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Criterion marks 50 years of ‘Mean Streets’

BY MICHAEL J. CASEY

When 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 lowbudget debut in 1967 with Who’s That Knocking at My Door, followed by the forgettable exploitation feature Boxcar Bertha in 1972. It was a somewhat inauspicious beginning, but then came Mean Streets, and everything changed. From the voiceover narration supplied by Scorsese himself reconciling sin and atonement to the violent and tragic ending, the film didn’t just break the mold — it set it.

Director Richard Linklater calls Mean Streets the patron saint of independent cinema. It’s easy to see why. From the rock ’n’ roll needle drops that send the narrative into another gear to the street-level story that feels pulled from the guts, the film put forward a bold new template for cinematic storytelling. And then there are the Scorsese hallmarks: character introductions punctuated by on-screen text, the sudden eruptions of violence that dissipate as quickly as they bubble up and extended moments of character interaction — often comical but with a sinister edge. Every frame feels like an urtext for cinema to come.

But Scorsese can’t take all the 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 after the director’s father, for Harvey Keitel — whom he worked with on Who’s That Knocking — and Keitel returns the favor in spades. Still, he’s almost consumed by Robert De Niro, who plays the troublesome and erratic Johnny Boy in this first of 10 collaborations with Scorsese. De Niro had been working for years in smaller films, but this showing started a string of performances that would vault him among the greatest.

All of this is on stunning display in Criterion’s newest UHD Blu-ray set. It’s been half a century since the Scorsese masterpiece debuted at the 1973 New York Film Festival, but the movie still pulses. And thanks to Criterion’s 4K digital restoration, it also looks spectacular. The set features a bevy of interviews, retrospectives and a video essay about the film that provides insight into the autobiographical details of the story, along with a renewed understanding of the themes that Scorsese — who turns 81 on Nov. 17 — established with Mean Streets and has been honing ever since. Fifty years have passed between his breakthrough sensation and his latest masterwork, Killers of the Flower Moon. What a phenomenal career.