Yes, it's long
It's Scorsese's longest movie, one that usually makes them long anyway. There are few films that last more than 209 minutes, among those that ultimately interest a normal audience. Without counting The Woman Who Left – who won the Venice Film Festival in 2016, lasts four hours, but it was not a film for a normal audience – among the most well-known cases there are Ben Hur (212 minutes), Lawrence of Arabia (230 minutes), Gone With the Wind (238) e Twentieth century (310 minutes). Looking at recent years, among the films that have passed the three-hour threshold there are The Wolf of Wall Street (180 minutes) e Avengers: Endgame (181 minutes). Titanic it lasted 195 and all three Lords of the Rings they exist in versions that well exceed 200 minutes. Regarding the criticism of the length of the film, Bobby Cannavale, one of the actors in the film, said: "Make yourself right. It's a Scorsese film, with De Niro, Pacino and Pesci, it's an incredible film. I didn't want to finish. "
Some numbers
It took 108 days to shoot The Irishman. In more than 100 locations, 28 of which built from scratch. The scenes are some hundreds, the actors over 200, the extras over six thousand.
It's kind of like
Among the films with which The Irishman it has been linked to from time to time The ruthless (for how it celebrates an era that no longer exists), Twin Peaks – The return (because it speaks of aging and death and why "it is the work of a great director who returns to themes dear to him and who works with some of his historical collaborators, with full control and total authority over what he does") and Inception (for the amount of stories-in-the story it tells).
Joe Pesci
It is said that since he had announced his retirement he had received several dozen offers, and that he even hesitated in the case of Scorsese's proposal: he did not want to go back to doing what he did years ago, for example in Those good guys. And in fact he returned to play a much more reflective role, "almost the opposite of his past roles," said Scorsese. The New York Times has dedicated an article to the "Sober genius of an interpretation by Joe Pesci".
Couldn't they make it a mini-series?
Someone asked. Scorsese said no. "The goal is the accumulation of details, to achieve the desired effect at the end of the film. The series are excellent, they can develop even more characters and narrative lines. But this was not the case ".
More than half a century
The youngest Sheeran we see is from 1949, and although much of the film is set between the 1960s and the 1970s, there are also scenes set in 2003.
Another Hoffa
Before from Al Pacino, the powerful trade unionist Jimmy Hoffa was also played by Jack Nicholson: in 1992, in a film written by David Mamet and played by Danny De Vito.
Those good guys
For many it is the film of Scorsese gangsters. The Irishman he mentions it on several occasions and in various ways. Beginning with the initial sequence plan, in which many have seen a quotation of the one, stranota and spectacular, in Those good guys accompanies the entry of Henry Hill and his girlfriend to the Copacabana. Then there is the character of Crazy Joe, who was already mentioned in Those good guys, as well as another bit of small references and parallels.
Comparisons of other types
In a review that speaks of the film as a great monument, solid but also delicate, A.O. Scott's New York Times he wrote that the film is "as long and dark as a novel by Dostoyevsky and as dark as a painting by Rembrandt". He added: "Extortion, corruption and the struggle for influence occupy all the men in the film, but The Irishman revolves around the emotions and vicissitudes of their friendship. It is the less sentimental gangster film of Scorsese, and for this the most intense ».
History and true stories, and those that may not
The Irishman is taken from a book written after a series of confessions made by Sheeran, and on whose authenticity there are several perplexities. Perhaps Sheeran has been very good, for decades, to do much in the shadows; or perhaps at the point of death, in order to earn some money, a series of things have been invented, including having been the actual perpetrator of Hoffa's murder. Many other things, on the other hand, are true or at least plausible. In the English version the book is titled I Heard You Paint Houses, but there is also an Italian woman, previous to the film, with the title The Irishman. I killed Jimmy Hoffa.
What is true in "The Irishman"
Frankie Machine
Let's go back a few years, say ten years. De Niro and Scorsese wanted to do a good gangster movie together and decided that they would do it for Paramount by taking inspiration from Frankie Machine's winter, Don Winslow's 2006 novel about the life of the former Italian-American mafioso Frankie Machianno, called The Machine. Doing research for that book, De Niro ended up reading I Heard You Paint Houses and proposed to Scorsese to change history. Scorsese accepted and began to think about The Irishman. The initial projects for this film started around 2010; in 2013 Scorsese, De Niro, Pacino and Pesci found themselves in New York to talk about it; in 2016 they talked about it with Ted Sarandos, head of Netflix content; between 2017 and 2018 they turned it.
12 and a half
Stephen Graham plays Tony Pro and, together with Pacino, is the protagonist of some of the most entertaining scenes in the film. Like the one about the delay and excuses. Graham explained that it was strange and complicated for him to play with Pacino, moreover, while De Niro stood there, without even a beat. He decided to improvise and ask Sheeran, that is De Niro, for him the maximum threshold of delay allowed. De Niro, improvising, had Sheeran answer: "12 and a half". As seen in the film.
