Who's That Knocking At My Door? (1967)

Marty from NYU
Martin Scorsese's debut film is a black & white portrait of a young city dweller named J.R. (Keitel). The project started out as a graduate student film. With gradual funding & piecing together of scenes shot & edited years apart, Marty created the story of a flawed character defined by his religion & social circle. There are two striking scenes in the picture, both involving the actors Harvey Keitel & Zina Bethune. In the first scene, the two met & J.R. spoke passionately about westerns as though Scorsese were expounding through Keitel on a favourite subject of his, John Ford. In the later scene, a complex argument takes place between a man & a woman whose mutual love could not overcome the stigma of the woman's sexual trauma.

In the middle of the film, the narrative suddenly pauses, after J.R. began talking about women as "broads", to include a footnote on J.R.'s thoughts about what he would generally consider as loose women. This side reference about sex turns out to be a 5 minute stylized sequence of him rolling around a small bed in the middle of a studio apartment with the type of women he would not consider "marriage-material". According to an interview with Mardik Martin, an early Scorsese collaborator, this sequence was insisted upon by an investor & the sex scenes were filmed in Europe; Holland, I believe. Marty uses frequent cuts, pans, flash transitions & circling movements to imply snippets of memory over gratuitous sex sequence.

All in all, the film has Scorsese's signature written on it, particularly the observation of the imperfect character who lives, stumbles, cries & hurts those who care for him. He did nail the complexities of a heterosexual relationship in a sequence where the couple argues in harsh tones, unable to reconcile their social & personal biases. http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0063803/