Practically all of that ideology can be traced back to his third feature, 1973\u2019s Mean Streets<\/em> (now streaming on HBO Max). A dizzying slice of life in New York City\u2019s Little Italy that flirts with cinema verit\u00e9<\/em> techniques and pulses with the intensity of Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro\u2019s performances, Mean Streets<\/em> was borne out of Scorsese taking to heart John Cassavetes\u2019s assessment of his 1972 film Boxcar Bertha<\/em>: \u201cYou just spent a year of your life making junk<\/a>.\u201d Scorsese then spent another<\/em> year of his life making Mean Streets<\/em>, a film that serves as a spiritual counterpart to his first feature, 1967\u2019s Who\u2019s That Knocking at My Door<\/em>. Inspired by Scorsese\u2019s own neighborhood on Elizabeth Street in Little Italy, his own life, and his own friends, Mean Streets <\/em>is dotted throughout with the kind of violence that would, somewhat inaccurately, define Scorsese\u2019s career for a long time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Contemporary reviews were fairly rapturous. A December 1973 profile<\/a> of Scorsese by Guy Flatley in the New York Times<\/em> described the film as \u201cgut-raw, yet strangely operatic,\u201d and drew a line between Mean Streets<\/em> and Who\u2019s That Knocking at My Door<\/em> by focusing on the films\u2019 respective protagonists: \u201ca sensitive young Italian-American drifter, an emotional cripple whose relationships were poisoned by prejudice.\u201d For The Washington Post<\/em>, Tom Shales called it a \u201cportrait of traumas and terrors \u2026 unrelenting, breathless, and definitely on the brilliant side.\u201d But sure, Mean Streets<\/em> had its detractors. In a piece for the New York Times<\/em> titled \u201cWhy Feel Sorry For These Hoods<\/a>?\u201d, Foster Hirsch called Mean Streets<\/em> \u201cextravagantly overpraised\u201d and concluded on the criticism, \u201cNo heroes, no values, universal corruption\u2014and a lot of people are buying this as a profound and original truth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sounds familiar, no? Those are the same complaints people have lobbed in the years since Mean Streets <\/em>at Taxi Driver<\/em>, at Goodfellas<\/em>, at Casino<\/em>, at Gangs of New York<\/em>, at The Departed<\/em>, at The Wolf of Wall Street<\/em>, at The Irishman<\/em>. And yet Scorsese (in between other decidedly not-mafioso masterpieces like Alice Doesn\u2019t Live Here Anymore<\/em>, The Last Temptation of Christ<\/em>, The Age of Innocence<\/em>, and Hugo<\/em>) keeps making those kinds of movies. Why? Because the most important thing fiction\u2014books, cinema, TV, whatever\u2014needs to do is be interesting<\/em>, and that can run the gamut from confrontational to reflective to subversive to insightful. Perhaps you would prefer to only consume that dreaded word, \u201ccontent,\u201d which reaffirms your personal beliefs or your ideologies or your way of life. Perhaps you are disinterested in extending empathy or understanding to characters who make mistakes, or who behave badly, or who struggle with their sense of self. I accept your disinterest, and I also say: Aren\u2019t you bored? <\/p>\n\n\n\n Whatever else Mean Streets<\/em> is, it\u2019s never boring. The film follows Charlie Cappa (Harvey Keitel), a twentysomething torn between a deep belief in his Catholic faith and the desire to be somebody in the criminal enterprise run by his uncle Giovanni (Cesare Danova). Charlie lives with his mother, who embroiders his initials on the snazzy clothes he wears, and he has great reverence for the teachings of his priest. But we see neither of those characters onscreen. Instead, in a sort of fluid stream of consciousness that flows from hour to hour and day to day and is accompanied by narration of Charlie\u2019s inner thoughts, we spend time with him and the other members of his uncle\u2019s organized crime enterprise. <\/p>\n\n\n\n On the sidewalk outside the Italian deli Giovanni uses as a front, biting into fresh baked bread. In the bars and restaurants where Charlie travels to collect regular payments to his uncle, a wide smile on his face as he tries to assuage these people over how he\u2019s reaching into their pockets. In the club run by friend Tony (David Proval) and frequented by loan shark Michael (Richard Romanus). In his meticulously fitted three-piece suits, with a fresh shave and shined shoes and manicured hands, Charlie presents himself as a professional, not a thug. \u201cI do my own penance for my own sins,\u201d Charlie says to explain how he reconciles his vocation with his religion, and the personification of that penance is Charlie\u2019s best friend, perpetual fuckup Johnny Boy (a pre-The Godfather Part II<\/em> De Niro).