- You don't make up for your sins in church. You do it in the streets. You do it at home. The rest is bullshit and you know it.
- It's director Martin Scorsese who delivers those opening lines in Mean Streets, even if they are meant to reflect the conscience of the film's protagonist, Charlie (Harvey Keitel). To say that this film has an autobiographical component is an understatement. Scorsese was presumably never a small-time hood like Charlie, but he was and is an Italian-American Catholic from New York City who would go on to make films suffused with elements taken from those various intersecting cultures. From what I know about his life, it's easy to imagine Scorsese running off to the movies every time he got a few bucks or peering out at the world through his window, just like Charlie. I wouldn't be surprised if he even held his hand above a candle while contemplating the priesthood. For his sake, I sincerely hope that Scorsese never had a friend like Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro), even if Charlie does.
- Whereas Charlie is our quietly introspective tour guide through this particular interpretation of hell, Johnny Boy is the devil himself. Alternately described as "crazy" or "the biggest jerkoff" by pretty much anyone who's met him, Johnny Boy is one of the most irresponsible and volatile troublemakers you could ever imagine. If there's a fire nearby, he'll be the first person to toss some kerosene on. I lost count of precisely how many fights he starts in Mean Streets, but it's approximately the same number that Charlie has to patiently defuse. Johnny's the sort of person who would insult somebody, ask to borrow money from them, insult them again, and then start a brawl when they try to collect. In fact, he does exactly that to Charlie's friend Michael (Richard Romanus), who comes across as a pretty decent human being for a loan shark. Still, there's only so much Michael can take, and Johnny is practically guaranteed to exceed that amount.
- But back to Charlie for a moment. One guesses that Charlie's path in life has pretty much been mapped out for him thus far. His uncle (Cesare Danova) is an influential mafioso who intends to promote Charlie from the collection racket to the restaurant business. One key to success, his uncle says, is that "honorable men go with honorable men." That means that Charlie needs to distance himself from Johnny Boy and to keep away from Johnny's cousin Teresa (Amy Robinson), with whom Charlie has been having a secret affair. So why doesn't Charlie follow his uncle's advice? To understand that, I think you need to understand the stereotypical Catholic mindset. Charlie helps Johnny as a form of penance, his way of making up for the life of sin that he leads. Furthermore, he stays with Teresa because she's a source of temptation (irresistible to Catholics) and because he loves her, even if he would never admit it. How could a Catholic man love a woman who sleeps with him but isn't his wife? It's a puzzling psychology, but one that is remarkably consistent with cultural psychology of the Catholic Church.
- Which brings us to hell, in this case represented by the mean streets of New York City. The city is a loud place, crashing and clashing with all manner of urban noise. Its back alleys, strip clubs, and seedy pool halls are infused with a reddish glow that recalls Charlie's fascination with eternal damnation. When the city isn't producing its own natural racket, Scorsese fills the margins with 50's bubblegum bites like "Be My Baby" and "Please Mr. Postman," pioneering the now-ubiquitous trend of inserting pop songs in soundtracks. Long tracking shots follow Charlie's sojourns through all the best parts of hell as he strives to protect Johnny and Teresa and, in the process, redeem his soul. Some parts of the journey are comically beautiful, some are painfully repellent, but all are made believable by Scorsese's authentic details and a stellar cast of method actors, particularly De Niro and Keitel. Although aspects of Charlie's character come straight out of the Baltimore catechism, it is a Raymond Chandler quote that ultimately proves to be a more accurate description: "Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid."
- I didn't get to mention David Proval, Victor Argo, two Carradines (David and Robert), Scorsese's mother Catherine, or Scorsese himself.
