Please post your responses to Mean Streets in the comments section. Try to address the following questions in whatever you write:- What is Charlie's main conflict throughout the film?
- Why does the film end the way it does?
- What are some of the motifs Scorsese employs throughout the film? What purpose do they serve?
17 comments:
Tommy Somer
Scorsese 101
9/15/07
Mean Streets Response
The audience sees Scorsese returning to his neighborhood streets with a story straight from inner city New York in Mean Streets. We also see Scorsese returning to the same themes with his main protagonist and story that he introduced in Who’s That Knocking at My Door. This time around though, we see more of the gritty New York underworld that the main protagonist, played again by Harvey Keitel, is apart of. The audience views through out the film how the protagonist’s constant bartering to balance the peace of his two worlds, the underworld with his Uncle’s influence and views, the money collecting, etc., and the world with his epileptic girlfriend and her crazy cousin. This slowly wears him down and eventually destroys his world in the end of the film.
This is what the film is about and why it ends in the end in my opinion. Balance. Mean Streets is about balance. Plain and simple. Everyone who saw this film can relate to it in some way or another. Harvey Keitel’s character jumps through all the loops to satisfy the people’s of both of his world’s, and through out the film we find that by two-thirds through the film, the audience begins to acknowledge that this whole thing is going to fall apart right in Keitel’s lap. There’s very simply “no way in hell this is going to work” with the particular individuals involved within Keitel’s life. This is why the film ends the way it does in the end. When DeNiro is shot when they are trying to flee the city, and Keitel crashes his friend’s car, and it turns into a gigantic scene, this is where the balance in Keitel’s life is completely BROKEN. We saw it TORN early with DeNiro’s insane episode with the gun and the money launder in the bar, and we saw that same balance TORN earlier with the fight in the stairwell between the cousins and Keitel. However, it’s in the end of the film we see the delicate balance Keitel’s character was holding breaks apart in the crash.
This is why Scorsese ends it here and this is why I believe he did this. This is the climatic turning point in this character’s (Keitel) life for the aftershocks are going to ruin him for a long time to come. His uncle and the underworld that he is a part of is going to have a negative opinion of him as a person who’s mixed the wrong elements into his life, and it’s going to be extremely difficult to build his reputation and his place in this world back out of the hole it just crashed into. This is the world “ending” for Keitel, and by ending the film on the crash scene, I believe this is the message and story that we are being told.
Mean Streets’ theme was to be directly linked to government. Scorsese said, “It shows that organized crime is similar to big government. They’re both machines.” To this point, this is Scorsese’s most political movie. An underlying theme, or motif, would be with the main character Charlie, played by Harvey Keitel. Charlie is constantly struggling to do the right thing in the wrong situation. Throughout the movie this is his main conflict. He is trying to help Johnny Boy, Robert Deniro, by doing the right thing. He is trying to live two separate lives so to speak; his gangster life and his soft respectable life with his uncle and girlfriend.
The ending of this movie seems to come out of nowhere. All of a sudden they are in a high speed shoot out, they get shot, crash, and the movie ends. I suppose there could be a couple different reasons for this ending. One could be to show that if you mess with the mob you never get away with it. Another could be directly related to Charlie. No matter how many good things you think you are doing, if you are still involved with your two lives your evil “gangster” life will come back to haunt you. Lastly, it seems that Scorsese did not have a lot of money to film this movie. I suppose it could be possible this is all he had time for and had to settle with the ending. He has said that this film took so long to shoot that there’s no transition between scenes. You have no idea where people are most of the time. He says that they did not have enough time to shoot establishing shots. I believe this comes through very strongly throughout the movie.
Mean Streets as well as Who’s That Knocking at My Door? were very similar films. They were both very strong on character, but not strong on plot. In Scorsese’s earlier movies this was well seen. As he gets older and more mature his movies start developing a very strong plot in conjunction with character.
Mean Streets was Martin Scorsese’s filming achievement that propelled him forward as an artist, and defined his style as a filmmaker. Though the film was rough in its assembly of narrative at times, and unique and raw aesthetically, it was Mean Streets that gave Scorsese the permission to personalize his films like never before. It was this type of filmmaking and writing that continued into Scorsese’s later works as a more realized film director and a storyteller.
