Martin Scorsese's "Who's That Knocking at My Door?"

Who's That Knocking at My Door? is one of Martin Scorsese's earlier films, the "second" film of a meant to be trilogy beginning with Jerusalem, Jerusalem which was never produced. This second film is a documentary like film set in Little Italy, and continues the story of the character of J.R., whom in Jerusalem, Jerusalem was a young boy, and is now a young man. The film explores J.R.'s confusion about women and religion. Of course the most important part of the film is when J.R. finds out that the Girl is not a virgin to what she claims is because of a rape, and J.R's inability to reconcile his love for the Girl and his ingrained religious "beliefs". While J.R. may be truly confused by this Madonna-whore dichotomy, I find J.R.'s true dilemma is that of conformity. In reality J.R.'s "beliefs" that he can only marry a virgin are not so much beliefs as they are J.R. conforming to the expected norms of his society. The film shows J.R. among his group of friends and how they all follow the same rules in order to belong. Therefore, J.R.'s conflict is not so much that he truly believes these rules (he even decides to "marry her anyway" and "forgive" the Girl), as that he must conform to these rules as to not be ostracized by his community. J.R.'s inability to reconcile his wants and his felt obligations to the group are what finally close the relationship between the Girl and J.R. What makes the situation even more ironic is the fact that J.R. is adhering to the rules of a culture that he is almost completely removed from yet still identifies with. His "Italianess" is essentially nonexistent. He can't even pronounce the word "oggi," yet he values its rules like the ten commandments. In this sense the film also presents the struggle J.R. goes through applying these values to a situation that cannot be defined strictly within these Italian-American stereotypes. Unfortunately by the end J.R. is still unable to reconcile his cognitive dissonance. The ending scenes of the film show him in the Church trying to internally reconcile his situation.