Mean Streets (Special Edition)
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: David Carradine, Jeannie Bell, Julie Andleman, Robert Carradine, Victor ArgoBrand: Warner Brothers
Primary Contributor: Keitel, Harvey
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled)
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 112 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-08-17
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Warner Home Video
Movie Reviews of Mean Streets (Special Edition)
Movie Review: "You don't make up for your sins in church. You do it in the streets."
Summary: 5 Stars
Orson Welles said that a director's first film was always his best because he would put more into it and hadn't got into bad habits like developing a style yet. Mean Streets may not be Scorsese's first film, but it otherwise bears out Welles' words. Set in New York's Little Italy, Harvey Keitel plays Michael, who exists on the fringes of crime and whose dreams of managing a restaurant his money-lending uncle is about to take over are threatened by his affair with his epileptic cousin (Amy Robinson) and his terminally unreliable childhood friend Johnny Boy's pressing debts.
As with Goodfellas, it is plot-lite and style heavy, but where in the latter the style dominated, here it has a rough-cut and ready-dubbed feel that energises the film and accurately reflects the precarious state of the characters, be it financial, mental or moral. All the trademarks are here - the tracking shots down bars, the sudden explosions of violence, a popular music soundtrack that exists as much within the film as over it, the concern with incompatibility of religion with everyday life - but here they are fresh and integral to the film rather than carefully stage-managed.
If De Niro's unstable Johnny Boy now looks a bit too much like barnstorming with many of the tricks he has since pretty much worn out through over-use, Keitel's diplomatic lead and the astonishingly natural performances from the supporting cast are the real glue that holds the film together and convince us we are eavesdropping on real lives.
Filled with astonishing moments Mean Streets remains one of the few key American films of the early Seventies that still grabs your undivided attention with none of its original power diluted by time and imitation.
Summary of Mean Streets (Special Edition)
After Martin Scorsese went to Hollywood in 1972 to direct the low-budget Boxcar Bertha for B-movie mogul Roger Corman, the young director showed the film to maverick director John Cassavetes and got an instant earful of urgent advice. "It's crap," said Cassavetes in no uncertain terms, "now go out and make something that comes from your heart." Scorsese took the advice and focused his energy on Mean Streets, a riveting contemporary film about low-life gangsters in New York's Little Italy that critic Pauline Kael would later call "a true original, and a triumph of personal filmmaking." Starring Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel in roles that announced their talent to the world, it set the stage for Scorsese's emergence as one of the greatest American filmmakers. Introducing themes and character types that Scorsese would return to in Taxi Driver, GoodFellas, Casino, and other films, the loosely structured story is drawn directly from Scorsese's background in the Italian neighborhoods of New York, and it seethes with the raw vitality of a filmmaker who has found his creative groove. As the irresponsible and reckless Johnny Boy, De Niro offers striking contrast to Keitel's Charlie, who struggles to reconcile gang life with Catholic guilt. More of an episodic portrait than a plot-driven crime story, Mean Streets remains one of Scorsese's most direct and fascinating films--a masterful calling card for a director whose greatness was clearly apparent from that point forward. --Jeff ShannonHarvey Keitel plays Charlie working his way up the ranks of a local mob. Amy Robinson is Teresa the girlfriend his family deems unsuitable because of her epilepsy. And in the starmaking role that won Best Supporting Actor Awards from the New York and National Society of FIlm Critics De Niro is Johnny Boy a small-time gambler in big-time debt to loan sharks. This is a story Martin Scorsese lived a semi-biographical tale of the first-generation sons and daughters of New York's Little Italy.Running Time: 113 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 085391912729
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