Opening Act: Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore
Welcome
to Opening Act, a breakdown and analysis of the greatest opening scenes in film
history. Today Martin Scorsese's 1974 drama Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (hencefore
referred to simply as Alice) starring Ellen
Burstyn and Kris Kristofferson. Neither of them appear in the opening minutes
though. Instead we are treated to trip down memory lane to Alice's upbringing
in Monterey, Calfornia. She has happy memories of her childhood, when she was
full of hopes and dreams and was generally happy. Instead she has found herself
a thirty-something housewife married to an unloving truck driver raising a
twelve year old son in New Mexico. But we don't know any of that yet. Instead,
Scorsese opens the film with the only flashback he uses to establish Alice's
desires to move back to Monterey.
