THE IRISHMAN, A Martin Scorsese Picture with de Niro, Pacino, Pesci, Keitel

"it's what it is"
"What do you nean, it's what it is?"
"Do I gotta spell it out for you?"
"Yeah."
"Well I can't."
"Why?"
"Because it's what it is, and if I tell you what 'it' is, I might no longer 'is'"
"That makes no goddamn sense."
"Neither does your haircut. But are you reading me here?"
"Yeah. It's not what it is."
"No, it's what it is."
"What's what it is?"
"IT. IT'S IT."
"What is 'it'?"

*Frank shoots Hoffa and furiously kicks his corpse*

*A wealthy old dowager with a giant fancy hat comes in, starts berating Frank for being the worst housepainter she’s ever seen, smacking him with her handbag*

"I hear you're quite a house painter, Frank."
"Yes, I am, thank you, sir. I also do my own carpentry."
"Oh, you do, do you? That's great. Maybe you could take a look at the new deck I'm building on my house at the lake."
"Sir, does that mean what I think it means?"
"Well Frank, what do you think it means?"
"Um, I think it means what I think it means, I mean, what it is. It's what it is."
"Great! So glad we're on the same page!"

I'm surprised there weren't more who's-on-first exchanges like that. There was that great one between Frank and Angelo early on:

"Frank, do you know who else had an interest in that cleaning business?"
"No sir, I don't."
"I do."
"Oh, you know?"
"No Frank! I do! I know, and I do!"

Haha I liked that one

I didn't think there was anything particularly new with the suspension-of-disbelief required by the CGI - accepting Robert DeNiro as a young Marlon Brando or Winona Ryder in old lady makeup or Brad Pitt as an old baby require a similar level of acceptance from the viewer. It's just that this was achieved with a different and fairly novel technique. As such it involves it's own peculiarities (old men don't *move* like men in their 20s, as has been noted), the viewer either rolls with it or does not.

sorry to be pedantic but the number of people referring to "joey pro" in recent posts has had me chortling

I totally missed McGee = Bufalino, what kind of nickname is that

one for the FBI tapes

xp lol, yes it's "tony pro" my bad

w/r/t the CGI -- it didn't bother me whatsoever, and i didn't even notice it after awhile. DeNiro didn't seem like a young DeNiro ever but then again i mostly bought him as a burly run down bulky mid century thirtysomething, and he wasn't playing a young DeNiro. He was playing a young Sheeran.

I thought the VO was good too, and different. It was this very straightforward thing, it wasn't occasionally poetic like DeNiro's Casino narration, it wasn't nearly as colorful or comedic as Liotta's GoodFellas one, it was this very matter-of-fact info. Perfect for a character who only half-understood what was happening at any given moment and never really caught on to anything until it was too late, including the cost of his chosen life.

Was there any breaking of the fourth wall that you tend to see a lot of in Scorsese pictures? There was Frank in the nursing home, but even then it seemed like he was talking to an unseen interlocutor, not us, the audience. Maybe Frank's VO the whole time was him explaining away his life to the priest? I otherwise don't recall anything.

xp they're all named Tony!

There was the scene where Pacino sat up after being shot in the head and said "But that's not how it happened!"

the cgi didn't bother me either, but i generally am pretty good at suspending disbelief (i didn't notice deniro's stiffness during the grocery store scene or the gun throwing scenes). it did make it a little confusing when it became clear that the story was unfolding with non-linear chronology (with flashbacks from that detroit road trip), because all the de-aged versions of deniro and pesci looked the same to me.

I think when you chuck a gun into the river you probably are going to flick it in, rather than throw it like a baseball. That seemed believable. The grocery store scene was pretty incongruent though. De Niro kicked and stomped the dude slowly and awkwardly, looked young but moved old, and didn't seem all that menacing.

Yea plus his guns landed where other guns already were

they also used cgi for broken glass in a really shitty way in that scene (it fell too slowly iirc).

he chucked a gun like an old man, like he has limited mobility in his limbs and chucking a heavy piece of metal is kind of a strain

I'm just against de-aging, I've realized. sure, do it to make a septuagenarian look 50, maybe. but use it sparingly ffs.

Was there any breaking of the fourth wall that you tend to see a lot of in Scorsese pictures? There was Frank in the nursing home, but even then it seemed like he was talking to an unseen interlocutor, not us, the audience. Maybe Frank's VO the whole time was him explaining away his life to the priest? I otherwise don't recall anything.

i didn't notice anything like this other than the nursing home scenes.

i'm going to try to watch it again later this week, there's a lot about it that is lingering w/me. one thing i noticed is that the violence is fast, they just get it over with and keep walking. Even the Hoffa hit is just two shots and out the door. And it's quite a bit less grisly than his other gangster films.

Sorta felt to me like Scorsese was making up for Casino, which I felt at the time was something of a misreading of Goodfellas (i.e. if it's violence they want, it's violence they'll get.)

I liked the fast plot pacing in general, like how Frank's affair/divorce/remarriage was handled in 2 short sentences of dialogue: "There's no good time to leave your wife. But that's what I did."

