“A VISCERAL LIFE IN LITTLE ITALY”

By Raymond Benson

Although he had made two previous feature films and several shorts, it was Mean Streets that placed Martin Scorsese into the minds of discerning filmgoers. This low budget independent picture (released by Warner Brothers) proved, as filmmaker Richard Linklater states in a Directors Guild of America interview with Scorsese from 2011 (presented here as a supplement), that artists who wanted to make a movie could go out and find the means to put their vision on the screen without interference from studio brass. Indeed, that’s what Scorsese did.

At the time, Scorsese was trying to make it in Hollywood. It was John Cassavetes who had urged him to stop working for Roger Corman (for whom Scorsese had made 1972’s Boxcar Bertha) and “go back to his roots.” Well, Scorsese’s roots were in the Little Italy neighborhood of New York City. He had grown up there. He had friends there. He knew the life there, all the “goodfellas” and wannabe tough guys and low level (and some high level) gangsters. So the filmmaker crafted a screenplay with fellow NYU film school alumnus Mardik Martin, cast guys he knew such as Harvey Keitel in the lead (he had starred in Scorsese’s first feature, Who’s That Knocking at My Door from 1967, retooled and released in 1968 and again in 1969) and Robert De Niro (who had also grown up in the neighborhood and had known Scorsese when they were younger; this was Scorsese’s first collaboration with De Niro, then an actor who had done some Roger Corman films and was still attempting to up his game). Other familiar faces that have appeared in Scorsese’s oeuvre were also cast—Victor Argo, Harry Northup, David Carradine, and Murray Moston—but also other notable actors who have been in mob-related pictures such as David Proval, Richard Romanus, and Cesare Danova. Amy Robinson, who later became a producer (she co-produced Scorsese’s After Hours in 1985) was cast as the female lead.

Mean Streets features the hallmarks of what we would come to know to be in a “Martin Scorsese Film,” especially when he focuses on the underworld, a topic to which he has returned many times: brotherhood, loyalty, friendship, betrayal, guilt (lots of guilt), Catholicism, sex, drugs, rock and roll, crime, and violence. This life in Little Italy is edgy, gritty, dangerous, and quite self-contained. There isn’t a moment in which an audience might think—oh, this couldn’t happen… because Scorsese convinces you that it can and has.

Charlie (Keitel) is a small time hood in Little Italy. His uncle is Giovanni (Danova), a big time Mafioso. Charlie acts as a big brother figure to his friend, Johnny Boy (De Niro), who is reckless and not the brightest bulb in the socket, and who owes money to several gangsters, including Michael (Romanus). Charlie secretly dates Teresa (Robinson), who is Johnny Boy’s sister. She suffers from epilepsy and is an outsider to the closed-knit Italian culture of the neighborhood. Giovanni wants Charlie to get away from Johnny Boy, but Charlie can’t do it. Eventually the debtors come to get Johnny Boy to pay up, and Charlie must make decisions that will tear him apart. And that’s when the violence erupts.

What’s truly amazing about Mean Streets is that, according to cinematographer Kent Wakeford, only 6% of the film was actually shot in Little Italy (this reviewer believes it is slightly more, but certainly not as much as 10%). The rest was all shot in the Los Angeles area! Scorsese and his design team managed to find locations in California that somewhat resembled New York City, and nearly all of the interiors were shot in real spaces (existing bars, hotels, and apartments). No sound stages were used. For decades, critics and film historians have touted Mean Streets to be one of the “great New York films, shot on the streets” when, in fact, it wasn’t! That’s not to say that it’s not a great New York film, because it is.

Mean Streets is a rough and ready, visceral, fast moving, in your face crime picture with unsavory characters and a vibe that will make you nervous. You might ask, well, is it entertaining? You bet your life it is. But with these ne’er-do-wells, your life may not be worth much.

The Criterion Collection presents a new 4K digital restoration approved by Scorsese and frequent collaborator/editor Thelma Schoonmaker (who was not involved with the film), with an uncompressed monaural soundtrack. After several home video releases in the past on DVD and Blu-ray, this one is obviously tops.

Supplements include the excellent previously mentioned discussion about the film between Scorsese and Richard Linklater at the DGA; an audio commentary by Scorsese and Amy Robinson on specific scenes from the film; a new, observant video essay by Imogen Sara Smith about the picture; an interview with DP Wakefield; excerpts from a documentary about co-writer Mardik Martin; a vintage promo video from 1973 about the making of the film (the only supplement ported over from previous home video releases); and the theatrical trailer. The package booklet contains an essay by critic Lucy Sante.

Mean Streets is a must-have for fans of Martin Scorsese, Harvey Keitel, Robert De Niro, and New York City mob movies. Get it now… just remember to pay your debts!

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