Mean Streets (1973) BBC 4 10pm directed by Martin Scorese and screenplay by Scorese and Mardik Martin.

Posted by celticman on Fri, 20 Sep 2013

The film opens with a clunky voice over with Charlie (Harvey Keitel) in a Roman Catholic Church having an extempore debate about the nature of hell and eternal suffering. He holds his fingers over a candle and tries not to flinch. Charlie’s idea of redemption is to try and save his younger cousin Johnny Boy (a young Robert de Niro) from the loan sharks he borrows money from.   Charlie’s also having an affair with Johnny Boy’s cousin Teresa (Amy Robinson). His uncle Giovanna (Cesare Danova) the local caporegime, who Charlie works for pulling in extortion money from local businesses, asks him as part of his obligations, to keep an eye out for Teresa because she’d not right in the head—she suffers from epilepsy. Right on cue she has a fit, which means she lies down and shuffles her feet about when they argue about love and whether Charlie should be spending so much time looking out for Johnny Boy, especially since Johnny Boy doesn’t seem to care for anybody, including himself. Johnny Boy’s problems are heightened by owing big money to Michael (Richard Romanus) one of a quartet of close Italian friends that include Tony (David Proval) whose rundown bar they tend to hang about in.   Charlie keeps smoothing things over so that the vig Johnny Boy owes Michael is put back and put back, with the odd ten or twenty dollars being paid to Michael of the $2000 debt for the sake of honour and appearance. But when Johnny Boy is given a deadline and doesn’t show up at the bar, it looks bad. Appearance is everything and Michael promises to collect the debt even when Johnny Boy waves a gun at him and tells him he’s got no money and has no intention of paying. In the denouement Johnny Boy does pay—with his life. It’s a great performance by de Niro full of the brio and uncertainty of a younger man that wants more than his due now and is prepared to gamble everything for that instant hit.   

Comments

Submitted by Steve on

As you probably know, I've always been a fan of Scorcese. His analysis of brother to brother relationships in Raging Bull... well... it was a really emotional experience for me, deeply personal. I always wanted to be like my brother. My brother went to Harvard Law School and I just dropped out of almost every school I went to. I lied about myself to feel secure and even pretended to be a Harvard student to get some attention. There was this deep void in my soul that just couldn't be filled. I was actually alot like Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye, and I just did not want to serve and give to this society which really treats Korean-Americans like shit. Actually, that's a generalization. With my employees and a fair amount of Jews, Irish, Italians, Blacks... they give you a fair shake, at least the ones I know. The way Koreans view Korean Americans is as traitors. But Korean-Americans live in America and to impose a Korean essence on Korean-Americans is absurd and stupid. If Koreans are saying that Korean identity is absolute and that the environment has no effect on Korean identity, why are they so constantly imposing Korean identity on their own citizens. The one metanarrative in Korean society is stifling. Americans, elderly Americans, I don't think they even see Korean-Americans. Ralph Ellison, the writer of Invisible Man, quotes T.S. Eliot and basically says that people see blacks as phantoms or ghosts, unreal projections of their solipsistic fantasies, growing out of the mind delirious. Even at church, people whom I distinctly remember for I have a Proustian mind... I remember through associations with places, things, times, people whom I distinctly remember ask me again and again if it is my first time there even though I've been there many times. The workingclass prejudices, although I understand them because of directors like Scorcese, the workingclass prejudices, I don't have much of a taste for. I don't feel any liberal need to help out the homeless or the workingclass outside of my employees because I know how much most of them hate Asians or the Chinks. Upperclass Americans, I've met quite a few of them. They make me sick. As soon as they call me "son," I feel queasy inside. Don't call me son. They have no idea what I've been through. I'm not their son. Even people like Warren Buffett really bother me with their "I am your favorite Uncle" attitude. Now back to Scorcese. What I like about Scorcese is the spirituality that he sees in the souls of these workingclass heros... their struggles, their pains, their agonies. It's very similar to Basquiat's observations. You know what, I really shouldn't complain about racism because I know how racist I can be. I come from the ancient Greek tradition and Theognis of Megara is my favorite philosopher. Now here I go again. I'm talking like everyone else. I've just nullified everything I've just said and I am back to 0. Fuck!