Marty explaining duel wielding!!! pic.twitter.com/L1kOmByh6p

— Peter Labuza (@labuzamovies) December 9, 2019

this was way upthread and maybe already answered but regarding the aspect ratio, I bet he shot flat because he knew it would be largely seen on 16x9 televisions.

inevitably so

Frank: I’m a friend of Jimmy Bofa

Jimmy: Who’s Jimmy Bo-

Frank: pic.twitter.com/pupaJD1zKF

— Columbo’s Fake Wife (@SlayerofCis) December 12, 2019

the opening tracking shot of the irishman & the copacabana tracking shot in goodfellas. time comes for us all pic.twitter.com/VHRxydRnSq

— nick usen (@nickusen) December 10, 2019

she's so great

Editor Thelma Schoonmaker breaks down her collaborative process with Scorsese on THE IRISHMAN and why it was one of the best films she's ever worked on. pic.twitter.com/nKsOh4V1Vd

— Netflix Film (@NetflixFilm) December 9, 2019

The CGI was less distracting than bad makeup or having other actors play the young versions.

I hope Scorsese shows up 15 minutes late and is wearing fucking shorts. https://t.co/wcGj8VdsnU

— PAUL "Part Irishman" (@HuginsPL) December 12, 2019

Lol.

Iger: Marty. We've gotta talk. You're hurtin' me here.
Scorsese: (chomps steak. stares)

walks in with an ice cream sundae

lol

https://i.gifer.com/M5Pe.gif

https://behind-the-irishman.simplecast.com/

It's unnerving how well those long tracking shots line up.

I'd bet that the Mean Streets "Rubber Biscuit" long tracking shot lines up at least partially with those two as well.

to answer a recent question

“Aside from Sinatra, Tony Bennett was the authority in that sense,” the filmmaker recalled in a recent interview. “He had such an extraordinary range and was top of the line. And of course, Dean Martin and his coolness. But it was Jerry Vale who we listened to pretty much all the time.”

Vale has a big role in a crucial scene in Scorsese’s new drama, “The Irishman.” The singer, as embodied by Steven Van Zandt, performs at a gala thrown in honor of Frank Sheeran, the mob hit man at the center of the movie. As Vale sings, gangsters discuss the fate of Jimmy Hoffa, the Teamsters leader who in real life disappeared in 1975.

A member of Mitch Miller’s saccharine yet hugely successful Columbia Records roster, Vale (born Genaro Louis Vitaliano) was one of many Italian-American nightclub singers of the era who were influenced by Bing Crosby. Even stars like Sinatra based their early style on Crosby, who was himself influenced by Louis Armstrong....

“He sounded like as if my uncle sang, or the way my brother could sing,” Scorsese said. “Of course Jerry is 100 times better, but he felt like that person in the room who would break into song. It was like a family member in a way; that voice was so familiar and comforting.”

Scorsese recently turned 77, and it’s the music of his youth that has informed his films, many set to deep cuts and classics. “For me, it’s very, very serious,” he said of his tune choices. “Probably the most enjoyable part of making movies is to select these songs.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/13/movies/jerry-vale-the-irishman.html

did Vale ever cover Gimme Shelter tho

Will no one give Al Martino his due?!?

Al Martino got his due in the book

loved it. gonna rewatch it like 6 times on my phone in bed over the next few weeks

didn’t feel long at all

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EMHECkYUUAAkym3?format=jpg&name=medium
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EMHECkXUcAAVylf?format=jpg&name=900x900
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EMHECj7WkAAu6uX?format=jpg&name=large

Irishman is superior to goodfellas in that goodfellas cut out all the driving and checking into hotels and just left the exciting parts.

— Colin Quinn (@iamcolinquinn) December 4, 2019

it's hard to think of someone who fits "hack comedian" more than CQ

the best part of Goodfellas involved driving cars.

I'd happily watch the extended driving & hotel check-in cut of The Irishman.

Irishman is superior to goodfellas in that goodfellas cut out all the driving and checking into hotels and just left the exciting parts.
— Colin Quinn (@iamcolinquinn) December 4, 2019
― ... (Eazy), Thursday, December 19, 2019 9:36 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

unironically otm

Yeah, that was my take as well. The long drives and long hangouts instead of the quick cuts and coke momentum.

Two different portraits, one is the story of a guy who wanted to make loads of money without working a job and indulging in every vice, the other is the story of a guy who regarded his mob work as a job that he showed up for like clockwork and did well and just wanted to have a steady gig.

New interview

We are in a situation now where the theatres are only showing the latest superhero films. You have 12 screens – and 11 are the superhero film. You enjoy superhero films, fine, but you need 11 screens? It’s crazy for a picture like, you know, Lady Bird or The Souvenir. Those films may not necessarily be hugely commercial, but there are films that are modest and genuine and find a large audience. Just because a film is commercial doesn’t mean it can’t be art. What has consumed the theatres is product. A product is to be consumed and thrown away.

the man stays on message!

The Souvenir is different; I was actually on in the beginning with Joanna [Hogg]. She came to see me and we had discussions about it. The Safdie brothers, they’re crazy. I saw them in Telluride at a dinner and it was like they were mugging me. They look like two bandits. When they said they had Adam Sandler, I thought: OK, that’s interesting. They would come on the set of The Irishman and hang out. There’s still an aspect of me that has an affinity with their ferocious manner, so to speak. But over the years, I have become more and more like Joanna’s films or Happy as Lazzaro – it’s about focusing on the essentials.