Mean Streets

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Mean Streets was Martin Scorsese's third feature film, and the one that confirmed him as a major new talent. On its premiere at the New York Film Festival in 1973, the movie critic Pauline Kael hailed the film as "a true original of our period, a triumph of personal film-making." The story is set amid the bars, pool halls, tenements and streets of the few blocks of Manhattan known as Little Italy, Scorsese's childhood neighbourhood, one whose "very texture was interwoven with organised crime, " and this in turn informs the texture of his film. Demetrios Matheou's study of the film considers the contexts of its production, namely the New Hollywood and the rise of a young generation of film school-educated directors striving to break the stale mold of studio pictures. He analyses the significance of Scorsese's background and its influence on the film's themes, its production history, the particular aspects of his filmmaking process and style, Scorsese's relationships with stars De Niro and Harvey Keitel and writer Mardik Martin, the reception of the film and its subsequent influence. Matheou argues that while Taxi Driver and Raging Bull are considered Scorsese's greatest films of the period, Mean Streets may be the more significant achievement. In it, Scorsese supplied the more enduring template for future crime movies, whether his own Goodfellas, or films as diverse as Donnie Brasco, Reservoir Dogs, La Haine, Man Bites Dog and State of Grace, and beyond the big screen, on television dramas such as The Sopranos.