Get the latest gossip
The Idea of Martin Scorsese’s Career Brought Me to Tears
I was unexpectedly moved during a recent rewatch of Mean Streets — not by the content of the movie itself, but because of what I knew came next.
Four years later, I can’t say that “Murder Most Foul” has stayed in my rotation, but that initial listen epitomizes a regular pop-culture occurrence for me: the experience of getting emotional when an older artist returns to familiar creative ground and somehow manages to make something new and singularly them. The scene has an emotional thrust of its own, but it hits harder when considered alongside the rest of Mann’s work, because what could possibly be more Mannian than a tightly wound man desperately trying to impose cold logic onto something as incomprehensible as a child’s death? It’s all there in only his third feature film, from the petty gangsters who are quick to violence to the Motown needle drop to the ability to make Robert De Niro look like the coolest guy alive, even when he’s spiraling out of control as Johnny Boy and doing goofy faux kung-fu moves on top of a pool table.
Or read this on VULTURE