For me this film seemed to me like the inevitable next step for Scorsese. It was an improvement from his previous film Who’s That Knocking at My Door, but it contains the same drawbacks that all his films seem to possess. Internal struggles are a large component of Scorsese’s films to the point where it is difficult for the audience to realize what the characters are thinking and what the motivation is behind their actions. This isn’t always true, but is predominant in many of his films.
The character of Charlie played by Harvey Keitel is so internalized that the audience is forced to decipher his moral dilemmas, his background, and him as a person on their own. This goes for many of the other characters also. For example Charlie’s girlfriend Teresa is a largely unknown character until halfway through the film, and even then not much information is given about her. Eventually the audience discovers that she is Johnny Boy’s sister, and that she and Charlie have been together for some time, but little more is revealed about her. Questions like, why doesn’t Charlie want to move into her new apartment with her, how long they have been dating, why their relationship must be kept secret is never explained. The audience must build, and piece these story elements together to fill in the blanks and try to make more sense of why things happen in the film.
The central conflict in the film is between Charlie’s two worlds. He wants to be a good guy, help the ones he loves, love who he wants to love but at the same time he wants to be a good nephew to his uncle, and try and make collections and reclaim bad debts.
It is this internal conflict that is seen time and time again as the core of Scorsese’s films. Everything is so internalized that Mean Streets is almost like watching a film that originally had voice over. It is as if the voice over was eventually removed so the audience could dig themselves into the characters heads on their own rather than having the characters thoughts presented to them in the form of a narrative.
It is these internal struggles that also result in moments of seemingly unmotivated bursts of violence. The film is littered with ambiguous fighting sequences that stem from internalized conflicts, or conflicts originating from past conflicts between characters. Scorsese’s narratives are not something to take lightly. Mean Streets is a perfect example of a highly complex story of a group of individuals who live a highly complex way of life. This is a film that requires multiple viewings to be fully enjoyed and appreciated for what it has to offer. It also stands as the template and blueprint for Scorsese’s future works as a personal storyteller.
Logan M. Futej
Mean Streets
“Pain & Hell has two sides. The kind you can touch with you’re hand, the kind you feel in you’re heart, you’re soul, the spiritual side. And you know the worst of the two is the spiritual. “
This voice over heard earlier in Mean Streets explains a lot of the conflict that Charlie deals with in the picture. Charlie is a very cool guy. He dresses nice, everybody likes him, and he handles himself very well. That’s just on the outside though. His key problem is how he handles everything on the inside. Throughout the whole movie, besides the drunken scene, and his fight with Johnny Boy and Teresa, Charlie stays cool and relaxed in most of the situations he is put into. I think he covers quite well around everyone, until he truly has to confront his emotions, such as the ones with Teresa.
There is a scene later in the film where Charlie has to tell Teresa that he cannot see her for a while, because of problems with his uncle and Johnny Boy. Teresa begins to break down, and eventually Charlie, also breaks down. He says he doesn’t want to stop seeing her, and he doesn’t think about her like everybody else does. But once again he’s worrying about pleasing everybody rather then just himself. This internal problem is also seen earlier, when Theresa and Charlie are lying in bed. Immediately when Theresa speaks of love, Charlie’s reply is that she is a cunt, and that’s why he couldn’t fall in love with her. But when the two are physically showing affection everything seems wonderful. This also relates to Charlie’s interest in fire and burning himself. It’s as if he is testing if he is able to really feel.
In my opinion Charlie’s biggest conflicts are with his emotions and everything around him just building, coming to a point, and eventually crumbling. He compensates for that by trying to please everyone else; Johnny Boy, Teresa, and his Uncle. It’s almost as if he is putting off everything, and in the end it just builds to a point which leads to catastrophe involving all of them. Johnny Boy seems to get the brunt of it, but I think he deserves it. In the end, we see that sometimes people just have to face the music. Finally Johnny Boy did, and Charlie was not able to pick up his pieces.
