Mean Streets, 1973.
Directed by Martin Scorsese.
Starring Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, Amy Robinson, David Proval, David Carradine, Robert Carradine, and Cesare Danova.
SYNOPSIS:
A low-level mafia hood must choose between his career in the mob or his loyalty to his wayward friend.
Second Sight kick off 2024 in style with their latest special edition 4K UHD release, turning their attention to Martin Scorsese’s 1973 classic Mean Streets, a movie that, if you are watching for the first time now, may come across as a bit of a parody of gangster movies, as everybody greets each other with open arms, a lot of “Hey, how you doin’?” sound bites, and the general sense that they are all going to kill each other at the drop of a hat.
Ah yes, we’ve all seen Goodfellas and know how it goes, but Mean Streets was telling a similar story nearly two decades before Scorsese refined his filmmaking technique into the slick productions he is known for today, although this is probably the point where most of his trademarks became more prominent.
The first and most obvious of those is the connection between crime/violence and religion, as the opening scenes of Harvey Keitel’s Charlie questioning the balance between the criminal life he has chosen and his Catholic faith hammer home. Charlie is a young mobster who is moving up through the ranks of the crime family run by his uncle Giovanni (Cesare Danova), Giovanni is cautious as Charlie’s best friend is the wayward Johnny Boy, a loose cannon who owes every loan shark in New York, and he is also dating Johnny Boy’s cousin Teresa (Amy Robinson), of whom Giovanni disapproves as she suffers with epilepsy, something he does not understand and simply thinks she is not right in the head. Giovanni is able to offer Charlie the chance to run a restaurant that he has taken over due to the owner not being able to pay protection money, but for this to happen Charlie must stop any contact with Johnny Boy and Teresa.
Which sets the scene for lots of backstabbing, revenge and secret rendezvous between Charlie and his forbidden friends, causing his Catholic guilt to take over his business instincts. Harvey Keitel demonstrates his knack for understated menace throughout, playing Charlie as an outwardly nice guy, but as the movie goes on and he is put under more pressure there is an anger that starts to burst out, as the two sides of his personality meet head on and he tries to decide his fate.
However, it is his scenes with Robert De Niro that are the most electric, as Johnny Boy’s larger-than-life personality overshadows everything else happening on-screen. This was the beginning of the De Niro/Scorsese screen partnership, and you can see the filmmaker almost claiming the actor as his own property as De Niro chews the scenery for all he’s worth, making Johnny Boy likeable due to his natural charisma, and knowing that he is trouble due to his arrogance. Combine that with Keitel’s more brooding intensity and the movie is as engaging as anything Scorsese has made since, despite a lot of what is considered nowadays as clichéd dialogue.
The disc comes packed full of interviews and perspectives on the movie, the most interesting being an appraisal by Dr. Catherine Wheatley, as well as an audio commentary with author Demetrios Matheou and David Thompson, the co-editor of Scorsese on Scorsese. There are also archive behind-the-scenes featurettes and an interview/Q&A with Martin Scorsese from a 2011 screening, plus Second Sight have gone to town with some catchy packaging featuring the original artwork on a rigid slipcase that also houses eight art cards and a 178-page book featuring essays and writings on the movie and Martin Scorsese from various sources.
Overall, this 4k UHD presentation of Mean Streets is another superb package from Second Sight, who have given the movie a fantastic polish that perfectly blends the blacks of the mostly nighttime setting with the neon red lighting of the seedy New York bars it mostly takes place in, all the while retaining the gritty feel of how it was originally shot. The movie itself still has powerful themes running through it that Scorsese would go on to perfect later in his career, but the seeds are all here for what would come, and if you wanted to be flippant you could say Mean Streets is a rough-around-the-edges precursor to Goodfellas, although that is a description that doesn’t do the movie any harm whatsoever.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Chris Ward
