The movie was released in October 1973, and the title "mean streets" is directly reminiscent of the "exile on main street" of the Rolling Stones' 72-year history. The album "exile" represents all the spirits of rock and roll, manifested as chaos, indulgence, and freewheeling, but the core of the rock spirit is the teen spirit, or it can become a rebellious spirit. Knowing this, we can distinguish this movie from several gangster movies after Martin ("Goodies", "Lady from Casino"), because the characters in those movies are mainly mature and middle-aged. The important figures in "Mean Streets" are almost all young people. So I position this movie as Scorsese's most "rock and roll" movie.
After talking about the background, let's talk about the theme. The core of the film is the demise of the youth (rebellious) spirit. Although Charlie has more scenes throughout the film, Jonny is the real protagonist, because he is a symbol of the spirit of youth. Loves to pick up girls, love to gamble, spend money arbitrarily, love to fight, fight when people are upset, and love to mock people. This character image is the ideal image of the young people of that era. At the beginning of the film, the four young people find someone to ask for money and start fighting without saying a word. The youth spirit is fully displayed. However, due to various reasons such as life pressure, family pressure, religious pressure, etc., several protagonists are integrated into the social rules, and only Jonny still sticks to his own way. , Charlie found him a job and he ran away, but Mike asked him to pay him back and ignored him. Charlie helps Jonny in his own way. The essence is to help him integrate into the rules of society (pay back money and find a job). He has called "Jonny" a child many times. In the second half of the film, Charlie and Jonny quarreled, and Jonny shouted "What did you help me? You didn't help me at all." Jonny just wanted to continue to live his own way and protect his youth spirit from being stifled. So the final outcome is very easy to understand. After all, the social rules will not tolerate the existence of the youth spirit, and it will be strangled by bullets.
With so many seemingly over-interpreted texts written on it, to get back to the point, the argument supporting the above point of view is Scorsese's soundtrack. The main content of this paragraph is about music, you can skip it if you are not interested. The use of "be my baby" in the first act of the movie was rated by the Rolling Stones as "No. 1 in the 30 best moments of rock music in movies". The 1960s was the peak period of rock music, and "be my baby" was the most classic single during the pre-British invasion. For the audience in the 1970s, they dreamed back to 63 years as soon as the drum beat, and then the film used them separately. Several girl group classics (Please Mr. Postman, Shoop Shoop Song, etc.) and several rock classics (Jumpin Jack Flash, I Looked Away, etc.), but as time goes by, the use of rock music is less and less, and the use of classical religious music More and more, the soundtrack hints at the demise of the rock spirit from the side. By the way, with the pop music background, with the dissolution of beatles in 70 and the death of Elvis in 1972, the mainstream music industry is not optimistic about the inheritance of rock music. The mainstream white music in the early 70s was prog rock that sought inspiration from classical music. The punk movement has not yet begun, and rock music is at its lowest point. One can imagine the appeal of such a "rock movie" to the American people who have experienced the pinnacle of rock and roll.
The punk movement has only begun to sprout in 75 years, but the word punk has been used in movies. Is this a disguised prophecy?
View more about Mean Streets reviews
