Mean Streets is one of director Martin Scorcese's very early films, and it features some very familiar faces like Robert DeNiro as Johnny Boy Civello and Harvey Keitel as wise-guy wanna be Charlie Cappa. Much like other movies filmed in New York in the 1970s (Shack, The French Connection), the city is a gritty, rough and compelling co-star. Scorcese (who also directed the documentary on The Band, The Last Waltz) features music in the background and also as part of the story. DeNiro's Johnny Boy comes across as a clown, always scamming his friends, including Charlie, and Charlie's friend and loan shark, Michael. Charlie wants to move up in his uncle's 'organization' in the local mob, but he is restricted by his friendship with Johnny Boy and his relationship with Johnny's cousin who has epilepsy (epilepsy isn't contagious, but Charlie's uncle and others don't want her around, I'm not sure if that is how society really was in the 1970s, or if it was cultural or what). Keitel is the main star here, the movie opens with home movies of Charlie and his family at church functions, it looks like a baptism, but I don't think it was his child, and we follow him on various errands for his uncle, hanging out with Johnny Boy, wreaking havoc on kids coming into the city for a good time. DeNiro demonstrates the intensity that he is known for in later films like Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and even The Fokkers franchise (seriously, his character is crazy intense - I just watched one of them last night - no judging). There's no end game to Mean Streets, like a big battle to be fought, a damsel to be rescued, a grail to be found, it just follows a couple of friends, who happen to be low-level mobsters. There is some violence, but not as much as in some of Scorcese's films. I was thinking of "The Sopranos" as I watched, and thought this could have been some kind of prequel to it. I liked it, and since I have been watching a lot of Scorcese's films as part of this long project, I'm glad I did; it is always interesting to see actors and directors in the early years.
10/12/16 Judgement at Nuremberg, Best Actor, Best Screenplay, 1961 National Film Registry
Judgement at Nuremberg was made fourteen years after the real-life events upon which it was based, which was the Judges' Trial from 1947. This trial was not for Hess, Goebbels or any of Hitler's other henchman. It was for the judges who carried out the Nuremberg Laws on behalf of the Nazi regime. Stanley Kramer (The Defiant Ones, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner) directed and produced the movie from Abby Mann's Oscar-winning script. Spencer Tracy as Judge Dan Haywood, a simple, straightforward and curious judge from Maine, who is under no illusion that he was the first choice for this job; Maximillian Schell is defense counsel Hans Rolfe (Best Actor); his clients include Emil Hahn (Werner Klemperer) and Dr. Ernst Janning (Burt Lancaster). Judge Haywood comes to Nuremberg and is a little overwhelmed by the destruction in the city and his new living quarters which once belonged to Frau Bertholt (Marlene Dietrich) and the staff of three that attend to him. At one point he comments that he really doesn't need all of the help, but he is told that the staff get to eat if they work for him, so he reluctantly keeps them on. At hand before him and his fellow judges on the tribunal are the cases of four judges who are accused of crimes against humanity for their role in enforcing the Nuremberg laws that were racist, anti-Semitic and otherwise aimed to rid Germany of undesirables. Post-war Germany was a complex place, a defeated country, forced to collectively acknowledge the heinous acts committed in its name, yet now a potential strategic ally against the growing Soviet influence in the east. We see a little of this through Haywood's eyes, as we not only see what happens in the courtroom, but also on the homefront, with Haywood befriending Frau Bertholt and his housekeeping staff. The prosecution, led by Colonel Ted Lawson (Richard Widmark) brings forward reluctant witnesses, including Rudolph Peterson, a developmentally challenged man who was sterilized by the order of one of the judges (hauntingly played by Montgomery Clift); Judy Garland was Irene Hoffman Wallner who was accused of breaking the law by having an inappropriate relationship with an older, Jewish man; the man was put to death for race defilement. Both Clift and Garland were powerful and their relatively brief time on screen will remain with me for a long time. Dr. Ernst Janning was the head judge and therefore signed off on the orders put forward by the prosecutors and other judges. He is also the most reluctant to participate in his own defense. Lancaster brings a quiet and strong dignity to a man I wanted to instinctively hate, but when he speaks up to spare Irene Wallner from further humiliation and accepts his fate without protestations of injustice. Janning presents the very uncomfortable idea that he did what he did without hope for personal gain, but was following the law, perhaps in his own way mitigating some of the horrors that he may or may not have known were happening in Germany and conquered countries; he and his co-defendants were consistent in denying they knew what was happening in the concentration camps. Rolfe presents a vigorous defense of his clients, almost uncomfortably so, because it seems at some moments he is defending the Third Reich and the 'glory of the Fatherland'. Colonel Lawson points out that the defendants could have spoken out in the early days of Hitler's rise, but they sat idly by, and he denies their claims that they were simply following the laws. Watching a film like Judgement at Nuremberg is important at any time, but it seems more so these days, as people blindly follow the rantings of another power-crazed man focused on demonizing those different than him; it doesn't take too much imagination to see similarities between a Nazi rally and a Donald Trump rally, not if you're paying attention. The movie is fiction, but based on actual events, and we could benefit from the lessons it espouses.
