Mean Streets (1973)

"Mean Streets — Robert De Niro is so gorgeous. Again, the beginning of all these people’s careers. What a full, well-rounded movie. Then you go to Goodfellas, it’s hard. [Picking five] really is hard. I also loved Wolf of Wall Street, I have to say. That was a fun movie. Matthew McConaughey, so good. I think [what I love about Mean Streets is] just seeing the world, seeing the costumes, the relationships these guys have with each other. I think also just the stories behind — knowing that these actors, this was so many of their first movie breakout performances; it’s unbelievable watching it and the performances are so great."

"…and then [in Mean Streets], Robert De Niro; his kind of twitchy reverence to this wonderfully insane underworld. Somehow, the two [films] will always be forever linked in my mind. Whoever programmed those two movies together… it was at a moment when, in an art context, I was beginning to make short films. So film was definitely becoming a medium that was intriguing to me, and I hadn’t quite made a complete transition yet, but I found those two films just extraordinary, and they opened up a kind of unimaginable landscape for me. That kind of great irreverence, and intensity, and strength of purpose in those characters."

"I just love Mean Streets, period. I grew up in my own version of that. Scorsese is a hero of mine. The movie’s really about him, you know, as a filmmaker — you watch Harvey’s performance when he goes to the church and he’s there on his knees in his version of praying, and you hear the voice-over. What’s amazing about that movie is — now that I’ve met Scorsese a few times — I can see that he was sort of in that world. He’s said it a few times: “I wasn’t sure if I was gonna become a priest or a gangster.” [Laughs] And when you see the movie, you see him, and you get that. You see Harvey’s character is a little bit of a priest, he’s trying to be a good guy but he’s in a world of mobsters and he needs to be accepted by that world. I love the elements that Scorsese captured. I love, again, that sort of brave filmmaking — they didn’t have any money to do a parade, but he just captured that ceremony, you know. They put cameras on the roof and shot down. They put you in the middle of a world and you felt like you were really in it. And De Niro, of course, is genius. It’s ridiculous how good he is. I could go on and on about why I love those movies, as far as technically, and performance-wise — but that’s the basic essence."

"Another very early formative film for me. Extraordinary energy and performances from De Niro and Keitel, with Scorsese beginning to cast a spell over filmmaking in the 1970s."