Bum-dah-ba-dum-brrrring and the smell of food
The 76-year-old composer and guitarist Robbie Robertson said that Scorsese "didn't want something traditional. Not something that was bum-dah-ba-dum-brrrring ». Production designer Bob Shaw said he had discussed a lot before he could recreate the location of the Villa Roma restaurant from scratch because Mart (Scorsese) wanted to "shoot it in a real restaurant, where he could smell sauces".
Digital rejuvenation
That is why the film cost so much (at least 150 million dollars) and it is much of the reason why it has become a Netflix film, the only one that wants to invest so much in a film of this type. Digital rejuvenation is spoken more and more often and more and more frequently we will see it, because it is showing that it can work. It is said that in order to convince everyone that the rejuvenation could work, De Niro was asked to turn over an old scene of his Godfather, and Scorsese said he wanted to rejuvenate "Bob, Joe and Al" because he knew they "would not interpret themselves as young, but their characters as young people". Among the many things that change, as we age, there is also the voice, as he said Hollywood Reporter. But also the posture and the movements: Scorsese said that on his first day of shooting with Pacino he had to tell him that the way he got up from his chair was at seventy (which he is) and not from forty (like Hoffa when he was interpreting it).
«Keep it simple»
The director of photography for the film is Rodrigo Prieto, who at theHollywood Reporter he said that Scorsese asked him to "do simple things, without strange room positions, strange angles or spectacular movements". This is because Scorsese wanted the film to be in some ways akin to the lifestyle of Sheeran, very different from that of the gangsters of Those good guys, which in fact is full of highly appreciated technical virtuosities. Steve Zaillian, co-author of the script, said that, similarly, the approach to violence is very different from a film like Gangs of New York. There it was deliberately emphasized, here it is only shown: «One arrives, shoots in the head of another, goes away. Without any other writing or shooting processing. We were interested, however, in showing the rest: How do you choose and where do you take a gun? Where is he thrown away? "
Poor Avnet
We have already said how it was done The Irishman. But De Niro, immediately on board the project with Scorsese, also said that it was he who suggested Pacino for the role of Hoffa. And that the desire to make a good film with Pacino had it since September 2008, when both were around to present the memorable nothing Challenge without rules. De Niro told a Variety who looked at Pacino and told him: "Everyone loves us, but it would be better if they were here for a film of which you and I were at least a little proud. Next time, let's make one that we really like ». The director of Challenge without rules it was Jon Avnet.
All friends
The Irishman is Scorsese's ninth film with De Niro and Scorsese's sixth with Harvey Keitel (who, poor thing, takes a little to take second place): the previous time it was more than thirty years ago, for The last temptation of Christ (Keitel was Judas). It is also the seventh De Niro and Pesci film and the fourth De Niro and Pesci film directed by Scorsese and the third in which Pacino and De Niro act together, in the same scenes (The Godfathertherefore it does not count). Of one we have said; the other was Heat – The challenge, and it was very beautiful. It ended with Pacino killing, say reluctantly, De Niro. In The Irishman the opposite happens. It's also the first film by Pacino with Scorsese: Pacino said that years ago he contacted Scorsese to propose a film in which he wanted to play Amedeo Modigliani, but nothing came of it.
Al and Bob
In a long and beautiful interview with New York Times, De Niro said his favorite roles for Pacino are in the first two Godfather; Pacino said his favorite De Niro is to wild bull, but that is really hard to choose and perhaps would like to organize an entire film review by De Niro. It also turns out, among other things, that De Niro does not remember the films thanks to which he won his two Oscars.
Scorsese now
He probably won't be watching any other Marvel films, but he's already working on his next films. What seems closest to going to port is a biographical film on Theodore Roosevelt, which according to what for now are not yet certainties should be interpreted by Leonardo DiCaprio.
Some other things
- De Niro would have preferred the title of the film to be I Heard You Paint Houses.
- Probably Scorsese too.
- There is not even one Irish actor in the film.
- De Niro played an Irishman also in Those good guys.
- Joe Pesci, in the film, talks about a certain David Ferrie, who some people may have played in many events in American history, including those shown in the film. Pisces plays Ferrie in JFK by Oliver Stone.
- At the beginning of the house we see a house that is also in Those good guys.
- The word or various declensions of the word "fuck" are called 136 times. About a fifth compared to The Wolf of Wall Street, and less than half compared to Those good guys.
- There are at least 10 actors who were also in Boardwalk Empire.
- It seems that the phrase "three people can keep a secret if two are dead" is from Benjamin Franklin.
- They say that, stopping in the right frame, when Sheeran speaks for the first time about "painting the walls", see – in the short picture shown – the death of Hoffa, who will arrive a couple of hours later in the film.
To learn more, on Netflix there are 22 minutes of talk between Pisces, De Niro, Pacino and Scorsese, and this chat is not bad either.
Or even this other, only with Scorsese.
Source link
https://www.ilpost.it/2019/12/04/the-irishman-curiosita/
Dmca
