Camera Techniques In Mean Streets

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Throughout film history there are directors who can amaze the audience with their use of camera techniques and directing, Martin Scorsese is one of those directors. Let’s take for example Scorsese’s film Mean Streets, in which mise en scene and visual pyro techniques are employed; by doing so the audience understands the internal conflict of the protagonist Charlie who is played by Harvey Keitel. In Mean Streets the cameras constant movement, the disjointed editing, and the frequent use of slow motion, and the saturated red lighting in the bar where the main characters meet, on the one hand, it anticipates the climax of violence that the viewer sees in the film’s final scenes, and also, on the other hand, it helps the audience understand Charlie’s point of view. Martin Scorsese uses many different types of themes. For example when Charlie is in the Catholic Church praying for forgiveness, the audience can hear Charlie saying that “whatever he does wrong, he will pay for it his own way,” this is a great example of the Roman Catholic concepts of redemption and guilt and of the penance Charlie himself believes has to pay for his wrongdoing. The theme of violence that is burdened with modern crime in which it essentially depicts the concept of a man that subjects himself into a life of crime. Scorsese’s…show more content…
Even though most of his shots are were filmed in Hollywood, he does his best to portray the everyday lives of the people of New York City. In mean streets we see Charlie struggle internally to keep a sense of respect with his friends but most notably with his friend Johnny Boy; who is in constant turmoil with him. This along with the fact that Johnny Boy is the cousin of Charlie’s girlfriend, which makes the situation with Johnny Boy even more complicated than they already are; Charlie himself knows that Johnny Boy is important to him but also his

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