I don't think there is any difference between fantasy and reality in the way these should be approached in a film. Of course if you live that way you… - Martin Scorsese

My father took me to see this film in 1950, when I was eight years old. And I’ve never forgotten it. I wouldn’t know how to begin to explain what this film has meant to me over the years. It’s about the joy and exuberance of film-making itself. It’s one of the true miracles of film history. What keeps nourishing me over the years is the spell the film casts, how it weaves the mystery of the obsession of creativity, of the creative drive. It all comes down to that wonderful exchange early in the film when Anton Walbrook confronts Moira Shearer at a cocktail party. ‘Why do you want to dance?’ he asks, and she answers, ‘Why do you want to live?’ The look on his face is extraordinary.’ Over the years, I’ve thought a lot about that exchange. It expresses so much about the burning need for art – the mystery of the passion to create. It’s not that you want to do it, it’s that you have to do it. You have no choice. You have to live it and it comes with a price. But what a time paying it.

[on, The Red Shoes (1948)]

Mean Streets dealt with the American Dream, according to which everybody thinks they can get rich quick, and if they can't do it by legal means then they'll do it by illegal ones.

No matter where the cinema goes, we cannot afford to lose sight of its beginnings.