45-minute mini-feature by Martin Scorsese is sadly underseen due to its placement in the critically failed New York Stories anthology, which also includes contributions from Francis Ford Coppola and Woody Allen. Apart from popular opinion, I enjoy the Allen film, Oedipus Wrecks, and feel the whole multi-story concept would have worked much better with just Scorsese’s and Allen’s films, as they were the two most quintessential New York filmmakers alive. (Coppola’s film is easily the weakest of the three and he is nowhere near as associated with New York City as his two contemporaries.) In any case, Life Lessons finds Scorsese at the height of his powers, coming a year after The Last Temptation of Christ and one year before GoodFellas. It tells the story of a renowned, Jackson Pollock-like action painter (Nick Nolte) who is busy negotiating his relationship with a beautiful young protégé (Rosanna Arquette) while preparing for an upcoming show of his new work. Many of these story elements are pretty cliché - (has there ever been a movie about a painter who didn’t live in a warehouse studio and who wasn’t suffering from pressure to get canvases done in time for a gallery opening?) - but in the hands of Scorsese they are never too cumbersome. The strength of the film – as with most of the director’s work – is in his characteristic shooting and editing, which is just as visceral and engaging here as it is in Raging Bull or GoodFellas. Life Lessons also continues Scorsese’s career-long dissection of male incomprehension of women. As much as famous roles played by Havey Keitel or Robert De Niro in previous Scorsese films, Nolte’s character has no idea what makes his lover tick and possesses no ability to find out or to see her as anything other than half-trophy and half-caretaker. The film feels neither padded nor rushed, and it’s fairly remarkable that it contains so much humor and passion within its modest scope.
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