What Your Favourite Martin Scorsese Movie Says About You

Mean StreetsThe Movie: With a body count far smaller than most other Scorsese films, Mean Streets is more about cutting people off relationally than physically. The film traces a ring of characters in the Little Italy of New York City through the various jobs and choices each must pursue, shunning certain people and making back-end deals with others to reach one's ends. These ends revolve around moral standing and dealings with sin more so than involvement in or perpetuation of hardcore gangster lifestyles, but the processes therein are nonetheless similarly brutal. What It Says About You: Though you are personally motivated and often turn inwards, you stand for the group and tend to root for the common man over the all-powerful boss. After all, Mean Streets broke out of the gangster movie tradition of revolving around a mob boss to instead focus on the broken relationships amongst its pool of participating men at the street level. Favorite Movies: If you are well-versed in Scorsese, you likely rank his first feature film Who's That Knocking on My Door as a close second favorite, seeing as it rather similarly casts a portrait of Little Italy through the gaze of a youthful Italian-American perspective. Once Upon a Time in America provides a similar reflection on life as Mean Streets and Who's That Knocking on My Door do somewhat autobiographically. Soundbite: The opening lines are by far the best, setting the tone for the rest of the movie. Better yet, Scorsese himself reads them off, telling us "You don't make up for your sins in the Church. You do it in the streets."