Brandon Schiffli
9/17/07
This film is all about a man who is trying to make it in this neighborhood. This neighborhood is no average neighborhood. It consists of “mean streets.” These characters really do nothing but eat, breath, or die. Scorsese portrays this as a business. It is a way of life for these people. These streets are also very Church dominated. It is a very strange combination of crime and religion. Charlie, the main character, is right on the fence. He is trying to be a good “business” man for his boss and the people of the neighborhood. However, he is trying to balance this lifestyle with his beliefs and morals. He wants to be an honest business man in this dishonest business world that is Mean Streets.
As a Scorsese film, this could be seen as a sequel, or continuation, of Who’s That Knocking at My Door. Harvey Keitel’s character is very much the same character in both movies. In Mean Streets he is older and wiser. In Who’s That Knocking at My Door Keitel’s character, who could be seen as Scorsese himself, is a person who is torn between two lifestyles. This is a central theme that Scorsese addresses in both films. The emphasis on the Catholic faith is just as prevalent in Mean Street. There are those scenes of the lit up cross and the crowd of people. It shows that these streets full of crime are overshadowed by this religion. This shows the struggle between the two physically. This influences Charlie.
The film ends the way it does because it seems almost inevitable. This is an inescapable fate for these characters. All along Charlie has wanted to escape this world and live a different life. Johnny Boy is bound to this life. He isn’t like Charlie. The “mean streets” are who Johnny is. Charlie is bound to Johnny Boy through his girlfriend, who is Johnny Boy’s cousin. Unless Charlie lets these people go he is always bound these streets. He tries to escape because of the stupidity of Johnny Boy and because Charlie is bound to this girl he is also bound to a terrible fate. They could have gotten away prior to Johnny Boy’s incident with “the boss,” but because Johnny Boy is not like Charlie, their fate is sealed. It’s the “mean streets.” It is also a very interesting to ask why Scorsese felt that he should cast himself as the one who shoots the hero and his friends.
Matt Fagerholm
Mean Streets response
“You don’t make up for your sins in church. You do it in the streets. You do it at home. The rest is bullshit and you know it.” With these opening words, spoken by Scorsese himself, the director is openly inviting audiences into his own world—the one that existed on the East side in the Italian-American ghetto of which he was all too familiar. Watching the opening moments of Mean Streets was a magical experience for me, partly because I had heard it being discussed for years—Harvey Keitel resting his head on his pillow as “Be My Baby” begins to play over the opening titles. Scorsese’s voice is heard throughout the film, giving voice to the conscience of Charlie (Keitel), the central character Scorsese modeled after himself. When Scorsese appears, playing the mobster responsible for the film’s climactic bloodbath, it’s almost inevitable—the entire film’s conflict is created by Charlie’s inability to help anyone other than himself. In his AFI Q&A, Scorsese compared Charlie to the Pharisees, “the guys who used to give money to the poor and blow trumpets so everybody could turn around and watch them give money to the poor.” Scorsese/Charlie is ultimately responsible for the supposedly irreparable harm done to the two people closest to him. One is his girlfriend, who Charlie “shoots” at one point in the film—they’re sitting on her bed, Keitel playfully points his finger toward her, and a bullet is heard firing. The other is his best friend Johnny Boy, played by Robert DeNiro in a glorious star-making performance. Johnny Boy, who Scorsese based on one of his own troubled friends, closely resembles Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci) in Goodfellas. Both men are loose cannons with microscopic tempers that lead them to engage in irrational acts of violence. The moment where DeVito uses his fearsome reputation to control an entire restaurant population is perhaps my favorite scene in any Scorsese picture. It’s almost becoming a sly running joke in Scorsese’s work to have his mother Catherine appear when someone needs to be cared for (in this case it’s Charlie’s girlfriend in the midst of an epileptic seizure). I was also amused to learn in the Q&A that “mook” was a not a hurtful slur, but instead slang for “bigmouth.” Not counting The Big Shave, Mean Streets is certainly Scorsese’s first cinematic masterpiece. One can almost feel Scorsese the filmmaker channeling his own professional frustration into the plight of Charlie, whose attempts to “save” his loved ones end up having the exact opposite effect. Yet, ironically, it was through this deeply personal film that Scorsese bared his flaws and insecurities to the world…and ended up saving his career. Big time.
