Mean Streets, Revisited

The recent, tragic passing of Sherman Torgan, founder and operator of the New Beverly cinema since he opened it in 1978, threatens to end a theater that perhaps never should have existed in the first place. Offering nightly double bills of everything from the pillars of European art cinema to the latest re-appropriated grindhouse trash for a paltry $7 (a price hike from $6 about a year ago), the New Beverly, for the moment, marches on. But your admission is necessary sustenance for this cinematic treasure, and there has never been a better time to sink yourself into its threadbare seats—especially this week, when Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets (1974), will be screened along with the upcoming Brooklyn Rules (2007).

As Harvey Keitel’s head hits his pillow and the Super 8 title-sequence begins, its clear that Mean Streets is in some part a film dealing with film. Scorsese frames our initial understanding of Keitel’s Charlie in an openly nostalgic home movie; how this movie relates to the reality of Keitel’s character, however, is entirely unknown. Later, the appropriateness of this introduction is apparent: Charlie’s world view seems constructed entirely upon John Wayne westerns, schlock mobster films, and a hazy understanding of the old country.

Heightened by the exuberant camera of a young filmmaker, the glamor of the boys in ’70s-era Little Italy is undeniable at the opening of the film. But soon afterward the stylish cinematography is revealed to be largely a representation of how the characters perceive themselves, and we see them as they are: simple thugs and low-lifes. They are not unlovable or without redeeming qualities (quite the contrary), but these are also not Coppola’s mobsters—they are rooted in an almost documentary realism of Scorsese’s days in the neighborhood.

Aside from the unflinching moral/religious themes of the film, the self-constructed reality of Charlie, Tony, Johnny Boy, et al., is equally juicy thematic material. Scorsese finds an undeniable beauty in the drunkenness, violence, and blaring Phil Spector music songs of the old neighborhood, and his observation of his characters’ self-delusion is not a condemnation by any means. Still, comparing the brutality of the (physical and emotional) violence at the film’s climax with that of some of its studio-produced contemporaries clearly illustrates that while Scorsese pulls no punches about the pleasures of this lifestyle, he also refuses to muffle its senseless violence, futility, or absurdity.

MEAN STREETS DIR. MARTIN SCORSESE | RATED R | SCREENS AT THE NEW BEVERLY CINEMA WED-THURS, AUG 15-16

Tags: brooklyn rules, Film, grindhouse, mean streets