This film represents the second of five Martin Scorsese films topping my Netflix queue, just in case you were keeping track.
Mean Streets is Marty's highly touted review of the life of gangsters in New York City's Little Italy. In many ways, it's an interesting early look at a director and his trademarks that began largely with this film, and that he's never quite abandoned. I mostly wanted to see Mean Streets out of academic curiosity, in an effort to compare Marty's recent films, like The Departed, to something from earlier in his career. Aside from its timing in Scorsese's filmography, I knew almost nothing about the film prior to viewing.
Mean Streets is less of a tale and more of a study of one man's place in his immediate surroundings, which turn out to be a rough niche of NYC in the 70s. Charlie (Harvey Keitel) spends most of the movie attempting to reconcile his ambitions toward being a respectable gangster and his Catholic faith, particularly his wish to emulate St. Francis. The film follows his exploits in attempting to protect and mentor Johnny Boy (Robert DeNiro), his slightly psychotic friend with a penchant for gambling and an equally potent penchant for being unable to pay his debts, and in trying to secure the love of his epileptic girlfriend Teresa (Amy Robinson), who wants to move out of her apartment for better quarters and wants Charlie to move in with her. The plot, such as it is, is divided between Charlie and Teresa's tempestuous romance, complicated by Charlie's almost fanatical wish to remain tough in the eyes of his kingpin uncle and other members of the gang, and getting Johnny Boy out of trouble as Charlie's cousin demands repayment of loans given to Johnny Boy and as other loan sharks chase down the characteristically reactive and not necessarily intelligent man. Incidentally, Johnny Boy seems very much a precursor to the Tommy character played by Joe Pesci in GoodFellas.
Mean Streets was raw, gritty, and in-your-face. Marty, using simple camera techniques (likely thanks to a shoestring budget and the fact that it was made in 1973) such as handheld shots, provided an almost documentary-style to the filmmaking in this movie, effecting an uncompromised realism. The darkness and the danger threatening to consume Charlie and Johnny Boy on a daily basis were palpable; there is no question that their chosen line of work is hazardous and dirty.
Yet, the film boasted a first look at trademarks seemingly characteristic of all of Marty's films. First, there was a quirky soundtrack of 50s and 60s doo-wop and other straight rock-n-roll, which was apparently gleaned from Marty's own record collection (scratches and all). Charlie almost becomes something of a character study, another primary focus on redemption and guilt. His thoughts are highlighted with voiceover narration (provided by Marty, incidentally), and the soul of the film centers on Charlie's internal struggles to reconcile his place in the grand scheme of his environment.
This film also represents the first of a long series of DeNiro and Scorsese partnerships, and both he and Keitel offered very real, very engaging performances. Johnny Boy, in particular, reminded me of, as I mentioned, a precursor to Tommy, or on a more basic level, an inspiration for the character of Bender in The Breakfast Club. He knows he is in trouble, he know he is only making it worse for himself, but this knowledge only seems to fuel an attitude of self-defeat and further bad decisions and defiance in an effort to seem brave. DeNiro clearly zeroed in on this quality and played it to his usual perfection. Charlie and Johnny Boy's partnership is the most interesting focus of the film; the fact that Charlie feels compelled to attempt to help Johnny Boy out of his ever declining predicament as a means of finding redemption is the ultimate tragedy of the piece.
In many ways, Mean Streets seems to represent an early draft of the formula upon which Marty draws for his other gangster films; a blueprint that he pulls out for consideration whenever he revisits that world. Formula creators are pioneering, naturally, but they also represent a time when the formula was imperfect, lacking the tweaks and improvements that come with the natural evolution of a director's (or other type of filmmaker's) filmmaking. For me, as real and as poetic as Charlie's struggles ultimately become, particularly in lieu of the grisly ending of this piece, the biggest flaw of this film is that the viewing audience is never provided any reason to care for Charlie, or Johnny Boy, or anyone else. That lack of connection is less jarring once the Teresa character enters the picture, as she gives Charlie a softer, more human dimension. Otherwise, the film, as it begins, feels like its making excuses for the Charlie character rather than giving the viewer all of his dimensions and letting the viewer decide for him or herself whether that redemption about which Charlie is so obsessed is actually deserved. As a result, I felt disconnected from Mean Streets for much of the film, because Charlie's dimensions (and he's really the character of import; Johnny Boy and Teresa are more plot devices than flesh-and-blood characters themselves) did not really take full shape until near the end, and by then, it was too late to care about him or anyone else in the film, for that matter. This lack of connection left me feeling somewhat empty about the piece (but, to be fair, some poetry can do that too).
That's not to say that Mean Streets did not have some great points. Like I said, the performances were good, and Marty's great filmmaking style clearly emerges in this film; it just wasn't the revelatory experience that some people have touted it as, and even though the stories/characters are largely dissimilar, I could not help feeling like Mean Streets was an early and rough draft of GoodFellas, a film that was executed more effectively, even if the same themes were not at the forefront. As a result, I feel that Mean Streets warrants an 8 for being very good with minor flaws, but it does not pass the test because it's violent, and because I didn't love it. Still, any Scorsese student should pick this film up if they have not; it's a great first look at a then-budding director whose contemporary achievement is unquestioned.