Christian Gridelli
Authorship: Scorsese
Mean Streets
In Mean Streets Scorsese brings us back to the area he is most comfortable with, his home town. The world and characters Scorsese creates are so often not far from the reality he experienced, that at times the film even takes on the feel of a documentary. Like, Who’s That Knocking on My Door, Scorsese explores similar themes, the balance of right and wrong, Catholicism, loyalty, and the harsh reality of street violence. Harvey Keitel’s character Charlie in particular embodies these themes and for me personally, I found myself caring for Charlie and thus becoming more interested in this film unlike J.R. who I really did not feel much for in Who’s That Knocking. However, while I enjoyed Mean Streets more I find myself with less to say about it than Who’s That Knocking, but here we go.
Charlie seems to carry the same “Holier than Thou” persona that we saw in J.R. however, where J.R. used this persona to show others how they are in the wrong Charlie seems to try his best to use this persona to try and help those he is loyal to. This is where the conflict comes into play for Charlie and he must choose between his loyalty in friendship and love and his loyalty in business. At the start of the film Charlie seems to have both sides pretty well in control, the world of business and friendship is almost one and there seems to be a harmony. In the beginning we see Charlie in church and an internal monologue plays about making up for ones sins on ones own terms. This comments perfectly on how Charlie seems to have his life under his own control and under his terms. However, as the film goes on the two sides of Charlie’s world begin to pull him apart, stretching him further and further until he begins to crack and can no longer balance the two. While Charlie is in the car near the end of film with Johnny Boy and Teresa we witness him at the very brink of his collapse. In the beginning we saw him internalizing his dialogue with God about how he can handle things on his own now in this scene he begins to speak out loud to God, attempting to reassure himself that there is some higher power that can help him. He has lost control and now he is finally reaching out instead of trying to handle it all on his own. The ending of the film represents Charlie’s full collapse and as he crawls helplessly away from the car he realizes that nothing is truly in his hands. I thought the ending was a great way to show Charlie’s final breaking point and the film in general was a great demonstration of Scorsese building on the themes he used in his earlier films and will continue to use in his later works. You can already see him strengthening his ideas and I look forward to watching this progression continue.
Tim Davis
9/17/07
I watched Mean Streets for the first time several years ago (probably somewhere around 1999-2000) and this was my impression: Mean Streets is a gangster film depicting the lives of young Italian hoodlums in post-Vietnam NYC, directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Robert DeNiro and Harvey Keitel. It is a dismal and violent existence depicted in the film, which must be, if not by some divine prophesy, played out in the streets where it belongs with whomever your wrath is justifiably directed and with the help of those loyal few who will stand beside you in the face of certain death— believing in something, the only thing you know.
This assessment is still at the core of my thoughts about this film. Mean Streets captures a mood (confusion about how to live one’s life which, for Scorsese, is a choice between the mafia and the priesthood), a time period (when Vietnam and the draft posed very real threats to the average American male, particularly poor and working class males; and when people collectively began to realize what Scorsese’s characters already know: you can’t trust anybody—not the government, not your friends, not even yourself), a group of people (young thugs aspiring to be rich and powerful gangsters who all try to assert some level of individuality within the rigid codes of conduct of a mafia lifestyle: e.g., don’t rat on nobody, always pay your debts, etc.), and an environment where all of this insanity plays out (in bars/nightclubs, in restaurants, in bedrooms, on rooftops, in cemeteries, on the streets—the Raymond Chandler quote, “Down these mean streets a man must go,” is totally appropriate. Even if your life leads you into the face of certain death, you must go towards it.)
The major conflict in Mean Streets seems to be related to the concept of truth; as Scorsese puts it, “We see the shifting of trust, how Johnny [De Niro] trusts Charlie [Keitel] but, God, he’s got his problems; and Charlie trusts Johnny, but he’s using him.” Though it initially seems like Johnny is using Charlie because he is connected to high-ranking mafia men, what we learn is that Charlie justifies his life as a gangster by convincing himself that he is helping Johnny (who gets in trouble by not paying his debts) and by giving Theresa (his clandestine relationship with his epileptic girlfriend who happens to be Johnny’s cousin) his affections. The problem is his uncle is grooming Charlie to be an “honorable man” who mixes only with other honorable men; therefore he essentially has to keep secret from his uncle his friendship with Johnny and his relationship with Theresa, which Johnny knows nothing about. Charlie is leading a dual life in which the dichotomy of good/evil is tearing him apart at the seams, only he tries his best not to deal with any of it by lying to himself.
