What's a Nice Girl like You Doing in a Place like This
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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What's a Nice Girl like You Doing in a Place like This? is a 1963 American black-and-white short comedy-drama film created by Martin Scorsese while he studied at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. It is a story about a writer who becomes obsessed with a picture on his wall. The film stars Zeph Michaelis, Mimi Stark, Sarah Braveman, Fred Sica, and Robert Uricola.
The work, shot using 16 mm film, features animations, montage, jump cuts, associative editing, and freeze-frame shots. Scorsese created it shortly after watching Federico Fellini's 1963 surrealist comedy-drama 8½. The negative was cut incorrectly by a student, so a professor asked Thelma Schoonmaker, who was also participating in the summer program, to help Scorsese. Commentators noted that the film has a connection to most of Scorsese's later projects, including Goodfellas (1990) and The Wolf of Wall Street (2013).
The film received positive critical reviews, the majority of which complimented its direction and editing. It was released in 1992 on a VHS compilation tape in the United Kingdom and was re-released in May 2020 in 4K resolution format by The Criterion Collection. It was honored at the 1965 National Student Film Festival with another Scorsese short film It's Not Just You, Murray! (1964).
Plot
A writer Algernon, moves into a new apartment. He purchases a picture of a boat on a lake from a persuasive salesman although he dislikes it. His friends tell him it is not particularly impressive to look at. After a few days, Algernon finds himself fixating on the image and finds it difficult to write and eat. He believes his obsession with the picture is a result of his intense sensitivity and vivid imagination and he has difficulty sleeping.
Algernon throws a party, where he meets a girl who distracts him from the photograph. He finds her very attractive but does not develop any obsessive feelings about the image around her. Algernon regains the ability to eat, write and sleep. His friends describe the girl as a "real good catch". He later decides to marry her, and they honeymoon at the 1964 New York World's Fair, which is still under construction. After their honeymoon, Algernon starts to write a book of confessions, and the girl paints pictures. However, after having a conversation with a psychoanalyst about his obsession with the image, Algernon becomes focused on another picture, depicting an ocean. His fixation on the new photograph leads him to feel trapped inside it.
