There was a long time that I was pretty ignorant of Martin Scorsese. I hadn't seen many of his films, and didn't really know anything about him, other than everyone seemed to like him. In a class in college, we studied him, watching his first short films (like
The Big Shave) that he made in film school. We watched
Italianamerican, his documentary about his family, and
Who's That Knocking on My Door? Then, we watched his famous films. I saw
Taxi Driver again, but in a new light. I could see his style - similar images and themes coming to the surface. Later, we saw
The Departed, and I could really appreciate a big scope of his work. After that class, and after learning so much about Scorsese's style from seeing his early films, I really fell in love. It was so great to be able to watch him develop his craft. He's one of my favorite directors now, and I'm always so eager to watch any of his work.
One of his films that I haven't ever seen before is today's movie -
Mean Streets, which he directed in 1973. It was pretty much the first film that he did on his own and outside of film school. I found an interview with Scorsese, where the inspiration for
Mean Streets is mentioned. "Scorsese remembers that when he made his first feature in Hollywood in 1972 for the producer Roger Corman, the Depression-era exploitation film Boxcar Bertha, [Nick] Cassavetes told him, 'You’ve just spent a year of your life making a piece of shit.’ The criticism reinforced Scorsese’s conviction to return to what he knew. The result was Mean Streets, made in 1973," (from
here). The best filmmakers simply write and direct what they know, and Scorsese, and
Mean Streets, is a fantastic example of this.
