Mean Streets
Scorsese’s third film, Mean Streets, is the spiritual sequel to his directing debut, Who’s That Knocking at My Door, both in terms of themes and its star, Harvey Keitel.
This is the first time you can feel Marty’s style in full force. You could see hints of it in his earlier films, but not until Mean Streets does the film fully feel like it is his. The way Harvey Keitel’s character of Charlie is portrayed on screen feels like the blueprint of many of his future protagonists, and Robert De Niro’s Johnny Boy is definitely the mold for Marty’s chaotic-neutral antagonists (many of which are played by De Niro himself).
My favorite motif in the film is fire. Charlie repeatedly literally plays with fire, putting out matches with his fingers and putting his hand on the edge of open flames, paralleling his relationship with the wildcard Johnny Boy, the manifestation of danger and chaos. A little obvious and on-the-nose, sure. But it works really well as a visual metaphor here.
More major themes of Marty, religion and redemption, go hand-in-hand in this film as well. Charlie struggles to keep his faith throughout the film and suffers from guilt when he can’t do what is right. This leads him to giving Johnny Boy chance after chance, all of which he throws away. Charlie’s fatal flaw is he believes Johnny Boy is worthy of (and can earn) redemption, but deep down Charlie knows he is doomed to live his life like there’s a live grenade in his pocket at all times.
Charlie also has a relationship with Johnny Boy’s cousin, Teresa, who is eager to move forward with their relationship. Charlie is afraid, and comes up with every excuse in the book to avoid his commitment, even pushing himself further into Johnny Boy’s life, putting himself closer to danger.
The soundtrack is iconic, full of vintage and upbeat pop songs, often juxtaposing with the on-screen violence. This kind of thing is done all the time now, but at its time, this was a novel and ingenius idea.
Overall, this is a great movie with many layers. I’ll admit, when it started I had trouble getting into it. The editing is really weird at times, making it hard to follow what is happening. The levels of the audio were also all over the place – some scenes were way too quiet and some sound effects way too loud. But once I connected with Charlie, I got sucked into the film’s world and couldn’t wait to see what was happening next. I very much enjoyed this.
Fun Fact: Katheryn Bigelow has cited this as one of her five favorite movies of all time. Synergy, baby!
Scorsese Ranking:
This was a massive step up from Marty’s first two films. I enjoyed this thoroughly, despite its flaws.
- Mean Streets
- Who’s That Knocking at My Door
- Boxcar Bertha
Next week, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, a film I currently know nothing about besides the fact it turns fifty years old later this year.
