Saw this yesterday evening. This was amazing. Those three and a half hours flew by. Scorsese, De Niro, Pesci and of course scene stealer Pacino are all top notch. I loved the story, the narrative was both crystal clear and it just worked so damn well. Scorsese is in such control of it all. I'm so glad I saw it in theater. It was packed, people really reacted well to this film. It's a pity it wont be in theaters for long anymore but I think netflix has got something on it's hands here. I'm really glad Scorsese was able to make this film with them.
The film is beautiful in both it's story and design. Age catching up with you, looking back at your life in retrospect is always so harrowing and it certainly is here. There are some truly amazing scenes in this film, for me mainly the discussion
Frank and Jimmy had at Frank's ceremony, De Niro and Pacino are just so fucking good, holy shit
As for the de-aging, it's noticeable, especially at first, but you get used to it. I thought it was the most convincing with Pacino. Possibly because we don't see him as he is now or much younger either and because they didn't change his eye color. I mean, for De Niro, it's rough in some places but otherwise quite convincing. It's great that they're so advanced so they can tell a story like this, which is what it's all about. I mean, they're all in their late-seventies so it's pretty incredibly both technology wise and performance wise of course.
It's definitely one of this years best films and imo one of the best of this decade.
The best film of the year with Parasite. It's a masterpiece, give Schoonmaker all the awards. The soundtrack is incredible, there are some travelling that are just WOW!
Let's talk influences:
in terms of mafia film, it made me think more of Godfather Part 2 than Goodfellas, in the sense that it's more of a tragedy.
I think films about old people looking back or looking at what they've become are obvious influences: Wild Strawberries, Colonel Blimp (especially since these films are made by some of Scorsese's favourite directors). Also the Conformist, because the character is passive and does what he is told to. The scene that almost opens the film made me think of Ishiguro's The remain of the days, Sheeran spends a long time explaining the road he chose and why, even if nobody cares. It shows immediately that he only has agency when it comes to stupid details but not with existential decision, for which he relies on Russ, Patton...
"The Irishman is on Netflix now. I think it's genuinely great, but I did not think so 90 minutes into it. My suggestion: Save it for when you're alert and ready to watch without interruption. Chopping it into miniseries-sized pieces won't help the film or increase your pleasure."
The first 45 minutes is... kinda generic Scorsese-gangster stuff? I really wasn't that impressed. And the de-aging for De Niro is a bit spotty at the beginning. Maybe I just got used to it after. Anything pre-Hoffa was just not as good as the rest
But it just got better and better and just absolutely masterful in the end.
It it so GOOD to see these actors act in something great again. Pacino just dominates the film when he enters and dominates every single scene he's in. Pesci does something absolutely new also.
And the last 30 minutes are just amazing. You can see Scorsese made that film for the conclusion.
And god I need to see it again soon, there's so much, it's impossible to take it all in one viewing
The first 45 minutes is... kinda generic Scorsese-gangster stuff? I really wasn't that impressed. And the de-aging for De Niro is a bit spotty at the beginning. Maybe I just got used to it after. Anything pre-Hoffa was just not as good as the rest
But it just got better and better and just absolutely masterful in the end.
The first half of The Irishman is "generic" on purpose. Scorsese retreads familiar territory, yes, but instead of treating the material with romance and sentiment, he treats it mostly as mundane, banal and a little pathetic.
You're not supposed to feel as electrified, or even as entertained, as you were by Goodfellas, Casino or Wolf. Goodfellas begins with zippy voiceover about wanting to be a gangster, The Irishman begins with a bitter old man. Goodfellas doesn't wait long to deploy a rivetting "oner" through the back of a restaurant, glorifying the exclusivity of "the life," The Irishman doesn't wait long to have a... slow road trip. From the start, Scorsese is demythifying the genre he, more or less, helped promote to the realm of myth.
The first half is an act of truthful retrospection before before Scorsese proverbially kneels for the introspective "confession," of the second half. This is exactly why you have to experience it all in one sitting.
I find most of you quite severe with the first hour, which I very much enjoyed.
The opening travelling is great. The relation between Pesci and De Niro and the slow descent into crime of De Niro makes it quite great imo. The flash-back from WW2 is quite great. The first scene with Romano is great comedy... And the scene that describes Pesci's character ends with an absolute marvel of a travelling into flowers. Also, it's incredibly well edited. For me, it's less Hoffa appearing after one hour than the tension rising between Hoffa and Tony Pro after 90 minutes that will push the story forward when it was about to drag because of some sublots like Crazy Joe, although I love that they include all these "on the side" events into the film.
