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illicit lover, Teresa (Amy Robinson), though he is

scared — of her epilepsy, her body, her disregard

for the neighbourhood they grew up in. And he is

scared of God, of judgment, brought up in a faith

that focuses on guilt over grace. “The pain in hell

has two sides,” he muses. “The kind you can

touch with your hand. The kind you can feel in

your heart. Your soul, the spiritual side. And ya

know...the worst of the two...is the spiritual.”

Charlie is paralysed by his beliefs, rather

than empowered by them, and anchored to the

area by his friendship with Johnny Boy (Robert

De Niro), an anarchic gadabout who owes money

to everyone and loyalty to no-one. Charlie makes

the mistake so many do when they’re young:

thinking that by trying to save other people you

can save yourself (instead of accepting that

redemption is between the individual and

themselves — or God). All of which sounds pretty

heavy, but Mean Streets is also hilarious, fi nding

humour in the petty familiarity of lifelong

friendships, and the details of desperation and

violence. In the opening, Tony (David Proval)

throws a junkie out of his bar toilet, before

remembering to do up his fl y. In a poolhall,

a debt collection gets out of hand through an

insult no-one understands: “mook” (which

derives from “muk”, meaning mouse, courtesy of

Mardik Martin, an Armenian who was raised in

Baghdad). Or there’s Charlie’s street summation

of a Catholic saint: “Francis of Assisi had it all

down.” And his interaction with De Niro —

infl uenced by the rat-tat-tat bickering of Abbott

and Costello — and the young star’s explosive

energy. “Bob was an incredibly quiet person,

soft-spoken, gentle, self-deprecating,” recalls

Mardik Martin on the superb DVD commentary.

“But just put the camera on him and he was like

Above:Johnny

Boy, his cousin

Teresa (Amy

Robinson) and

mobster Charlie

(Harvey Keitel)

come to blows.

Left:Charlie

is a man torn

several ways.

an atomic bomb.” (Francis Coppola, who lent

Scorsese money to pay the San Gennaro Society

in order to shoot during their festival, would cast

De Niro in The Godfather: Part II the following

year, more than earning his money back.)

Other fi lms had been as artful or as truthful,

from Point Blank to Cassavetes’ Husbands

(posters for which can both be seen tacked to a

wall in Mean Streets), but perhaps no American

fi lm had been so real and accessibly entertaining.

There’s a documentary quality combined with

the joy of genre fi lmmaking, powered by a

needle-drop soundtrack (quite literally; Scorsese

used his own records, from The Rolling Stones to

The Ronettes). Though it’s the essential New

York movie, only six of its 27-day schedule was

shot there — the rest in Los Angeles. But it got to

the core of the Big Apple, fuelled by Scorsese’s

own upbringing and brushes with Mob life.

(“I was always told by my father...be respectful,

don’t get involved, don’t ever let them do a

favour for you.”) Now, we can see Mean Streets

everywhere, from The Sopranos, with its prosaic

depiction of organised crime (and Mean Streets

alumnus Proval), to If Beale Street Could Talk, in

its rich portrayal of struggling New York lives.

There’s no overstating, though, how fresh the

fi lm felt back then. The credits close with the

words “A Martin Scorsese Movie”, and it still

feels like the encapsulation of a career obsessed

with sin, Jesus and the possibility of redemption.

As Bong Joon-ho said in his Oscar acceptance

speech for Parasite, paying tribute to Scorsese by

quoting him: “The most personal is the most

creative.” Amen to that. NEV PIERCE

MEAN STREETS IS OUT NOW ON DVD, BLU-RAY

AND DOWNLOAD

SCORSESE

BY NUMBERS

ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT

THE ITALIAN-AMERICAN LEGEND

↓

MARTIN CHARLES SCORSESE IS BORN

IN QUEENS, NEW YORK CITY

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17/11/42

HIS HEIGHT

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THE LOCATION OF HIS STAR

ON THE WALK OF FAME

NUMBER OF MOVIES HE’S MADE

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THE NUMBER OF

OSCAR NOMINATIONS

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(BEST DIRECTOR, THE DEPARTED)

Alamy, Getty Images