The Martin Scorsese movie saved by his filmmaking idol: “We didn’t have a very good ending”
Martin Scorsese feels like a man who has all the answers. You don’t get to make movies like Taxi Driver, Casino, Cape Fear, and The Wolf of Wall Street without being extremely smart, and the famed director has displayed his vast knowledge of cinema in the various documentaries and restoration projects he’s been involved in over his lifetime. It’s hard to imagine a force of nature like him ever getting stuck for ideas, but that’s not to say it hasn’t happened.
In 1985, Scorsese released After Hours. Starring Griffin Dunne as Paul Hackett, a run-of-the-mill civilian, the movie depicts the poor man’s struggles to get home one day after work. It doesn’t sound like much, but its dark humour and immaculate acting make it a brilliant watch.
The film’s ending is played superbly. Hackett is stuffed into the back of a van after getting encased in plaster and kidnapped by Cheech and Chong. After a particularly violent turn, he flies out of the back door, smashing into the floor and freeing himself. However, he’s landed right in front of his office building, just before the working day begins. This finale beautifully juxtaposes the chaos of the preceding action and has a real sense of futility about it, that even after a night of wacky adventures, we’re all just cogs in the machine. It’s a masterstroke, but it almost turned out very differently.
Speaking on the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast, Scorsese’s long-term editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, spoke about how legendary British director Michael Powell assisted the project. “One of the most important [suggestions] Michael gave us was the ending for ‘After Hours,’ because we didn’t have a very good ending,” she admitted. “Some people said, ‘Oh, they should get in a balloon and fly off.’ Michael said, ‘No. He has to go back to the hell we found him in at first, where he’s training somebody to use a computer. What he really wants to do is write the great American novel. He has to go back there.’ And that’s what Marty shot.”
Powell, one half of an acclaimed filmmaking duo with the Hungarian-born Emeric Pressburger, was one of Scorsese’s heroes growing up. In 2024, he narrated a documentary called Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger after years of singing their praises in various interviews. He helped reinvigorate Powell’s career in the 1980s, regularly turning to him for creative advice.
It was Powell’s idea to shoot Raging Bull in black and white and, when studios were refusing to fund Goodfellas because of how violent and drug-heavy it was, he was adamant that Scorsese not back down over any creative decisions. The American gave more than his fair share back to Powell. It was through him that the Brit met Schoonmaker; the pair wed in 1984 and stayed married until Powell’s death in 1990.
Though nowhere near as famous as Scorsese, Powell was every bit as brilliant. The movies he made with Pressburger, which include The Red Shoes, Black Narcissus, and Peeping Tom, hold up as some of the best British movies of the 1960s. Even if he hadn’t made those, the influence he had on his admirer-turned-pupil is more than enough to secure his place in cinema history.
