Mean Streets

How this film uses it

The film opens on the Ronettes' Be My Baby, and critic Owen Gleiberman called it arguably the greatest use of a pop song in Hollywood history. Later, Scorsese cut Jumpin' Jack Flash to Johnny Boy's entrance into a red-lit bar. Songs speak for the characters here, because the old-style score would not feel like these guys.

Where to see it

Johnny Boy's entrance at the bar: slow motion, red light, and the Rolling Stones, with the camera sliding toward Charlie.

How this film uses it

For a drunken walk through a bar, the camera was attached to Harvey Keitel on a rig. It moves as he sways, so the room tilts with him. You do not watch Charlie get drunk so much as feel it from his body.

Where to see it

Charlie's drunken walk: the camera rig on Keitel follows him through the crowd to Rubber Biscuit.

How this film uses it

The film stays inside Little Italy's bars, streets and church. Church scenes were shot at St. Patrick's Old Cathedral in the neighborhood. These places decide who Charlie is allowed to be and what leaving would cost him.

Where to see it

Charlie in church: torn between his Catholic faith and his work for his uncle, he looks for a way to make up for his sins.

How this film uses it

Keitel and De Niro improvised the fight with the trash cans and the talk behind the bar. The scenes have the stop-start rhythm of real arguments. You believe these two have known each other for years.

Where to see it

The trash can fight: Charlie and Johnny Boy's friends scuffle in a messy, loose scene that the actors made up.

How this film uses it

Scorsese himself narrates throughout, a device he took from Fellini's I Vitelloni. His voice gives Charlie's guilt a spoken weight without showing the director. It makes the film feel like a personal memory of a neighborhood.

Where to see it

The opening: Scorsese's voice tells you that you do not make up for your sins in church, and the film goes into Charlie's story.