Mean Streets

{{Infobox film

| name = Mean Streets

| image = Mean Streets original 1973 theatrical poster.png

| caption = Theatrical release poster

| director = Martin Scorsese

| producer = Jonathan T. Taplin

| screenplay = {{ubl|Martin Scorsese|Mardik Martin}}

| story = Martin Scorsese

| starring = {{Plainlist|

}}

| cinematography = Kent L. Wakeford

| editing = Sidney Levin

| studio = Taplin-Perry-Scorsese Productions

| distributor = Warner Bros.

| released = {{Film date|1973|10|14}}

| runtime = 112 minutes

| country = United States{{cite web|url=http://explore.bfi.org.uk/4ce2b6be8ccf5 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120711213745/http://explore.bfi.org.uk/4ce2b6be8ccf5 |url-status=dead |archive-date=2012-07-11 |title=Mean Streets (1973) |publisher=Explore.bfi.org.uk |access-date=2016-10-20}}

| language = English, Italian, Neapolitan

| budget = $650,000

| gross = $3 million{{cite magazine | first=Owen | last=Gleiberman | title=Gross Oversights | url=https://ew.com/article/2004/04/23/best-movies-flopped-box-office/ | magazine=Entertainment Weekly | date=April 23, 2004 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070119185758/http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,611608,00.html |archive-date=January 19, 2007}}

}}

Mean Streets is a 1973 American crime drama film directed by Martin Scorsese, co-written by Scorsese and Mardik Martin, and starring Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel. It is produced by Warner Bros. The film premiered at the New York Film Festival on October 2, 1973, and was released on October{{Nbsp}}14.{{Cite web |title=Mean Streets |url=https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/MovieDetails/55020#3 |access-date=2023-03-31 |website=Afi. Catalog |at=Details}} De Niro won the National Society of Film Critics and the New York Film Critics Circle award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as "Johnny Boy" Civello.

The film is the first of several collaborations between Scorsese and De Niro. It is also Scorsese's first critical and commercial success. In 1997, Mean Streets was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, who deemed it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".{{cite press release|title=Librarian of Congress Names 25 New Films to National Film Registry |publisher=Library of Congress |date=November 18, 1997 |url=https://www.loc.gov/today/pr/1997/97-200.html |access-date=July 22, 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090811151201/http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/1997/97-200.html |archive-date=August 11, 2009 }}

Plot

Charlie Cappa, a young Italian-American in the Little Italy neighborhood of New York City, is hampered by his feeling of responsibility toward his reckless younger friend John "Johnny Boy" Civello, a small-time gambler and degenerate who refuses to work and owes money to many loan sharks. Charlie is also having a secret affair with Johnny's cousin Teresa, who has epilepsy and is ostracized because of her condition—especially by Charlie's Uncle Giovanni, a powerful mafioso, and is told to stay away from her. Giovanni also wants Charlie to distance himself from Johnny, saying that "honorable men go with honorable men".

Charlie is torn between his devout Catholicism and his illicit Mafia work for Giovanni. Johnny becomes increasingly self-destructive and disrespectful of his Mafia-connected creditors. Failing to receive redemption in the Church, Charlie seeks it through sacrificing himself on Johnny's behalf. At Tony's bar, a loan shark and friend named Michael comes looking for Johnny again to pay his debts; he has been doing so for a few days and is becoming increasingly frustrated, thinking that Johnny is taking advantage of him and that he is not going to pay up, with Charlie promising to convince Johnny.

To his surprise, Johnny insults him and tells him that he is not going to pay back the money. Michael lunges at Johnny, who pulls a gun. After a tense standoff, Michael walks away and Charlie convinces Johnny that they should leave town for a brief period. Teresa insists on coming with them. Charlie borrows a car and they drive off, leaving the neighborhood without incident.

A car that has been following them suddenly pulls up with Michael at the wheel and his henchman, Jimmy Shorts, in the backseat. Jimmy fires several shots at Charlie's car, hitting Johnny in the neck and Charlie in the arm, causing Charlie to crash the car into a fire hydrant. Teresa is injured in the crash. Johnny is seen in an alley staggering toward a white light that is revealed to be a police car, and Charlie gets out of the crashed vehicle and kneels in the water spurting from the hydrant, dazed and bleeding. Paramedics take Teresa and Charlie away while Johnny's fate remains unknown.

Cast

Robert De Niro as John "Johnny Boy" Civello
Harvey Keitel as Charlie Cappa
David Proval as Tony DeVienazo
Amy Robinson as Teresa Ronchelli
Victor Argo as Mario
Richard Romanus as Michael Longo
Cesare Danova as Giovanni Cappa
George Memmoli as Joey
Jeannie Bell as Diane
Harry Northup as Soldier
David Carradine as Drunk
Martin Scorsese as Jimmy Shorts

Production

Apart from his first actual feature, Who's That Knocking at My Door, and a directing project given to him by early independent filmmaker Roger Corman, Boxcar Bertha, this was Scorsese's first feature film of his own design. Director John Cassavetes told him after he completed Boxcar Bertha, "You've just spent a year of your life making a piece of shit". This inspired Scorsese to make a film about his own experiences.{{cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmmakersonfilm/7366950/Martin-Scorsese-interview-for-Shutter-Island.html |title=Martin Scorsese interview for Shutter Island |location=London |work=The Daily Telegraph |first=Mick |last=Brown |date=March 7, 2010}} Cassavetes told Scorsese that he should do something like Who's That Knocking at My Door, which Cassavetes had liked. Mean Streets was based on events that Scorsese saw almost regularly while growing up in New York City's Little Italy.

