After Hours (1985) : Martin Scorsese's fantastic dark comedy
After Hours(1985) has this taste of satisfaction that you get when watching a wholesome film but note that this film of Scorsese's is of the dark comedy genre and it plays with the notion of the story happening over one whole night. It was made after his film the The King of Comedy (1982) in which he quotes that many critics called it a box office failure. So after reading the script of After Hours he thought why not go back to the pleasure of shooting movies with low budgets and tighter schedule. Making a smaller movie.
The film was written by Joseph Minion and the cinematography was by Michael Ballhause who was a long collaborator of Scorsese's previous films and the shots give out the sense of narrowness and view of the after hours of New York. There are many close-ups that proves its significance in filmmaking and how Scorsese alluded to Hitchcock when making this film. A sort unconscious in the character when he feels he has figured something important could make the audience feel in the same manner. Also they shot it entirely at night and the cinematography capture the essence of that eerie feeling with its street lamps and dense fog wavering around.
This film tells the story of an office employee or to be precise a word processor Paul Hackett (played by Griffin Dune) who one day meets a woman at a coffee shop. Marcy (played by Rosanna Arquette) strikes a conversation with him and they get to know each other. She tells him that she lives with a sculptor named Kiki Bridges and she gives away her number to him. Later as Paul contemplates through the day he decides to give a call to the number and tries to get a date with Marcy. So when he reaches to her place a series of unfortunate and bizarre events occur.
The tightness and claustrophobia of the film is what makes it unique from Scorsese's previous films. The film takes place at the deep interiors and back yard of New York. The aesthetics has similarities to Taxi Driver (1976) even though the films are highly contrastable with their stories. There is a sort of mystery that keeps lurking in the events a sort of unrelenting nature that depicts the anxiety that Paul undergoes.
The characters are mysterious in that as the events keeps getting disclosed as the film progresses we get to know more about the character. Even Paul’s characters is established first as ordinary and just as a man who goes to an corporate office. When meeting up with Marcy at her place he recognizes that she has scar burns and she takes upon medication for it. Also a medical text book that has burn victim scars in them. What are these doing there and this question can allude to the mystery of her and Kiki and what kind of place Paul has arrived at. From there Paul gets in his mess and with each new event from how it is pouring heavily which stops the train services and he is not able to reach home. The presence of the bar and the characters inside like the loony waiter or the bar owner who may have a connection to Marcy.
It is as if there is a sense of paranoia that keeps growing and how we see it through the actions of Paul. The connection of the bar owner to Marcy, to the 20$ bill being stuck upon the Plaster- of- Paris mesh of a horrifying man that Kiki sculpted, to the delusional waiter and a strings of burglaries all occur during these after hours and try to be explained but the madness of it all makes that even impossible. With the wonderful synthetic musical score by Howard Shore these events become bizarre and Kafkaesque.
After Hours is not regarded as some masterpiece from Scorsese and also it is usually not mentioned when mentioning his filmography. But it still is a wonderful film with polished and tight filmmaking and dark comedy that excels in its situation and events. It is a film that should not be overlooked in Scorsese's work and it is a film to definitely watch.