<\/p>\n\n\n\n In contrast to Charlie\u2019s cleanliness and confidence, Johnny Boy is a bomb ready to explode; in fact, he has a tendency to drop sticks of dynamite into USPS collection boxes and revel in the ensuing chaos. The Mafia is run on order and rituals that Scorsese loves to painstakingly capture (dinner negotiations in Mean Streets<\/em>; the razor slicing of garlic in Goodfellas<\/em>; bread and wine in The Irishman<\/em>), and Charlie knows he has to follow them to get ahead. And yet Johnny Boy is his best friend, a kind of brother with whom he can banter (the endless stream of \u201cAfter you!\u201ds at Tony\u2019s bar), let loose, and mess around in a way that he can\u2019t with the stricter, more regimented associates of Giovanni\u2019s. After a night spent walking all of Little Italy\u2019s streets, the two climb into bed next to each other, wearing their white tank tops and patterned boxer shorts and cross necklaces, with an ease and familiarity that can only come from knowing every single thing about each other. But \u201chonorable men go with honorable men,\u201d Giovanni tells Charlie, and the lying, debt-ridden Johnny Boy is not an honorable man. So who does Charlie want to be? And how does the narrowness of Little Italy stifle that, instead of satisfying it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Charlie is in perpetual motion, often complemented by needle drops from the likes of the Rolling Stones and The Ronettes, as would become Scorsese\u2019s custom. And as would also become his custom, the filmmaker tracks Keitel\u2019s kinetic energy with a camera that is always over his shoulder\u2014and is often getting bumped into during one of the many scraps which Johnny Boy instigates, and into which Charlie is dragged. That dynamic listlessness helps capture that whenever Charlie pauses, he second guesses all his choices, plagued by the judgments, doubts, insecurities, and prejudices of his community. He\u2019s attracted to a dancer at Tony\u2019s club, but convinces himself not to date her because she\u2019s Black. He\u2019s probably falling in love with Johnny Boy\u2019s cousin Teresa (Amy Robinson), but her family and Giovanni call her \u201csick in the head\u201d because of her epilepsy. So Charlie tests himself physically by holding his hand over an open flame over and over again, and tests himself mentally by trying to advocate for and defend Johnny Boy. \u201cEven numbers runners are hard-working guys,\u201d Scorsese told Flatley, but is that enough for Charlie? <\/p>\n\n\n\n Like the protagonists in The Taking of Pelham One Two Three<\/em><\/a>, most of the men at the center of Mean Streets<\/em> can be relied on for intermittent bursts of racism, sexism, and bigotry that complicate any assumptions that a film\u2019s main characters should also be embodiments of upstanding morality. None of the men\u2019s cruelties should be forgiven\u2014and it would be an utter misread of Mean Streets<\/em> to think that Scorsese is <\/em>asking us to forgive them. Instead, Scorsese is clear about Charlie\u2019s mental anguish: \u201cThe worst of the two is the spiritual,\u201d the character says of pain. And Scorsese and co-writer Mardik Martin are intentional in writing Charlie\u2019s discomfort when he realizes that perhaps all he could ever be is some low-level tough running errands for a more powerful man. \u201cYou give your word about something, you gotta keep it,\u201d Charlie says, but that promise hasn\u2019t gotten him very far. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Keitel carries all that weight easily at first, all gliding dance moves and convivial tones, until the authority he so craves jeopardizes the people he so loves. Consider the contrast between Keitel\u2019s sloppy looseness during cinematographer Kent L. Wakeford\u2019s frankly astonishing reverse POV tracking shot set to the Chips\u2019 \u201cRubber Biscuit,\u201d and the honesty and fragility of Keitel\u2019s frustrated aside to Robinson\u2019s Teresa when she asks him to stop protecting Johnny Boy: \u201cThat\u2019s what\u2019s the matter. Nobody\u2014nobody tries anymore.\u201d How strange to read in Hirsch\u2019s piece that \u201cJohnny Boy and Charlie don\u2019t change, they don\u2019t have any perception about their crummy, crime-ridden lives, and yet we\u2019re asked to respond affirmatively to these blunted characters.\u201d Mean Streets<\/em> is all about change, all about perception, and all about how those blunted edges are simultaneously nature and nurture, weapon and protection, and defense and offense. Are these characters \u201cgood\u201d? No\u2014but why should they have to be? Scorsese flourishes in those dualities, and Mean Streets<\/em> is the first brick laid in a foundation of cinematic style that has always worked to understand the spiritual toll of both sin and forgiveness. Mean Streets is streaming on HBO Max<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/mean-streets1-1024x576.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/mean-streets2-1024x683.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/crookedc-01.svg\")
<\/p>\n\n\n\n