FILM
HISTORY STARTS HERE Criterion marks 50 years of ‘Mean Streets’ BY MICHAEL J. CASEY
W
hen Martin Scorsese sat down with friend and classmate Mardik Martin to pen Season of the Witch — later rechristened Mean Streets — he hardly thought he was changing how movies would look and move. The kid who grew up on Elizabeth Street in New York City’s Little Italy made his lowRobert De Niro as Johnny Boy in the 1973 Martin Scorsese budget debut in 1967 with picture Mean Streets. Courtesy: The Criterion Collection Who’s That Knocking at he’s almost consumed by Robert De My Door, followed by the forgettable Niro, who plays the troublesome and exploitation feature Boxcar Bertha in erratic Johnny Boy in this first of 10 1972. It was a somewhat inauspicious collaborations with Scorsese. De Niro beginning, but then came Mean had been working for years in smaller Streets, and everything changed. films, but this showing started a string From the voiceover narration supplied of performances that would vault him by Scorsese himself reconciling sin among the greatest. and atonement to the violent and All of this is on stunning display tragic ending, the film didn’t just break in Criterion’s newest UHD Blu-ray the mold — it set it. set. It’s been half a century since the Director Richard Linklater calls Scorsese masterpiece debuted at Mean Streets the patron saint of the 1973 New York Film Festival, but independent cinema. It’s easy to see the movie still pulses. And thanks to why. From the rock ’n’ roll needle Criterion’s 4K digital restoration, it also drops that send the narrative into looks spectacular. The set features another gear to the street-level story a bevy of interviews, retrospectives that feels pulled from the guts, the film and a video essay about the put forward a bold new template for film that provides insight into the cinematic storytelling. And then there autobiographical details of the story, are the Scorsese hallmarks: character introductions punctuated by on-screen along with a renewed understanding of the themes that Scorsese — who text, the sudden eruptions of violence turns 81 on Nov. 17 — established that dissipate as quickly as they with Mean Streets and has been bubble up and extended moments of honing ever since. Fifty years have character interaction — often comical passed between his breakthrough but with a sinister edge. Every frame feels like an urtext for cinema to come. sensation and his latest masterwork, Killers of the Flower Moon. What a But Scorsese can’t take all the phenomenal career. credit: A great deal of Mean Streets’ success and legacy belongs to those in front of the camera. Scorsese wrote the part of Charlie, modeled ON SCREEN: Mean Streets after the director’s father, for Harvey is available Nov. 21 on Keitel — whom he worked with on 4K UHD Blu-ray from The Who’s That Knocking — and Keitel Criterion Collection. returns the favor in spades. Still,
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