|
Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets is Martin Scorsese’s deepest religious exploration. ...
The Last Temptation of Christ, seemingly more directly concerned with religion, is in many ways a remake of Mean Streets. But Mean Streets is told from the point of view of Charlie (Harvey Keitel), the Judas figure to Johnny Boy (Robert DeNiro) as the Christ figure, while Last Temptation is told from the point of view of Christ (Willem Dafoe), as opposed to Judas (Harvey Keitel). Also, Mean Streets is much more effective because it does allow itself to stray from the pure construction of Last Temptation in ways that allow the characters to be more flesh and blood.
It’s interesting to look at Mean Streets from the perspective of Last Temptation. ...
In Mean Streets, Charlie is an individual torn between his religion and the life of the streets. ...
This formulation applied to Mean Streets also creates a parallel between the life of one street hood, Johnny Boy, a sort of mad saint, who manages to stay above danger while constantly courting it until the end, and the life of Christ himself. ... Last Temptation is a weighty religious statement; Mean Streets is a story which democratizes Christianity, and Catholicism, in a joltingly dissolute way. ... In Last Temptation, the dealings with women occur with the main character, Christ, as they do in Mean Streets with Charlie. ... In Mean Streets, it is still being worked out. But Mean Streets may be more noble for being so enmeshed in the complex. ...
Other things repeat from Mean Streets in Last Temptation. The symbol of the lion, in Mean Streets, occurs when Tony shows off his big cat to the gang.
Approximate Word count = 1358
Approximate Pages = 5.4
(250 words per page double spaced)
|
|