This is Charlie’s fatal mistake. When Johnny discovers that Charlie and Theresa have been seeing each other, Johnny realizes that Charlie hasn’t really done anything for him and, thus, the situation reinforces his philosophy, which is basically summed up by the phrase: fuck it. And when Johnny exacerbates the problem he has with Michael, by not paying him back and pulling a gun on him, Charlie elects to borrow a car and take both Johnny and Theresa out of town for awhile. Of course, Michael finds their car and the whole thing ends in a flurry of bullets as Johnny is hit in the throat and surely dies.
Perhaps all this pain and suffering could have been avoided, but probably not. That is what makes this film so compelling: even though we know the film is probably going to end in tragedy, we still watch and we still care about the characters. Charlie repeatedly placing his hand near open flames is a wonderful metaphor for his personal struggle, especially because he doesn’t realize that he is complicit in his own hell. At some point we all have the opportunity to make a choice—as Scorsese did—this way of life or that way, which requires a certain amount of honesty with oneself (as Scorsese realized early on that he could never hurt anyone on the street and, later, that he didn’t really want to be a priest, it was but one of the only perceived options for his life that he was aware of prior to film school.) In the end, Johnny is the more admirable character because he’s honest with himself, he doesn’t live by anyone else’s rules and because he realized and accepted his role in the world. By the same token, Charlie is the quintessential Scorsese persona on film: he’s torn, he struggles, his problems run deep below the surface, and he has options. Whether those options are innately there (being born into a position of opportunity) or they present themselves once a person starts to recognize who they are and what their limitations are, ultimately you have to decide who you are and what you want.
Charlie’s main conflict throughout the film in my opinion is that he doesn’t know who he really is. He understands his neighborhood but he doesn’t understand himself within it. He wants to be friends within everyone but also can’t because he has to enforce his Uncle’s will. I would say that one of Charlie’s main conflicts is that he’s always trying to appease all his friends and relatives.
The film ends the way it does because everything builds to the point of no return. Charlie doesn’t deal with any of his conflicts and him never confronting the issues that plague his life makes them blow up in his face. For example him not dealing with Johnny Boy, or even cutting him off, or Charlie dealing with his girlfriend makes his life more complicated and torn.
One of the motifs of Scorsese that he uses in this movie in several instances the “mook” scene and the final shoot-out came out of nowhere. Scorsese loves to jump in and surprise the viewer when you think everything is fine a surprise comes out of nowhere.
Mean Streets is Martin Scorsese’s first time effort where he is totally comfortable behind the camera. His previous films show the potential of a great future director, but also show the tell tale mistakes of somebody with an underdeveloped style. This is not to say that Mean Streets is the culmination of his development as an auteur, it is merely the first time we as the audience get to see his graceful form and what is at least the beginning of the Scorsese “style”.
What Who’s That Knocking At My Door tried to accomplish without being fully realized, is showing Scorsese’s personal view of his home streets of New York. He had the young ruff necks riding around in their cars, he had women, he had violence, but it was shown in a way that didn’t reach it’s potential. Mean Streets adds onto all of these and goes a step further. Scorsese is able to infuse violence, friendship, love, and religion in a coherent way that really expresses the style of New York and shows the chaos that is involved in this world. I feel that the characters are much more fully developed in Mean Streets and more interesting to watch. The dynamic between DeNiro and Keitel is classic and Johnny Boy is one of the most memorable characters in any film.
Another thing that comes more into play in this film is Scorsese’s usage of music. The soundtrack creates a lush atmosphere that perfectly compliments, and a lot of the time, creates a striking contrast to the action of the film. The soundtrack is almost a character unto itself.
Personal Response - Mean Streets
I must say that I really enjoyed watching Mean Streets. I was able to follow the story a lot better and I knew exactly what was going on. I felt that the characters made a lot more sense to me and had more meaning. I liked the character relationships more plus they were more believable to me. On a personal note, I also thought it was funnier. I loved the banter back and forth between the characters.
