kid because of simple pranks, and Alice would really rather he were out of the picture. Then out of some perverse form of wish fulfillment, he dies, just like that. This is our first perspective of the married man in a post feminist world. He has a pent up tendency towards violence, but it is not out of anger, it is out of frustration. The radius of his will has shrunk, and out of his increasing impotence, his actions are reduced to futility or a vague attempt to regain control.

The second image we get is that of Ben, the slimy pick-up artist that Alice meets at one of her many gigs. She tries to make it as a lounge singer, and on her first night Ben sidles up next to her and she lets him in. He seems quite nice at first, but when Alice gets a knock on the door from his wife, all of a sudden his character becomes three dimensional. Ben is not just a philanderer, he is a womanizer; a man who beats his wife and, to add insult to injury, cheats on her at the same time. His sexuality and his rage are intertwined, as he discovers all the truth that is to be found in the old adage about women: he can’t live without them but he can’t live with them either. The confusion of sexual morals, his misperception of the world around him, even his apparent manipulation of Alice seem to stem from this simultaneous need and rejection of the new woman: the mid-seventies woman.

Our final character is David, and he seems perfect. By this time Alice has moved to a new town, and she finds herself employed as a waitress. With David she begins a casual romance, one that she is hesitant toward, given her recent history. But David seems to be a genuinely good guy. However when he seeks to discipline her son Tommy, she sees the violence that is just a part of him as it was her husband and Ben. She sees that he too lashes out when frustrated over simple things. They have a fight that seems to erupt volcanically out of a happy birthday party. Emotions pour out that were bottled up in both of them and from this catharsis, even though they are temporarily blind with anger, they can finally see each other for who they are. If David is to be with Alice, he has to deal with the fact that she wants control over her life and her son. If Alice is to be with David, she has to see that he needs control over his life, too. But in the end they are both willing to make do.

It ends with him promising to take her to Monterey to try and become a famous singer, and we might see this as a happy note. However, I anticipate that the two will be happy for a while, but soon they’ll start fighting, soon he’ll resent her and she’ll find him contemptible, because there was just as much spark in her husband when she married him. We’re always willing to take a chance on love, but when relationships are radically changing at their core, when the way we interact as people, as genders is mutating before us, it is easy for both parties to have misconceptions.

Scorsese made a film here that seems like a feminist film, it seems to be about empowered women who make it on their own in the real world. But when you look closer you can see that Alice needs men just as much as ever. You can see that all the female characters are stereotypical, with Alice filling the ironic role of “strong woman.” What this film is really about is the men she encounters along this path. She acts as a lens, a medium through which we can see the men, these haunted characters that are driven mad by the worst of times. They might as well be Travis Bickle or Johnny Boy; they might grow up to be Charlie or Ace Rothstein. Because at their core, men are simply raging bulls who occasionally become good fellas, but who spend most of their life groping in the dark for meaning.