This is a great film, no doubt, and very complex. I was wondering about Charlie's voice over, his thoughts. To me, it sounds as though Scorsese is speaking as Charlie's conscience. It doesn't sound like Keitel at all. Did anybody notice this? I know Scorsese normally talks in a rapid fire voice. I don't know, there's something about the texture. If this is true, it certainly would add another layer of complexity.
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Thanks roegcamel. Scorsese is in a league of his own. Even his inconsistencies and sloppiness are genius.
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Yes that is Scorsese in the beginning with the conscience, and at the end when they are driving to get away from New York. Interesting choice to do the narration instead of having Keitel do it. It works.
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In his DVD commentary, Scorsese says that one reason he did Charlie's narration is because the voice we hear in our heads sounds different than our actual voices. That never occurred to me until I heard him say it. Or does that just happen to me and Martin?
"We're fighting for this woman's honor, which is more than she ever did."
Yeah, I've heard that as well. This happens to me too, and I guess it happens to everyone, so it's really great that he decided to do that.
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Back in the day we weren't aware of how Scorcese talks, so maybe at the time it sounded close enough to Keitel that people didn't much notice.
Watching it tonight all I could do was notice! During the church scene it's both, which I could only ascertain after stopping and rewinding a few times.
I thought it might be super overlap from the next scene, I hoped that was it, but no.
It's disconcerting if you know Marty's voice, which almost everyone does now.
Definitely a flaw, but not ruinous.
Also a flaw and also not ruinous is the fact that there is no plot.
It is boring, and it is annoying, Roguecamel, but it's also riveting, rawly masterful, and full of winning and sweetly innocent perfomances in most cases.
We can also see the roots of his best two movies: Goodfellas and Casino. This is basically those two movies in warmup, with Deniro in what becomes the Pesci slot. Some of the same songs are used as in those two movies in similar style sequences. Kind of boring, kind of annoying, and also riveting and masterly.
Just think how great it would be with a plot. :-)
I was already familiar with the sound of Scorsese's voice before I ever saw "Mean Streets," yet I still didn't catch it. Sounded like a mellower Keitel to me at first.
Do you know how HARD it is for a bloody black man to get a cab on Thanksgiving?