I felt like I could relate more to the main character Charlie. He seems like a very respectful person and very responsible. He’s very loyal to his Uncle and also his cousin. Family is very important to him even though it eventually led him to an unfortunate shootout.
Charlie’s main conflict seems to be internal though out the film. He constantly has to set priorities straight. He has a relationship with Johnny Boy’s cousin that he isn’t supposed to have. He also has loyalty to Johnny Boy, trying to keep him out of trouble and get his life back on track. Above everything else, he has to listen to his Uncle and follow his wishes. He’s always trying to be the hero that saves the day and makes everything right. He never gives up on that, not even when Johnny Boy basically tells him to fuck off. He doesn’t give up. He still tries to save him from himself.
I liked the ending. I needed to end with something happening to Johnny. I felt there had to be some kind of pay off. You can’t go around disrespecting everyone that cares about you and not get what’s coming to you. Also, it follows Charlie’s character very well. His character is the kind of person that would go down with the sinking ship. He paid for Johnny’s mistakes.
I believes Charlies conflict is the people he surrounds himself with. He feels the need to help people so he surrounds himself with people who need help. Yet he doesn't do anything for them and is too worried about what others think. He is definately a narcisisst in need of approval from others. I feel the movie ended like that because it would be boring if they ended it with them just going to an apartment and hiding out. You need that final ending of everything blowing up in your face when you dont face the problems.
Martin Scorsese said that his neighborhood was full of hard-working people, but that doesn’t mean all of them made what everyone would call an “honest” living. What it is to do the right thing in Little Italy during the film’s setting is the central idea behind Mean Streets.
The protagonist, Charlie, works in a culture that encourages brutality when needed and uses racial stereotypes to judge character. But he’s not a bad guy. When we meet him, Charlie is contemplating what it is to go to hell, and the physical and emotional pain one would suffer. He’s a religious man working in a field where Machiavelli holds a stronger philosophical sway. He wants to do good, but finds himself at conflict with his occupation and his neighborhood. For instance, he finds a dancer at the club attractive, but he can’t let anyone know, because the dancer is black. He loves his girlfriend, but for much of the movie he is so afraid of the consequences of his romance with someone racially unacceptable to his peers that he can’t even admit his love for her during a private moment.
But he still tries to do good things, so long as he doesn’t fear the outcomes. He asks if he can do anything to help a slacking restaurant pick up business so the owner can paid owed money. He considers, for a brief time, having the dancer at the club be a hostess. He remains loyal to his friend, Johnny Boy, despite Johnny Boy’s annoying lack of responsibility. He helps people with money here and there, he volunteers to act as arbitrator, and he works hard at his job. He’s at conflict when his desire to do what he feels is right doesn’t agree with his peers’ ideas about what is right.
The film ends the way it does for a number of reasons. First, the scene was inspired by an event experienced by Scorsese when he was younger. He took a ride in a car (the same kind of car used in the film, I believe) with a friend and two others, and decided, after a while, he’d better get out of the car. After he and his friend got out, the remaining passengers got into an altercation with another car, and someone wound up firing shots into the car Scorsese had been riding in. The experience obviously had a lasting effect on Scorsese. Also, a limited amount of filming on location was made available in the financing of the picture. Ideally, you might think that Mean Streets would have a more epic, picturesque finish, showing off New York and Little Italy in its rough glamour. So a tight, climatic ending was needed. And, really, would they be called Mean streets if Charlie could easily just drive away with his buddy and girlfriend? Once you’re in the life Charlie was in, you don’t just drive out. These are, you know, Mean Streets. Just because you try to be a good guy doesn’t mean everyone thinks you’re innocent. Scorsese took his church life very seriously, and said he was still viewed as a thug.
Stylistically, much of the French New Wave and Italian Neo-Realism seen in Scorsese’s earlier works remains. There’s a lot of on-location, out-in-the-streets filming, with rugged camera movement and heavy, impromptu-like dialogue. Also, there are sequences mashed together, like Charlie looking out his window and suddenly finding himself in Teresa’s bedroom. That immediate cut, as if we’re moving through someone’s head instead of simply from place to place, is more indicative of French New Wave cinema. Also, there’s a use of close-ups on moments, like when Charlie is eying his nude girlfriend through his fingers, that carries a certain warmth through the framing, the jump cuts, and the acting. Scorsese also continues to use the color red a great deal, mainly in the club where a fair portion of the movie takes place. I wonder what the full explanation for that is?