The screenplay began as a continuation of the characters in Who's That Knocking. Scorsese changed the title from Season of the Witch to Mean Streets, a reference to Raymond Chandler's essay "The Simple Art of Murder", in which Chandler writes, "But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid".

Scorsese sent the script to Corman, who agreed to back the film if all of the characters were Black. Scorsese was anxious to make the film, so he considered this option, but actress Verna Bloom arranged a meeting with potential financial backer Jonathan Taplin, the road manager for The Band. Taplin liked the script and was willing to raise the $300,000 that Scorsese wanted if Corman promised, in writing, to distribute the film. The blaxploitation suggestion came to nothing when funding from Warner Bros. that allowed him to make the film with Italian-American characters.{{cite web |last=Musto |first=Michael |date=2011-11-01 |title=Mean Streets Was Almost a Blaxploitation Flick! |url=http://blogs.villagevoice.com/dailymusto/2011/11/mean_streets_wa.php |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130923233146/http://blogs.villagevoice.com/dailymusto/2011/11/mean_streets_wa.php |archive-date=2013-09-23 |access-date=2016-10-20 |work=The Village Voice}}

Mean Streets was filmed from April 1973 to June 1973.{{Cite AV media |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070379/locations/ |title=Mean Streets (1973) - Filming & production - IMDb |language=en-US |access-date=2024-08-11 |via=www.imdb.com}}

Reception

Mean Streets received immense critical acclaim on its release. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 92% based on 78 reviews, with an average rating of 8.7/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "Mean Streets is a powerful tale of urban sin and guilt that marks Scorsese's arrival as an important cinematic voice and features electrifying performances from Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro."{{cite web|url=https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mean_streets/|title=Mean Streets (1973) |website=Rotten Tomatoes|access-date=November 26, 2024}} According to Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average of 96 out of 100, based on eleven critics, the film received "universal acclaim".{{cite Metacritic|id=mean-streets |type=movie|title= Mean Streets Reviews|access-date= August 17, 2021}}

File:Martin_Scorsese_by_David_Shankbone_(2601129680).jpg

Pauline Kael of The New Yorker was among the enthusiastic critics, calling it "a true original, and a triumph of personal filmmaking" and "dizzyingly sensual".Kael, Pauline (1991). 5001 Nights at the Movies. New York: Holt Paperbacks. p. 473. {{ISBN|0-8050-1367-9}}.

Vincent Canby of The New York Times reflected that "no matter how bleak the milieu, no matter how heartbreaking the narrative, some films are so thoroughly, beautifully realized they have a kind of tonic effect that has no relation to the subject matter".{{Cite news |last=Canby |first=Vincent |date=1973-10-03 |title='Mean Streets' at Film Festival |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1973/10/03/archives/mean-streets-at-film-festival-the-cast.html |access-date=2022-11-29 |issn=0362-4331}}

Time Out magazine called it "one of the best American films of the decade".{{Cite news |title=Mean Streets (1973) |work=Time Out London |url=http://www.timeout.com/film/reviews/72996/mean_streets.html |url-status=dead |access-date=2022-11-28 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110607134208/http://www.timeout.com/film/reviews/72996/mean_streets.html |archive-date=2011-06-07}}

David Denby, writing for Sight and Sound, praised the film's acting, saying that Scorsese had used improvisation "better than anyone in American movies so far". He concluded by saying, "Scorsese's impulse to express all he feels about life in every scene (a cannier, more prudent director wouldn't have started his film with that great De Niro monologue), and thus to wrench his audience upwards into a new state of consciousness with one prolonged and devastating gesture, infinitely hurting and infinitely tender. Mean Streets comes close enough to this feverish ideal to warrant our love and much of our respect."{{cite book |date=2021 |title=Martin Scorsese: A Life of Movies |pages=10–13}}

Retrospectively, Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times inducted Mean Streets on his Great Movies list and wrote: "In countless ways, right down to the detail of modern TV crime shows, Mean Streets is one of the source points of modern movies."{{cite web |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=December 31, 2003 |title=Mean Streets Movie Review & Film Summary (1973) |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-mean-streets-1973 |access-date=November 28, 2022 |website=RogerEbert.com}}

