Martin Scorsese's 1977 musical New York, New York is often characterized as a flawed experiment combining reverence for Hollywood classicism with New Hollywood improvisation and gritty realism. The film underperformed at the box office, reinforcing the idea that Scorsese's winning streak had been broken. The movie opened the same week as William Friedkin's Sorcerer and was overshadowed by the massive commercial success of Star Wars. Star Wars' popularity prompted studios to favor clear, mass-entertainment blockbusters over morally ambiguous, auteur-driven films. Marcia Lucas left Star Wars to edit New York, New York and preferred Scorsese's revisionist musical.
There's a conventional wisdom when it comes to Martin Scorsese's 1977 musical "New York, New York" - largely exacerbated by the director himself - that it's an experiment that didn't quite come off, an unwieldy attempt to combine the Hollywood classicism Scorsese revered (that of Vincente Minnelli, George Cukor, and Stanley Donen) with the New Hollywood emphasis on improvisation and gritty authenticity that Marty had learned from his mentor John Cassavetes,
The fact that the movie was a commercial disappointment when it came out didn't help its reputation; the perception was that Scorsese had broken his winning streak the same way Steven Spielberg would break his own two years later with another old/new Hollywood mashup, "1941." Like William Friedkin's "Sorcerer," another auteur passion project that opened the same week, "New York, New York" was pummeled at the box office by "Star Wars," a movie directed by Scorsese's friend George Lucas
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