Comments (0) Best New York City Documentary - 2011
Mulberry St.
What could be more downtown than celebrating downtown's most notorious tourist trap? The fried dough sizzles in Mulberry St., Abel Ferrara's feature-length video doc. With the self-appointed celluloid King of New York extolling the heartburn charms of Little Italy's annual Feast of San Gennaro, Mulberry St. is an extended gloss on Ferrara–ego idol Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets, especially the scene in which Harvey Keitel complains that "with that feast on, ya can't even move in your own neighborhood," to which De Niro makes the heartfelt reply, "I hate that feast with a passion!" You might, too, but Ferrara fucking loves it! Stocked with highly local celebs and garrulous performers from his previous films, not to mention the irrepressible Ferrara frequently schmoozing on camera, Mulberry St. is a festival of self-dramatization in which it is impossible to judge whether Scorsese captured or invented the essence of Little Italy street jive. In either case, Ferrara has preserved it. In 50 years, this warm, cheesy, sometimes rancid slice (of life) will be a holy relic.
