Product: Mean Streets (1973)
Rating: 4.0
Mean Streets (1973)
Director: Martin ScorseseCast: Harvey Keitel, Robert De Niro, David Proval, Amy Robinson, Richard Romanus, Cesare Danova, Victor Argo, George Memmoli.Running Time: 112 minutesRated R for language, violence, and nudity."Mean Streets," simply put, along with "Halloween", is one of the greatest independent films ever made. At the very least, it pioneered what modern audiences have come to associate with the best of indie cinema, and what, by the late '90s, has become so essential to our perception of so-called "hip" movies that the once daring and exhilarating techniques are now mostly used as frustrating clichés. The picture itself, made in 1973, is most famous for kick-starting three major careers. Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro later collaborated as a director/actor team on four more masterpieces: "Taxi Driver," "Raging Bull" "The King of Comedy" and "Goodfellas." Harvey Keitel, in the leading role, went on to play other memorable characters, like Mr. Wolf in "Pulp Fiction" and "Reservoir Dogs". Cast as Charlie, a small-time, young gangster in New York's Little Italy, Keitel struggles to make sense of his Catholic background and help his troubled friend (De Niro) stay out of the powerful Mafia players' way. What seems to be a familiar scenario, used as far back as the classic Bogart/Cagney vehicles, gets an unusually complex treatment from Scorsese. A conventional, linear plot structure with big speeches and witty one-liners from main characters is abandoned for a grittier, naturalistic approach. The film consists of a series of telling episodes, related only through their participants. Some may find this somewhat lethargic plot to be uneven and without structure, but perhaps this is Scorsese's entire purpose: times like these in Little Italy were without a definitive structure and the conflicts were not spelled out for them."Mean Streets" has much more in common with the works of Italian Neo-realism or French New Wave, rather than a typical gangster drama. Its unorthodox, original, yet unpretentious camera work gives the film an unprecedented vitality that young filmmakers have attempted to recreate for decades. Now commonplace shots, such as a subtitled introduction of a particular character, a fight sequence tracked through the four corners of a room in a single take, a swaying hand-held camera to create the sense of an alcohol-induced stupor, have all been popularized through this movie, a veritable Bible of dynamic cinematography. Another revolutionary aspect of "Mean Streets" is the virtual lack of a script. Most of the key scenes were almost fully improvised, thus sounding far more authentic than the old-style, theatrical delivery used in most American films up to that time. The actors' speech is so profanity-ridden that no screenwriter of the time could have possibly doctored anything even close. Robert De Niro's flamboyant turn as a youth on the edge of sanity is unlike anything before. In fact, the swear-fests of later crime movies (and indie classics like "Clerks") owe a direct debt to his extraordinary performance as Johnny Boy. One of Scorcese's most groundbreaking achievements was his incorporation of popular songs into the soundtrack. All of the included music originates elsewhere- Italian traditional recordings (Opera arias, Folk tunes) and for the most part, glorious, irresistible rock'n'roll of the early 60's (Motown, the Stones, Girl Groups, DooWop). The easily identifiable hits serve as atmospheric settings, adding an extra, personal dimension to any given scene. George Lucas' "American Graffiti", released in the same year, operated by the same principle, establishing a tradition that seems to expand with every coming year. As it is often the case with true independent cinema, "Mean Streets" was ignored at the box office, despite an underground acclaim that helped launch not only the great talents behind it, but also an entire school of filmmaking. May have lot its luster after over thirty years, but certainly a unique film experience and one with fine performances and some insight into some magical filmmaking to come.