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I Heard You, The Irishman, Paint Houses (Martin Scorsese, 2019)
🕑 Added 2019-12-20 17:14:24 +0000 UTC
An irreproachable effort, really. I found the film engaging, if not captivating, from start to finish, even if quite a lot of it -- particularly the rise of Frank Sheenan (Robert DeNiro) through the ranks of the Bufalino crime family -- was familiar territory. More than anything, The Irishman strikes me as wiser, more world-weary revision of Goodfellas, making for a classic "late film" in an oeuvre replete with masterworks. Using the aged Sheenan as the narrative anchor, Scorsese moves around in time, with an almost Russian-doll flashback structure, to show how Frank's chance meeting with Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci) changed his life and sent him down an inexorable path of crime and honor.
Once Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino) and the Teamsters become involved in the story, The Irishman develops into the expected crisis of diverging loyalty, with Hoffa becoming like a brother to Frank, and Russell a surrogate father. The entire second act focuses on Frank and Jimmy, with Russell fading into the background. But we know he is always there, and like a loving father, he only asserts his authority with Frank when he has no other choice.
There's been a lot of criticism of Scorsese's handling of women characters over the years, and this time it has lighted on his treatment of Frank's daughter Peggy, played as an adult by Anna Paquin. She has one line of dialogue in the film; mostly she stands on the sidelines and stares balefully at her father, something she has done since childhood. I don't know that having Peggy speak out more regarding her contempt for Frank would have made for a stronger film, Her placement on the literal periphery of Frank's world speaks volumes, and is another way Scorsese introduces an external view on wiseguy culture that was mostly missing in Goodfellas and Casino. Peggy is sometimes there as an audience surrogate, reminding us that what we are watching -- murder, extortion, unbridled male prerogative -- is not good. It destroys lives. (This point is driven home forcefully in the scene in which Frank, at Peggy's behest, phones Hoffa's widow to offer comfort, and he just about falls apart.)
For a first outing with the behemoth that is Netflix, The Irishman is fairly gutsy. Not only does Scorsese essentially give the film two titles, leaving it to the rest of us to solve this identity crisis. But the film itself is long and novelistic, moves at a relaxed pace, and doesn't have all that much in the way of dazzling set-pieces or instantly memorable needle-drops. It is in every sense a film made by old men, looking back on the work that made them into icons. I think the digital de-aging technology is superb, and you can really just forget about it if you let yourself get wrapped up in the story. But we know full well that these are people in their 70s trying to approximate their younger selves.
This lends The Irishman a kind of poignancy, as Scorsese, DeNiro, Pesci, and Harvey Keitel all perform their younger selves from a place of hard-earned experience. At a time when introspection is hardly fashionable, The Irishman arrives like a missive from another time. Amidst the gaudy clamor of most current cinema, it is classical, and it will last.
