Yes Scorsese kept coming back to these stylistic trademarks, but it started here (yes yes with roots before in Who’s That Knocking etc)
So… a big banger in other words!
The fact it came out a year after Pink Flamingos (surely Scorsese took some influence from Waters?) and within a year of Texas Chainsaw is also relevant. Such a game changing era of low budget high-low art
De Niro’s post-mod, pre-mod-revival look also Very 90s
70s cinema obviously changed because of it (Rocky or Saturday Night Fever wouldn’t have been made like they were without it), and the legacy on 90s cinema in general is too obvious to go into
Not to mention setting the template for Sopranos - and I forgot Richie plays the bartender!…
Streaming on Channel 4 at the moment by the way
Full of consequential innovations - not necessarily the first to do a thing (handheld realism, diegetic pop soundtracks, slow motion in non action scenes, character title cards, even the fake home movie opening credits sequence) but the first to do them in certain ways that had immediate influence…
Watched MEAN STREETS (1973) for the umpteenth time and couldn’t help marvelling at how much it stylistically shaped the next few decades of film and TV, acknowledged or not. And it’s a reminder of just how central Scorsese should be in any modern history of the medium 🤷♂️…
#filmsky
Dust by 13th Floor Elevators is low-key one of the best songs of the sixties
