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50 C I N E M O N T A G E T A I L P O P P H OT O : P H OT O F E S T Ellen Burstyn in "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore." By Adam Lichtenstein I n the summer of '75, when I was 10, my parents rented an off-season ski house at the foot of Stratton Mountain in Ver- mont. My dad had just started a new job, so it was primarily my mother and me spend- ing all our time together. During the day, we sunned and swam in the nearby rivers and dams or took a lift to the top of the mountain. On rainy days, I made drawings, wrote postcards, shopped for fudge, and went to the movies. I vividly recall a double feature of Bar- bra Streisand's "Funny Lady" and Carol Burnett's dramatic turn in "Pete 'n' Tillie." Around that same time, I also caught Ellen Burstyn in "Alice Doesn't Live Here Any- more," which was Martin Scorsese's first studio film. Judging from the subject matter, Mom was clearly making the selections, and being as they were adult-themed, the films required follow-up discussions. "Ma?" "Yeah?" "Did Alice love her hus- band?" "Yes and no." "I don't understand." Mom paused. "Let's just say — they had a difficult marriage." At night, we would listen to E.G. Mar- shall host a radio program called "Mystery Theater." These were "Twilight Zone"-type stories of the macabre. The show closed with a creaking door and Marshall intoning, "Until next time, pleasant…dreams?" This pastoral situation of ours offered me a unique appreciation for the simpler times in which my mother grew up, so I finally un- derstood what she was talking about when she spoke of the old days before television. The rainy days continued, and even though I'd already seen it, I begged my mother to take me to see "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" again. It was unlike any film I'd seen, and I found myself rewatching it MOTHERHOOD DECODING THE MOTHER-SON TIES IN 'ALICE DOESN'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE' with the relentless focus of a modern gamer. I took the story to be a kind of odyssey of a widowed, single mother and her insolent son. What's more, my connection to the film became personal, as Alice Hyatt bore an uncanny resemblance to my mother. But "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" was also lively and fun and thrilling. It was a film I wanted to inhabit, right alongside a 12-year-old Jodie Foster in her role as Doris, the Ripple-pushing shoplifter who's renamed herself Audrey. In many ways, I was already playing a role in this film. Indeed, Alice's son Tommy was the spitting image of me; a brown-haired, freck- le-faced, dirty-mouthed, neurotic wise guy whose bad behavior followed a direct line to his friendless circumstances. But he didn't care. Tommy was living his truth, and if the adults didn't like his behavior, then perhaps t h ey s h o u l d h ave l o o ke d m o re c l o s e l y at themselves. I n 1 9 75, a n y o n e c o u l d s e e t h a t t h e mother-son relationship lacked proper boundaries. For instance, Alice routinely confides in Tommy about her marital strug- g l e s, a n d h e co u n te rs w i t h t h e s h a r p, snappy comebacks that only her inappro- priate parenting could have cultivated. This is clear when Alice wonders aloud, "How did I get such a wise-ass kid?" "You got pregnant," Tommy says. And when Alice tries to cover her ques- tionable parenting by saying, "I really don't know where he gets that language," Tommy says, "Think real hard — it'll come to you." Tommy is a nosy, precocious pest of a kid, and when he is supposed to be asleep, he is sitting up alone in the dark, watching black-and-white movies more appropriate to someone his mother's age. Alice's new boyfriend (Kris Kristofferson) perceives Tommy as a spoiled brat, but the truth is, Tommy's compensating for all the times he's been neglected. So, while he is under- standably resentful, he's still able to hold the adults strictly accountable. In one striking scene, Alice threat- ens, "If you open your mouth one more time I swear I'm going to nail it shut", at which point Tommy opens his mouth as wide as he can, audaciously taunting his overwhelmed mother. Tommy was me to a T. Like Alice, my m o t h e r s t r u gg l e d w i t h p a re n t i n g, ye t she still appreciated my defiance and the absurd outlook on life I had absorbed watching screwball comedies on late-night TV. Recognizing our reflection in "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore," my mom began to view me as her beloved work of art, graciously accepting me for who I was — flaws and all — just as I did for her. CYNTHIA LICHTENSTEIN, BELOVED MOTHER 1929 — 2026 ■ Adam Lichtenstein is a picture editor working in documentaries, feature narratives, and TV comedies. He can be reached via his website: www.firesideeditor.com