In 2013, the staff of Entertainment Weekly voted the film the seventh greatest of all time.{{cite magazine |date=June 27, 2013 |title=Movies: 10 All-Time Greatest - 7. Mean Streets (1973) |url=http://ew.com/gallery/movies-10-all-time-greatest/7-mean-streets-1973 |url-status=dead |magazine=Entertainment Weekly |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170211080817/http://ew.com/gallery/movies-10-all-time-greatest/7-mean-streets-1973/ |archive-date=2017-02-11 |access-date=February 9, 2017}} In 2015, it was ranked 93rd on the BBC's list of the 100 greatest American films.{{cite web | url=http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20150720-the-100-greatest-american-films | title=The 100 greatest American films | publisher=BBC | date=July 20, 2015 | access-date=January 19, 2017}}

James Gandolfini, when asked on Inside the Actors Studio (season 11, episode two) which films that most influenced him, cited Mean Streets, saying, "I saw that ten times in a row".{{cite web | first=Scott | last=Collins | title=James Gandolfini dies at 51; actor starred in 'The Sopranos' | url=https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-xpm-2013-jun-20-la-me-james-gandolfini-20130620-story.html | work=Los Angeles Times | date=June 20, 2013 | access-date=February 9, 2017}}

Likewise, director Kathryn Bigelow said that Mean Streets was one of her five favorite movies.{{Cite web |date=July 8, 2009 |title=Five Favorite Films with Kathryn Bigelow |url=https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/five-favorite-films-with-kathryn-bigelow/ |access-date=November 16, 2020 |website=Rotten Tomatoes}}

In an interview with GQ, Spike Lee named Mean Streets as one of his influences, along with On The Waterfront.{{cite news |last1=Ofiaza |first1=Renz |title=Spike Lee Breaks Down His Film Heroes in New Interview |url=https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/spike-lee-film-heroes/ |access-date=November 7, 2021 |work=Highsnobiety |date=August 19, 2018 |language=en}}

In 2011, Empire listed the film as #1 on its "50 Greatest American Independent Films" list.{{cite news |last1=Toy |first1=Sam |last2=Carty |first2=Stephen |last3=Jolin |first3=Dan |last4=White |first4=James |last5=O'Hara |first5=Helen |last6=Plumb |first6=Ali |last7=De Semlyen |first7=Philip |title=The 50 Greatest American Independent Movies |url=https://www.empireonline.com/movies/features/50-greatest-american-indies/ |access-date=November 7, 2021 |work=Empire |date=June 30, 2011}}

In 2022, the film appeared on "Variety's 100 Greatest Films of All Time" list.{{Cite web |last6=Laffly |date=2022-12-21 |title=The 100 Greatest Movies of All Time |url=https://variety.com/lists/best-movies-of-all-time/mean-streets-1973-2/ |access-date=2023-04-15 |website=Variety |language=en-US}}

Home media

Mean Streets was released on VHS and Betamax in 1985.{{citation needed|date=March 2025}} The film debuted as a letterboxed LaserDisc on October 7, 1991, in the US.{{cite web|url=http://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/03483/12241/Mean-Streets |title=Mean Streets (1973) [12241] |publisher=LaserDisc Database |access-date=2017-02-27}} It was released on Blu-ray on April 6, 2011, in France,{{cite web |url=http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Mean-Streets-Blu-ray/20091/ |title=Mean Streets Blu-ray (France) |publisher=Blu-ray.com |access-date=2013-02-28}} and in America on July 17, 2012.{{cite web|url=http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Mean-Streets-Blu-ray/40809/ |title=Mean Streets Blu-ray |publisher=Blu-ray.com |access-date=2016-10-20}}

The home media release uses the original mono audio track rather than a modern surround-sound mix, as is common for films that have originally had mono audio. A May 18, 2015, release in the UK alters the color timing, and includes a lossless stereo audio track.{{Citation |title=Mean Streets Blu-ray (United Kingdom) |url=https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Mean-Streets-Blu-ray/116473/ |access-date=2023-02-21}} The film received a 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray release from The Criterion Collection on November 21, 2023.{{Cite web |title=Mean Streets |url=https://www.criterion.com/films/29024-mean-streets |access-date=2023-08-19 |website=The Criterion Collection |language=en}}

Soundtrack

Scorsese mainly used vintage pop songs as the movie soundtrack, a revolutionary move at the time. The use of the song "Be My Baby" by the Ronettes, at the start of the film is considered one of the most memorable moments of Scorsese's career,{{Cite web |title=Martin Scorsese: a career in 10 songs |url=https://www.bfi.org.uk/lists/martin-scorsese-songs-soundtracks-music |access-date=2023-03-31 |website=BFI |date=January 3, 2017 |language=en}} and according to critic Owen Gleiberman, "arguably the single greatest use of a pop song in Hollywood history".{{Cite web |last1=Gleiberman |first1=Owen |date=2010-07-10 |title='The Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector': If you love pop music, you must see this movie |url=https://ew.com/article/2010/07/10/the-agony-and-ecstasy-of-phil-spector/ |access-date=2023-03-31 |website=EW.com |language=en}}

Other songs that appear on the film are:{{Cite web |title=Mean Streets Soundtrack - Listen to all songs with scene descriptions |url=https://www.soundtrackradar.com/mean-streets-soundtrack/ |access-date=2023-03-31 |website=Soundtrack Radar |date=March 31, 2021 |language=en-US}}