Who's That Knocking At My Door

DVD Rating: ***

Reviewed by: Amber Wilkinson

Read Amber Wilkinson's film review of Who's That Knocking At My Door
Who's That Knocking
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There are two extras on this BFI release. One, described as "a partial commentary" is actually around half an hour of snippets about the film from director Martin Scorsese and directorial assistant and collaborator Mardik Martin intercut with one another. Both essentially talk about the Genesis of the project, with Scorsese's mile-a-minute observations covering his time at film school, where he describes his tutor as "almost like the movie sergeant in Full Metal Jacket, without the obscenities".

He also talks a lot about the technical difficulties that they faced during shooting and about the way the film changed from when the first scenes were shot until when it was finally finished and screened at Chicago Film Festival some years later.

Copy picture

Martin's reminiscences are chiefly interesting for the way in which he describes Scorsese's working technique. He further expands on these in the 15-minute featurette From The Classroom To The Streets: The Making Of Who's That Knocking At My Door. It's particularly interesting to hear that the sex romp of JR (Harvey Keitel) with a succession of women was added at the behest of the film's producer years after the original film was finished - so it's not surprising that, despite being interesting in its own right, it doesn't sit very well within the body of the film.

This short doc is also notable for featuring some of the original storyboards created by Scorsese before the film was shot, as Martin puts it, "paper is cheaper than film".

The feature is subtitled but neither the commentary or featurette feature subtitle tracks.

Reviewed on: 03 Apr 2017
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Who's That Knocking At My Door packshot
Snapshot of the life of a young man in 60s New York.

Region: 0

Ratio: 1.85:1

Sound: 2.0 mono audio

Extras: Partial commentary by Martin Scorses and Mardik Martin, From The Classroom To The Streets: The Making Of Who's That Knocking


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