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Martin ScorseseKamera:
Kent L. WakefordBesetzung:
Harvey Keitel, Robert De Niro, David Proval, Amy Robinson, Richard Romanus, Cesare Danova, Victor Argo, George Memmoli, Jeannie Bell, David Carradine (mehr)Streaming (2)
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New York, in den 1960er Jahren. Der junge Italoamerikaner Johnny Boy ist ein draufgängerischer Angeber, der mit seiner Großspurigkeit Freund und Feind gehörig auf die Nerven geht. Glücklicherweise hält Charlie, Neffe eines mächtigen Mafia-Paten, seine schützende Hand über den notorischen Chaoten. Als Johnny Boy jedoch geliehenes Geld verspielt und obendrein seinen Gläubiger verhöhnt, kann auch Charlie nicht mehr helfen. (ARD)
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Scorseses mildes Aufwärmstück vor großen Sachen (GoodFellas - Drei Jahrzehnte in der Mafia, Casino). Die sind opulenter und visuell ausgefeilterer, aber Hexenkessel bleibt – was das Erzählen der Geschichte und die Charakterisierung der Figuren betrifft – nicht zurück. Der perfekte Keitel als gutmütiger und dezenter Gangster in Ausbildung, der seinen Freund, den verantwortungslosen und verrückten De Niro, beschützt und sich für ihn einsetzt. Der erbringt in einer kleineren Rolle als Keitel eine delikat exzentrische Leistung. Ein solider Gangsterfilm, der mit Leibe zu den dreckigen Straßen in New York und ihren unbändigen Gestalten gedreht wurde.
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I have a little problem with Martin Scorsese. His older movies are not fun for me, even though I consider his newer ones some of the best flicks there are. I’m such a heathen that I gave Taxi Driver and Raging Bull three stars, and I will do the same with Mean Streets. In this case mainly because it’s so boring. Well, boring might be too strong a word. It’d be safer to say that the story is not as captivating as other mafia crime movies, failing to make me give it 100% of my attention while watching it.
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A naturalistically dirty routine of good-for-nothings, rubberneckers, brokes, dandies and wannabe gangsters who only shop at bargain stores. It is based purely on situations, spontaneity (often it seems like improvisation), atmosphere and characters, it is not about a story. After all, except for a kind of digression about Johnny's debts, there isn't one. Although with reservations (self-serving slowdowns, paper-rusting internal monologues), it works even today and not only as a "supplementary material FYI", which would work purely in the level of the the movies it draw inspiration from like Taxi Driver, Goodfellas or Casino.
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Martin Scorsese has always been able to give his key films an incredibly cool atmosphere. He managed to do the same with this unassuming gangster film. However, you have to play along with its game to really enjoy it, as the story unfolds through smoky bars, streets full of strange characters, or restaurants where cunning mobsters sit. So the setting is exactly to my cinematic taste. When I add in the charismatic Harvey Keitel and the slightly insane Robert De Niro, I know the only thing else it needed was to thicken the plot a bit and I would have been paying endless tribute to Marty.
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After being trained by Roger Corman in the art of rapid-fire directing (Boxcar Bertha), Scorsese got his dazzling filmography off to a good start. Together with story elements from Rocco and His Brothers, this dusky buddy movie contains most of Scorsese’s trademarks: rock songs, slow-motion shots (though it’s sometimes hard to determine the motivation for them) and disturbingly smooth camerawork that’s observational in the manner of a documentary. The semi-improvised acting in the style of films by John Cassavetes doesn’t create any tension with the chosen style (as in the later New York, New York); on the contrary, it superbly serves the dramaturgically loose story, or rather series of stories that have to be “resolved” through a deus ex machina by the director himself (who is not mentioned in the credits). From the group of friends who are sometimes too aggressive in defending their turf, Keitel’s Charlie stands out (and in the individual shots where a place in the centre suits him). He is better able than the unpredictable Johnny Boy to restrain his need to assert his male dominance and, because he is in a more serious relationship, he isn’t entirely committed to a life of high stakes and major losses. Keitel portrays the tension between cultivating a romantic relationship and professional growth without theatrical gestures, only with occasional, and thus all the more effective, outburst of anger. On the surface, the torn nature of Charlie and the other characters, their attitude shifting between “I am the master of the world” and “I'll be a good boy now, mommy”, is manifested differently in their confident behaviour at the bar, bathed in a hellishly red light that adds to their insolence, and on the street, where they live their other, normal lives and are obviously more vulnerable. The precise study of characters and relationships within one closed group prevails over a cohesive story that advances from one point to the next. Some may find that this absence of fixed points of reference in the narrative makes Mean Streets a more arduous viewing experience. Its very stylish exterior conceals a handful of more serious themes like the early and later autobiographically conceived films based on what the director was living through at the given time and the excellent actors serve as comprehensible conduits of complex emotional states. Mean Streets is not just a warm-up for the great films that followed; it’s Scorsese already operating at the top of his game. 80%
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