ADAM VAN VLEET
Mean Streets Response
It seems like Charlie is conflicted with life in general, he is confronted by work, tradition, love, friendship, loyalty and how to juggle those ideas. The ending is partially autobiographical on Scorsese’s part, but I think the he is just portraying the abruptness of losing the all the balls that your juggling at once, sometimes it happens that fast.
I was impressed by Mean Streets use of the camera; the dolly shot following Charlie through the club was beautiful. I was not surprised that Scorsese mentioned it in the book. The shot does an amazing job of plunging us into the movie. It’s a purposeful shot having the audience look over Charlie’s shoulder, which we will do for the rest of the film, but in an impactful dynamic way.
Most important to Mean Streets for me is Scorsese’s ability to paint life as surreal realism. In a way you almost feel like your looking at an early Magritte painting. The scenes are natural and real, but the way it’s edited and shot comes off as dream like and surreal. A grounded scene with Charlie and Johnny Boy feels almost like a documented moment between friends, but then it’s shattered by a surreal shot of Charlie walking through the club.
The outcome in my mind is that I’m left feeling like I just watched actual people and actual situation not far from my own experience’s, and it goes further then relating to having a fuck up for a friend. Everyone has those, even fuck up friends have fuck up friend. No, Scorsese is able to paint this picture the way memories are painted in your mind, and that is what’s so powerful about this picture. You feel like your watching a memory that has been molested by the Id and Superego, with just a bit of nostalgia thrown to make the memory comforting so that it can be played over and over again, in our minds, and on the screen.
Charlie is a troubled character, he feels trapped in his life by various forces. He feels trapped in his job as a low level thug for a criminal organization. This element of guilt is shown through the running motif of Charlie holding his hand over fire perhaps to feel the flames of hell, where he seems certain he'll spend eternity. These thoughts seem evident by Charlie's nearly constant visit to the church He feels trapped by (in his eyes) shameful relationship with Teresa the epileptic. Charlie feels ashamed by this because of her condition, he felt that if people knew they would down on him, thus he chooses to keep their relationship a secret and all the while Charlie fantasizes about more exotic relationship with even more undesirable women. Most of all he feels trapped by his relationship with his friend Johnny Boy. Their relationship seems almost parasitic because Charlie constantly has to take care of Johnny Boy financially and often times Johnny Boy doesn't seem to care at all or give little consideration to the consequences because he knows that Charlie will pick up the slack for him as always. Towards the end of the film Charlie begins to realize this attitude arising in Johnny Boy, but instead of doing anything about it he ends up falling into the same habits but simply getting angry whenever it happens.
The largest motif I saw throughout the film would be the use of fire. This motif starts almost immediately after Charlie visits a church to get absolution for his sins. Periodically through out the film Charlie can be seen lighting an item on fire or simply lighting a fire and then holding his hand over it. I took this to mean that this is Charlie's acceptance that his life isn't good or holy like it is suppose to be. It seems to me that he freely acknowledges that he is going to go to hell and is simply preparing himself for it. There was one scene that I found interesting. I forget the exact circumstance in which it occurs but Charlie holds his hand over the fire and one of his criminal colleagues sees him and angrily tells Charlie to stop doing that. I took this to mean that some people are in the dark about their own behavior, they have somehow tricked themselves into believing that they are good people even though the lives that the lead would suggest otherwise. So they view religion as sort of an insurance policy of sorts. However Charlie seems to believe that he is doomed and there is no way out going to hell, where he seems sure he is going.
To me the ending of the film seemed to be all the events in Charlie's life that made him feel guilty or at least made him feel trapped coming to get him all at once. Because the three main characters in the car are Charlie, Teresa his girlfriend, and Johnny Boy his “best friend”. This would suggest that the two people in his car are probably the problems in his life because they are the problems he deals with almost constantly. However the third part of his guilt or feeling of hopelessness comes his criminal behavior which is the method in which his downfall is brought about. Because on the one hand the car is shot because of Johnny Boy's almost psychotic behavior, but on the other hand it is because of Charlie's criminality. Had Charlie not been a criminal the film would have not ended the way that it did and thus his criminal status does play into his downfall.
