44 years on ... retro screening of Scorsese classic still packs ’em in
tHE queue stretched down the Croisette — the main promenade in Cannes.
And this was still a full 45 minutes before the picture was due to start.
What was the attraction? some highly touted new Hollywood blockbuster?
No, in fact, we were all waiting to get into a retrospective screening of Martin scorsese’s 1973 breakthrough film Mean streets, which was being shown as part of the directors’ Fortnight 50th anniversary celebrations.
i first saw the film, starring Harvey Keitel and robert de Niro as two small-time hoods from New York’s Little italy, when it opened in London in 1974.
i had to con my way into the cinema because i was underage. But i remembered reading Pauline Kael’s rave review in the New Yorker the previous year.
And i’d read about the fuss that was made of it in Cannes in May of ’74.
i caught it again when it was re-released in 1993. Yet, as i viewed it on Wednesday, it felt ( oddly enough) completely fresh. Even hearing the rolling stones’ Jumpin’ Jack Flash on the soundtrack seemed new.
scorsese said on Wednesday that when he was growing up, he knew people such as those depicted in Mean streets. ‘A very dangerous place on many levels, populated by some very tough people — and some very good people.’
He said he was grateful for the reception that the film received in Cannes 44 years ago. ‘i didn’t think it would get any distribution,’ he admitted.
Now, Mean streets is part of the history of cinema.