Of all the film-makers dicussed here, none exploded with quite such volatile energy on the American screen as Martin Scorsese, with Mean Streets, in 1973. Of all our blood poets, none have displayed quite such a thirst and an appetite for ectoplasm either, nor such a painterly eye for the aesthetic virtues of blood. His films are positively soaked in it, yet Scorsese differs from other directors (whose shared mentors were that sacred trinity of savagery - Leone, Penn, Peckinpah) in two, all-important ways: He is Sicilian American (and like Don Vito Corleone, the emphasis is on the Sicilian), and he is a Catholic. Scorsese's films, at least through until Raging Bull, have a sensual, expressionistic depth and texture that one associates more with European auteurs such as Truffaut, Buñuel and Bertolucci than with the American trash-gurus such as Fuller (or even Hawkes and Ford). He also has a rare and suprisingly enriching (to his art at least) sense of sin. Scorsese is, of all t!

he American directors that emerged in the 70's, the one with the clearest vision of modern civilization as He

Johnny Boy arrives in slow motion and to the sounds of "Jumping Jack Flash:" he is suffused in a neon-red glow that makes the bar look like Hades; Johnny's wide idiot grin lets us know however that he is at home here, that this is where he belongs (unlike Charlie, whose conscience never lets him rest). Johnny Boy has a girl on either arm (he mixes their names up) and for some mysterious reason he checks his trousers instead of his coat (Johnny's pranks have no more rationale than a child's - they're simply for his own amusement, as when he blows up the mail-box in his introductory scene). Charlie, without wasting any time on politesse, takes Johnny into the back and confronts him about his debts. The scene that ensues is the comic high-point of the film (and of both Scorsese's and De Niro's careers, to date at least) - and it's a scene which gave birth to a whole new generation (and `method') of actors. When De Niro improvises his spiel here (concerning his gambling adventures!

Mean Streets' greatest influence in American cinema was I think not on directors or script-writers (though its influence there was considerable) but rather on actors. The film has Harvey Keitel (as Charlie) at its centre, and it needs the solidity and slight dullness that Keitel (as an actor and a character) provides, in order to keep from spinning off into total anarchy; but it is Robert De Niro's Johnny Boy (Charlie's wild, self-destructive friend whom he looks out for with all the obsessiveness of an older brother) that gives the film its charge. Johnny Boy dances and gyrates and leaps and spins about the edges of the film, continually threatening to take it into out and out chaos (which he finally does). De Niro's performance - which remains as hilarious and as breath-taking as ever - was a revelation at the time. De Niro took naturalistic, "method" acting to new highs, and his Johnny Boy is maybe the very first performance of its kind. It's a genuine portrayal of a street!

the movies (and other fantasies that play upon us). The fact that Johnny Boy does not die but is probably mortally wounded adds rather than detracts from the horror and the despair of these final images. Also, that the one innocent, Johnny Boy's cousin and Michael's girl friend Theresa (Amy Robinson) is perhaps the most severely wounded - we only see her bloodied arm poking through a hole in the windshield, in an image worthy of Buñuel.

Charlie talks to Michael and Michael talks to Charlie - they're both trying to convince the other of their point of view. Johnny Boy meanwhile couldn't give a damn. All Charlie's concern is just that - it's Charlie's way of feeling virtuous, of feeling that he's doing his bit towards saving Johnny's soul (or at least his ass) - he's being a good Catholic, and Johnny Boy is Charlie's road to redemption. (Or so he thinks - it turns out to be his road to Hell.) Charlie talks to himself about Catholic concerns (the first words of the film - spoken by Scorsese - are heard in darkness and seem to the be the voice of Charlie's conscience: he hears them while asleep). He goes to church to burn candles, and then he goes down to the bar to burn, period. Pauline Kael writes that "He's so frightened of burning that he's burning already."

Goetz exploded one day on a New York subway car, drew a pistol and shot down several young black "hoodlums" who were robbing the passengers of their belongings. (I don't have the exact details at hand, so I'm recreating from memory.) There seems little doubt that (like Travis) Goetz acted out of personal rage and frustration, that he simply `snapped' and started shooting. The media and the general public, however - so satiated and fed-up with the ever increasing crime-rate and street violence of New York, reacted with (only slightly qualified) approval. Quite literally, "Here was man who would not take it any longer. Here was a man who stood up!" The actual resolution of the `case' was by no means so simple or unam

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Approximate Pages = 21 (250 words per page double spaced)