A review of the 1973 classic film “Mean Streets”
Somehow, in spite of my lifelong love of the movies, I managed to miss this classic film for half a century, but then I saw a 50th anniversary showing at the British Film Institute. It was only the third feature from director Martin Scorsese – who, in this case originated the story and co-wrote the screen play – and it proved to be his breakthrough film.Set in the streets of New York’s Little Italy during the religious festival of San Gennaro, it is all about the fractious relationship between two low-level gangsters, Charlie (Harvey Keitel) and his cousin Johnny Boy (then newcomer Robert De Niro).
The film is visually and aurally arresting, with clever camerawork and lots of period music, but narratively it is an odd, even nihilistic, work. More so than any subsequent movie from Scorsese, it forefronts character over plot and there is more than a hint of screen play autobiography in the Charlie persona.
The main theme – the Catholic notion of penance – is declared by Charlie at the very beginning: “You pay for your sins in the street not in church.”
Speaking about “Mean Streets” in 2004, Scorsese admitted: “In my mind, it’s not really a film, but a declaration or a statement of who I am and how I was living, and those thoughts and dilemmas and conflicts that were very much part of my life at that time.”