Mean Streets - 1973

Mean Streets Framed Art Print
16 in. x 22 in.

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Martin Scorsese's third full-length film with energizing early 60s rock 'n' roll - a low-budget, semi-autobiographical, realistic tale about four struggling, small-time hoods in New York's Little Italy trying to establish themselves. Tony (Proval) owns the neighborhood bar, and Michael (Romanus) makes deals and rips off naive teenagers from Brooklyn. Ambitious punk Charlie Calla (Keitel) befriends violent Johnny Boy (De Niro), who irresponsibly and recklessly incurs gambling debts and becomes dangerously obligated to a loan shark. Charlie's uncle Giovanni (Danova) is the local Mafia boss and grooming his nephew for 'respectable' gang life by having him collect for a protection racket. Unclear and confused about his life's direction and loyalties, Charlie wrestles with his devout Catholic guilt, the temptations of the Mafia, and his feelings for Teresa (Robinson), Johnny Boy's epileptic sister.

GoodFellas - 1990

Good Fellas Poster
24 in. x 36 in.

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Framed   Mounted


GoodFellas (1990) is director Martin Scorsese's stylistic masterpiece - a follow-up film to his own Mean Streets (1973), released in the year of Francis Ford Coppola's third installment of his gangster epic - The Godfather, Part III (1990). It is a nitty-gritty, unflinching treatment of a true mobster story about three violent "wiseguys" [Mafia slang for 'gangsters'], enhanced by the Italian-American director's own experience of his upbringing in Little Italy.

The film's factual, semi-documentary account was adapted from both Nicholas Pileggi's and Martin Scorsese's screenplay - based upon Pileggi's 1985 non-fictional book Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family. Film posters were subtitled: "Three Decades of Life in the Mafia." The real-life story concerned a low-level, marginalized gangster (or 'foot-soldier') of mixed ethnic roots (half-Irish, half-Sicilian) - Henry Hill, who ultimately broke the gangster's code of 'never ratting on your friends', and turned informant for the FBI and entered the Federal Witness Protection Program to save his life by disappearing from view.

The fast-moving, energizing, episodic story, with plentiful profanity (the F-word is repeatedly spoken by Joe Pesci's character), forceful editorial cuts and visuals, shifting points of view, and characters speaking directly to the camera, is told with voice-over narrative commentary by Henry Hill (Ray Liotta). It includes about thirty years in his life, from his teen years as a Brooklyn Irish neighborhood kid to maturity as an adult gangster, covering the years from the 1950s to the drug-saturated 1970s when married to wife Karen (Lorraine Bracco). The additional voice-over of his wife's point-of-view provides even further insight into the all-encompassing culture and lure of life within the 'family.' Freeze frames sprinkled through the film accentuate the indelible, impressionable moments in Henry's experiences.

Taxi Driver - 1976

Taxi Driver Framed Sign
19 in. x 22 in.

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Taxi Driver (1976) is director Martin Scorsese's and screenwriter Paul Schrader's gritty, disturbing, nightmarish modern film classic, that examines alienation in urban society. Scorsese's fourth film, combining elements of film noir, the western, horror and urban melodrama film genres. Historically, the film appeared after a decade of war in Vietnam, and after the disgraceful Watergate crisis and President Nixon's resignation.

It explores the psychological madness within an obsessed, twisted, inarticulate, lonely, anti-hero cab driver and war vet (De Niro), who misdirectedly lashes out with frustrated anger and power like an exploding time bomb at the world that has alienated him. His assaultive unhinging is first paired with a longing to connect with a blonde goddess office worker (Shepherd), and then with an attempt to rescue/liberate a young 12-year old prostitute named Iris (Foster) from her predatory pimp "Sport" (Keitel) and her tawdry, streetwalking life. [The young Foster, who had previously acted for Scorsese in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974), was required to undergo psychological tests to see if she would bear up during filming.]

Taxi Driver has been acknowledged as consciously influenced by John Ford's The Searchers (1956) - the story of another angry war veteran and social outcast who becomes obsessed during a search and rescue of his young niece from a long-haired Comanche chief named Scar. Ford's film was about his fanatical quest to liberate the young girl, restore her virtue, and return her to society, in order to purify his own soul, although he remains an outsider.

Raging Bull - 1980

Robert De Niro in Raging Bull Framed Art Print
Anon
18 in. x 18 in.
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Raging Bull is a 1980 American biographical film directed by Martin Scorsese, adapted by Paul Schrader and Mardik Martin from the Jake La Motta memoir Raging Bull: My Story. It stars Robert De Niro as Jake LaMotta, a middleweight boxer whose sadomasochistic rage, sexual jealousy, and animalistic appetite exceeded the boundaries of the prizefight ring, and destroyed his relationship with his wife and family. Also featured in the film are Joe Pesci as Joey, La Motta's well intentioned brother and manager who tries to help Jake battle his inner demons, and Cathy Moriarty as his abused wife. The film features supporting roles from Nicholas Colasanto, Theresa Saldana, and Frank Vincent.

Scorsese was partially convinced by De Niro to develop the project, though he eventually came to relate to La Motta's story. Schrader re-wrote Martin's first screenplay, and Scorsese and De Niro together made uncredited contributions thereafter. Pesci was an unknown actor prior to the film, as was Moriarty, who was suggested for her role by Pesci. During principal photography, each of the boxing scenes were choreographed for a specific visual style and De Niro gained approximately 70 pounds (32 kg) to portray La Motta in his early post-boxing years. Scorsese was exacting in the process of editing and mixing the film, expecting it to be his last major feature.

After receiving mixed initial reviews (and criticism due to its violent content), it went on to garner a high critical reputation and is now widely regarded among the greatest films ever made. It was listed in the National Film Registry in 1990, its first year of eligibility.