Did Martin Scorsese’s ‘Mean Streets’ almost become a Blaxploitation film?
Martin Scorsese is undoubtedly one of the first filmmakers that springs to mind when considering the greatest directors of all time. Scorsese’s Italian-American upbringing has influenced several of his films in New York City, and he regularly explores the nature of the criminal underworld, masculinity and the Catholic faith.
The winner of several awards, including an Academy Award, a Grammy and three Emmys, Scorsese began his career with Who’s That Knocking at My Door, his directorial debut, in 1968. However, it was his follow-up feature-length film Mean Streets, which was released in 1973, that set the blueprint for Scorsese’s future endeavours.
Mean Streets starred Harvey Keitel as Charlie Cappa, a young man living in the Little Italy area of New York who is plagued by worry over his friend John Civello (played by Robert De Niro), who gets himself into trouble, gambling and owing money to a number of loan sharks. De Niro ended up winning the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance, as well as the New York Film Critics Circle Award, cementing its legacy in the annals of history.
The rest of the film focuses on Charlie’s affair with Johnny’s epileptic cousin, Theresa, and his battle between finding an honourable career versus staying amongst the degenerates of the titular streets. His uncle Giovanni is a well-respected mafia member, and this causes a rift between Charlie’s responsibilities and his Catholic faith.
While Mean Streets explored the Italian-American way of life and the battle for the Catholic good, the roots of its creations were very nearly in the realms of Blaxploitation. In the early part of the 1970s, Blaxploitation films had proven to be very popular amongst mainstream audiences, particularly Shaft in 1971 and Super Fly in 1972, which had provided good profits for their investors.
As such, when Scorsese had first sent the script to filmmaker Roger Coman – who had given him his first directing project – Coman agreed to back the film financially, but only on the condition that all the characters were black. Scorsese had been very keen to make the film, so he agreed to Coman’s condition.
However, soon after, the actor Verna Bloom arranged a meeting between Scorsese and Jonathan Taplin (the manager of The Band). Taplin thought the script had potential and agreed to find the $300,000 needed to produce the film, on his own request that Coman himself distribute the final product. Eventually, Warner Brothers stumped up the cash, and the Blaxploitation idea never surfaced.
