Text: Overnight flowers
At the recent Oscar belle Golden Globe nominations, I was pleasantly surprised to see a lot of familiar names. Martin Scorsese received multiple nominations for his new work The Irishman, and Robert De Niro was naturally the most important partner in Scorsese's personal work system, and 1973's "Poor Streets" was their first collaboration, which was like a rehearsal for "Taxi Driver" a few years later. It also forms a certain spiritual core echo with another awards season hit "Joker", with an almost desperate madness, reflecting on the alienation of modern society and the indifference of human nature.
Therefore, "Poor Streets and Alleys" is not only the first appearance of Scorsese's talent and the early De Niro screen, but also provides a model for us to understand the cultural environment and spiritual world of the 70s.
The film "Mean Streets" is usually translated as "Poor Streets and Dark Alleys", and the Chinese translation of the title itself is concise, pointing out the theme of "the image of the city's bottom", which is an excellent translation. But the word "mean" cannot be simply translated as poor and humble, and in a way, it is also a key word in understanding the themes and stylistic characteristics of "New Hollywood" films. Combined with the general mental state of American society in the 1960s and 1970s, in the social environment against war and racial discrimination, sexual liberation and hippie rock, the state of rage, bloodshed, restlessness, and anger is self-evident.
Thus, Scorsese's films have a certain sociological value and cultural critical implications. Unlike traditional Hollywood classic narratives, such as the rounded ending and elegant lines of "The Sound of Music"; the language style of "Poor Streets and Alleys" adopts a large number of unadorned slang, spoken language, and strives to restore the real form of the bottom of society, and the slightly melancholy tone also has a clever dark coincidence with the times.
American film scholar Jerry Carlson has placed "Poor Streets and Dark Alleys" with Wong Kar-wai's "Carmen in Mong Kok", Hou Xiaoxian's "Love in the Wind and Dust", Brazil's "City of God" and so on under the interactive discourse of modern multiculturalism in a global context. It is true that "Poor Streets and Dark Alleys" is certainly in line with the motif of "resistance experience and youth memory" of young people in modern urban life, but as a work with a strong autobiographical color of Scorsese, it is more imprinted on Scorsese's personal life.
Not only is it an accurate presentation of the general mental state of a lover of the times, but also the strength of the film lies in vividly presenting the collision and fusion of various subcultures. The most important thing is the difference between native ethnicity and different languages and cultures in the "melting pot" of the United States, and the most direct embodiment of the film is Italian and African-American, Jewish and so on. It also includes differences between traditional and modern values, such as marginalized people such as gay people.
As an Italian-American director who grew up in Manhattan, New York, Scorsese's name often appears at the same time as another Italian director, Coppola. If in "The Godfather", director Coppola writes heroic ambitions through the powerful group represented by the Corleone family of the Italian mafia, which has a bit of an epic meaning under the grand narrative; then in "Poor Streets and Dark Alleys", Scorsese focuses on the small people who are materially poor, mentally depressed, and lost, interpreting an alternative "American Dream".
The "mirror" appears many times in the film, and as an important image that runs through the whole film, it first has the basic function of expanding space and enriching vision. And it reflects through several protagonists the various sentient beings of a society: the same passive resistance, demoralization, helpless depression. The trivial, disordered daily behavior of the group characters and their underlying causal logic replace the drama and stark motives of traditional narratives.
Charlie spends his days in bars and on the streets, idle and idle, and his struggle between ideals and reality runs through the film. He does not want to become a tool of his uncle's power, nor does he want to continue to sink into depravity with his classmate Johny, and his simple love for his lover is still unable to get rid of the control of the family.
The mirror became a tool of his self-awareness, a multiple examination of the ontology in the physiological sense, the people in social relations, and the psychological state of the self. If we use the French scholar Lacan's theory to make a popular explanation, the main image obtained in the mirror is a phantom and idealized self under the general expectations of society and the scrutiny of others, and under the domination of this illusion, there will be a tragedy of continuous alienation of the self and eventually difficult to reconcile.
The actor Harvey Keitel accurately conveys reflection and questioning with his eyes, which shows his repentant dilemma and lifelong incomprehension. The self-redemption of the little people in distress is more fully expressed in the later "Taxi Driver" and "Raging Bull".
Johny Boy is undoubtedly the soul of the film. Wandering with Charlie, longing for reform and redemption, his arrogance, aggressiveness, and rage are even more brazen and arbitrary. Ostensibly cynical, cynical and even with a rebellious and devastating "anti-social personality", it is actually the loneliness and trepidation of a humble and humble person, who briefly realizes the dream of a "big man" in the process of provoking the black market businessman Michael with a pistol to scare him away, and finally meets him with a tragic ambition. In wong Kar-wai's debut film "Carmen of Mong Kok", the black fly played by Jacky Cheung rebounded and exploded in repression, which was similar to the same.
The shattering of the "American Dream" and the plot direction of "anti-hero" make the film have a gloomy temperament. In a way, he is like a rehearsal of Travis, a retired soldier in "Taxi Driver" a few years later, and it is a portrayal of the common psychology of young Americans in the 70s: they try to subvert tradition and deconstruct everything, and this emotion and psychology highlight the inner confusion and despair, the nihilism of values.
In the 1970s, in the traditional Hollywood performance model, the emphasis on external form and representational actions, as well as exaggerated expressions and recitations, gradually failed to meet the diversified and modern aesthetic needs of young audiences. As Adler's proud protégé, another world-class cultural icon after Marlon Brando, and a benchmark for "Method Actor", Robert De Niro's performance presents "anti-traditional" and "modern" characteristics.
Just as when shaping the Jonhny Boy in this film, he did not over-render the underlying characteristics and emotions of the characters themselves, but internalized the "experience" of the characters and the "highest task" of the performance, just looking at the actions and expressions in each scene, there is no clear and specific direction, and his behavioral logic in the whole film is an accurate interpretation of the characters from the inside out. As a result, the performance does not fall into a kind of popular daily colloquialism of "greasy" and "too hard", and he also won the National Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor for this role.
The dangerous gray streets, the garbage in the dark alleys, and the high-rise buildings with bright lights hide the evil and ugliness of the city. The low-key photography and the repression of claustrophobic space, the protagonists who wander between good and evil, are all a tribute and continuation of the "film noir" starring Humphrey Bogart and others in the golden age of Hollywood studios.
In addition to the "abandonment" of the classic Hollywood model, the influence of the French New Wave on him can also be seen: it emphasizes both objective documentary and subjective personal feelings. For example, varied motion shots, shaky handheld photography and jumping editing, emphasis on people's mental feelings and mental states: for example, flashbacks, dreams, subjective viewpoints.
The powerful rock soundtrack and the distinctive visual characteristics of the "urban street" video space, the gloomy night, the hazy smoke, from the visual decay to create a strong emotional tone.
The red between the bars gives people a strong sense of oppression, and is a symbol of blood and violence, desire and sin: the modern urban cement jungle of drunken dreams and death has lost its warmth and compassion; and the use of cold tones dominated by blue shows a kind of cold and cold, and the fate of the characters is even more tragic and desolate. The women in the film are no longer complex and seductive snake and scorpion girls, but an urban female figure under the discipline of modern civilization, representing a contemporary value, and she is the projection of the male character's desire to return to mainstream values.
The "subculture" of the Italian American community, the difficult struggles and self-redemption of small people, and the documentary and subjectivity of social reality, these key themes and characteristics have been more strongly highlighted in scorsese's films in the future. And "Poor Streets and Alleys" is of great significance, whether it is placed in the historical discourse of the American social landscape in the 70s or in scorsese's personal work system.
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