Re-released in a new 4K digital restoration to mark its fiftieth anniversary, the visceral, essential Mean Streets, Martin Scorsese’s third feature, was born in part of his reaction to John Cassevetes’s withering assessment of Boxcar Bertha (1972), which Scorsese had directed under the aegis of Roger Corman. After being told, “You’ve just spent a year of your life making a piece of shit”, Scorsese returned to the more personal style of his debut, Who’s That Knocking At My Door? (1967)

Charlie (Harvey Keitel) is an Italian-American with family ties to the New York Mafia, a loyal friendship with reckless Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro), and a secret love, Teresa (Amy Robinson). Wracked with Catholic guilt over his way of life (“You don’t fuck around with the infinite”, he muses), he strives to find a balance between the ascetic and the hedonistic.

Notes by Kevin Coyne