Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets is really the first picture to truly be infused with the Scorsese spirit that we’ve all come to know so well. His student film project, Who’s That Knocking At My Door, was filmed over the course of many years and took numerous different paths to get to where it wound up. Boxcar Bertha was a Roger Corman exploitation production that Marty used to learn how to film quickly and cost-effectively. But with Mean Streets, Scorsese really filmed what was deep within and used his background as the template for what would become a cinema classic.

Based on events that Scorsese experienced growing up in Little Italy, Mean Streets tells the story of an Italian American man, Charlie (Harvey Keitel), trying to move up the ladder in the local mafia.

He works for his uncle Giovanni (Cesare Danova) and collects debts around the neighbourhood. Charlie is blessed (or cursed) with a sense of compassion and is continually tolerant with his self-destructive friend Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro), often to his own disadvantage. Charlie is also dating Johnny Boy’s epileptic cousin, Teresa (Amy Robinson), in secret because of her condition and the shame that comes with it.

Obviously much is made of Scorsese’s work with De Niro and this is the film that started it all. De Niro is absolutely astonishing as Johnny Boy and he inhabits the role with such wildness that it’s hard to like the character. He is insufferable, slippery, crooked, and unsophisticated. Johnny Boy is the block of cement that weighs Charlie down, he is the sin in Charlie’s life, and he is the inexorable reality of life on the tough streets.

But Mean Streets really isn’t about thugs and gangsters; it’s about sinfulness and kindness.

Take the film’s key words: “You don’t make up for your sins in church. You do it in the streets. You do it at home. And the rest is bullshit and you know it.” This Scorsese-spoken introduction serves as the skeleton on which the director mounts the flesh of his story. It is the spirituality of Charlie and the way in which he reconciles his almost absurd allegiance and tests the fires of hell by running his hand over a votive candle that captures us and draws us in.

Like all Scorsese films, to only assume the surface would be a mistake. Goodfellas is far from a simple gangland picture, The Departed isn’t just an Infernal Affairs remake, and The Last Temptation of Christ is no simple re-telling of the crucifixion of Christ.

Mean Streets takes the world of Charlie and bathes it in crimson culpability, illustrated through the colours utilized by Scorsese in shooting various scenes. Whenever Charlie descends into the bar, for instance, he becomes misshapen and ensconced in immorality. The streets are untainted, but he is not. Charlie’s first slow-motion entrance to the bar is evidence of this, as Scorsese’s trademark musical walk (set to Rolling Stones) sets up a character’s soul better than any internal dialogue could ever hope to do.

Teresa, Johnny Boy, Giovanni, Michael (Richard Romulus), and the stripper (Jeannie Bell) are all devils on Charlie’s shoulder. But Charlie seeks nothing more than salvation, even from the most innocuous activities, and Scorsese’s framing of this is immaculate. Done through slanted cameras and malformed views, including Charlie’s ever-active dream life, Scorsese illustrates just how much Charlie needs from these characters and how little they need from him. When Teresa utters that she loves Charlie, he tells her not to say it. She shouldn’t say such brainless things.

Mean Streets is a profound, commanding masterpiece from one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. It would be unwise to simply judge the film as a gangster picture or as a loose biography. Instead, this is a movie about deliverance, crippling transgression, and infinite compassion. With brilliant performances, an excellent soundtrack, and pitch-perfect direction from the master, Mean Streets is remarkable and would serve as the blueprint for films about the criminal working class and their internal struggles.

10/10

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