'I just wanted to kiss your foot, I'm sorry, it's nothing personal'

We are getting very close to the end of #scorgayse which means today we are going to talk about the underseen 'Life Lessons'

“Life lessons that are priceless,” lists Lionel Dobie (Nick Nolte) as he rattles off the perks of being his live-in assistant. A salary, room and board, and life lessons that are priceless. Lionel is a very successful abstract painter and his assistant, Paulette (Rosanna Arquette), is an aspiring painter.

Lionel is obsessed with Paulette. They’ve had a sexual relationship—when convincing her not to quit, he says “you don’t have to sleep with me anymore” which is a haunting turn of phrase. The coercion, the manipulation is implicit in his choice of words. Even Lionel can’t claim they were “dating” or even “having an affair.” She had to sleep with him, and she won’t anymore.

The very first time we meet Lionel, he says to his agent or gallery owner or whatever that he has to go pick up his assistant at the airport. Then, when he does pick her up at the airport, she had no idea he was coming. He surprised her! And she not happy about it! She tells him that she isn’t coming back, she went away with a man, and maybe that’s over, but she can’t handle living with Lionel’s cloying ass anymore.

Now, Lionel may be one of the most successful New York artists of his time, but he is also a supremely pathetic loser. Paulette’s room is a little loft inside of his huge studio; it has an open-air window, such that she doesn’t even have complete privacy. At one point, to get her attention, Lionel bounces his basketball against her wall over and over. When she doesn’t give him the attention he craves, he throws it directly through her open window “on accident” so he can retrieve it. Poor thing.

Lionel is able to manipulate Paulette into staying with him because his talent is so immense and because he negs her. When she expresses that she’s just going to move back in with her parents, he tells her that if she gives up her artistic aspirations, she was never an artist to begin with. Paulette respects Lionel so much that the words really hurt her, and she really considers if she is meant to be an artist. She decides to stay with him. Ironically, we follow Lionel in the immediate aftermath of making this comment, and he berates himself for saying something so idiotic. If Paulette could have seen this moment, perhaps she would have liberated herself sooner!

I think Life Lessons is low-key one of Martin Scorsese’s best films, though its reputation has been hampered by the fact that it was part of New York Stories, an anthology film. Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and Woody Allen each made a 45-minute-ish film. Scorsese’s is brilliant. The other two are boring (Coppola’s) and unwatchable (Allen’s). 

The way Scorsese’s camera communicates Lionel’s lust is so alive, with lingering, slow-motion shots on his face, mouth agape; lingering shots on Paulette’s features, her feet (“I just wanted to kiss your foot, I’m sorry, it’s nothing personal” he says); the way he imagines her in a pale blue light, and he is able to seduce her in his dreams.

When Paulette brings another guy home, Lionel stands under her window somberly as “Nessun Dorma” from Giacomo Puccini’s opera Turandot plays on the soundtrack—hilarious! He’s one of the funnier Scorsese losers because there really is no danger about him. He’s a painter.

The last time we see Paulette, the two are walking home from some art world event, and Paulette tells him that if Lionel really loves her, he will kiss one of the cops nearby for her. Lionel is absolutely willing to go through with it! He struggles with the request but decides to absolutely go through with it, because he loves her. And probably also because he is a little bit gay. She then disappears into the night, and is never heard from again! Good for you, girl.

I believe Scorsese has said that this story was inspired by Fyodor Dostoevsky’s relationship with one of his assistants. I can’t find that online so he must have said it in an interview book I’ve read and I’m too lazy to get off the couch and go fact check. But let’s take it as fact. Great men are often pathetic, and a little bit gay.

At the end of the film, Lionel finds a new young woman and immediately becomes fixated on her. We see quick shots of her gestures and extreme close-ups of her beautiful physical features. And what does he do? Offer her a salary, room and board, and life lessons that are priceless, of course.