Product: Mean Streets (1973)
Rating: 5.0
Kinetic
There is no film maker quite like Scorsese. Although it's fixed in time it feels timeless. Of course it's set in New York and its environs and that IS firmly fixed. It has the feel of war time and there's even a scene with a returning Vet. Harvey Keitel steals the movie but De Niro is incredible as well as they and their fellow thugs vie for most powerful hoodlum. There's a melting pot of nationalities and racism churning in the background. There's old school Italian/American music that almost feels more aggressive than the infant classic rock and Motown ballads that move the energy of the film along. Emotions are all over the place. One moment bonhomie reigns the next fists are flying and guns are out; cars are crashing, tires squealing. In the midst of it all Scorsese plops his own mom. She appears during a Keitel/De Niro fight scene to see to Keitel's epileptic girlfriend as she seizes. The camera angles range from dead on honesty to nausea inducing drunkenness. Great movie. It feels like Scorsese never takes his finger off the pulse of New York.