Review of Who's That Knocking at My Door (1968) by Tim H — 20 Jan 2015

Scorsese's first film feels like a first film, and that's not a bad thing. WHO'S THAT KNOCKING AT MY DOOR? is both a launching pad for and a distillation of the most fundamental thematic concerns and aesthetic interests that permeate Scorsese's filmography.

You have the fusion of naturalism (drawing on the tradition of street filmmaking established by the Italian neorealists and only recently transplanted to New York from the likes of Cassavetes and others) and expressionism (drawing on the European art film).

You have the bold, personal use of pop music to underscore and undermine the image in distinctly unexpected ways. You have the obsession with movies and American film history and the western (THE SEARCHERS!) and pop culture generally, both as it was remembered and as it was forgotten.

You have the rhythm of the New York hoodlum, both comic and dangerous. You have the Catholic guilt and the relationship between life in the church on life on the streets, and all kinds of Madonna-whore anxieties around sex and virginity--the ways in which sex can feel more dangerous and violent than the actual violence of this world.

The movie is rough around the edges, which is largely to its advantage--Scorsese hasn't found the kind of confidence we'd see a few years later with MEAN STREETS, his real breakthrough (and, in many regards, a reworking of some of these same ideas and people and places), but he's clearly got something to say and he's clearly got a distinctive way of saying it and WHO'S THAT KNOCKING AT MY DOOR? isn't just worthy of note because of its historical value in launching the careeer of one of the major American auteurs, it's a striking, powerful, interesting, exciting movie any way you look at it.