I thought MEAN STREETS was a great movie. There were a couple of parts in the middle that I thought could’ve moved a little faster, but overall, I thought it was really cool. It seemed to be Harvey Keitel playing the same character he played in KNOCKING, which was cool to see. I loved the world that Scorsese created around him, because his character seemed to really try and be a nice guy.
He was dealing in all sorts of illegal activity, and all those times that Johnny Boy didn’t pay back Michael, Charlie was there trying to keep the peace. It’s strange because in that type of world, normally we don’t see that. Normally we see a guy get one chance and if he doesn’t, he gets killed. But in this movie, it was almost painful to watch because Johnny Boy just got chance after chance and was forgiven every single time. And every single time, all I could think was that this next time would be the last, and I would just wait for something bad to happen to him, but it never did. At least not until the end.
The ending was also very good. There was this false sense of hope about it that I think a lot of people were hoping would last forever. Just DeNiro, Keitel, and his girlfriend, all driving away from their problems, joking around and having a good time. I guess I was hoping that it would end on that, but a part of me figured it probably wouldn’t. And sure enough, moments later, Michael pulls up next to them and Scorsese shoots Johnny Boy.
The final scenes of the paramedics getting Keitel into the ambulance, him holding his hand, while his girlfriend was being taken out of the car, was so weird. I’m still having some trouble figuring it out, because it seems like with most people who are in a relationship, if they get into a car accident, they’ll want to make sure that the other person is okay. There didn’t seem to be that in this case. They both seemed lost in their own world of thoughts. But I guess since they did just witness Johnny Boy being shot, and they got into a pretty nasty wreck, it’s somewhat believable that they’d still be in shock, trying to figure things out. But then I think back to the scene when the girlfriend was having that seizure, and how Keitel’s anger at Johnny Boy for not showing up seemed to outweigh his feeling of fear for her. He ended up leaving her so he could go talk to Johnny Boy.
I guess maybe that’s just the type of protagonist Charlie is. Because he was religious, he was trying to make God happy. He prayed and went to church (whether to worship or out of guilt I think is debatable (I’m going to say out of guilt)).
The other thing I really liked about the film was the music. It was amazing; it was loud and blaring and seemed to go hand in hand with what we were seeing. There are a couple of times when they’re in the bar at the beginning of the film and the music is great. Especially the scene when Johnny Boy enters, and the camera just pulls back while he walks toward the bar in slow motion. It was just really cool to watch.
Overall, I thought the movie was really good, and a good film for Scorsese, too. It seemed to be very personal to him and I really feel like he was almost telling us a story about himself rather than some characters he just made up.
If it's argues that Scorsese is an auter then this is the movie that started his vision. Mean Streets is what I expected to see when I watched "Guess Who's Knocking..." For me, the thing that always defines Scorsese is his ability to disect environment with an enhanced vitality. What I saw a lot in "Guess Who..." was Scorsese writing a film that was largely about film. I showed a somewhat pretentious view, and a clear lack of life experience. Everything was romantacized. With Scorsese I expect stylized but never romantacized. Here, in Mean Streets, he is in his environment, New York City. It can be debated that no artist has spent more time and created a more vivid portrait of the heartbeat of America's most complex city.
Here the performances show imporvements too. Scorsese has always had a knack for bringing out the humanity in the world's downtrodden or disgusting people. With every single step that Deniro's character takes down that dark hole the audience tries to will him back to the surface. The film portrays Keitel's inhability to detach from the nuise that is Deniro. There is something in Keitel telling him Deniro is wrong, he is childish and he's playing with fire. But the blindsighted devotion of Keitel is something everyone knows. Our attachments to the people around us and ability to stick up for people or retract ourselves from a situation is what defines most people. For these two men, this has been their entire lives, they have known each other and they have known only this place.
This is undeniably an influence on films to come. The long rambling dialogue, the sudden violence. It's a very reactionary film, each piece of the film is reaction to a previous reaction and theme is depicted as the plot, and this is the nature of Scorsese storytelling.
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