Xixax Film Forum

The Director's Chair => Martin Scorsese => Topic started by: MacGuffin on October 02, 2008, 01:02:06 AM

Title: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: MacGuffin on October 02, 2008, 01:02:06 AM
Scorsese, De Niro to 'Paint Houses'
Paramount taps Zaillian to adapt Brandt book
Source: Variety

Paramount Pictures is plotting a return to organized crime for Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro. Studio has set Steve Zaillian to adapt "I Heard You Paint Houses," the book about the mob assassin who many believe was involved in the death of Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa.

Scorsese is attached to direct. De Niro will play Frank "the Irishman" Sheeran, who is reputed to have carried out more than 25 mob murders. Pic will be produced by Scorsese and Tribeca partners De Niro and Jane Rosenthal. Project landed at Paramount through the overall deal that the studio has with Scorsese's Sikelia Prods.

Pic's title refers to mob slang for contract killings, and the resulting blood splatter on walls and floors. Book was written by Charles Brandt, who befriended Sheeran shortly before the latter's death in 2003. Among the crimes Sheeran confessed to Brandt, according to the 2004 book, was the killing and dismemberment of Hoffa, carried out on orders from mob boss Russell Bufalino.

Zaillian most recently scripted the Frank Lucas crime saga "American Gangster" and was a co-writer of the Scorsese-directed "Gangs of New York." Scorsese also brought in Zaillian to script "Schindler's List," before turning over the project to Steven Spielberg and instead directing De Niro in "Cape Fear." Zaillian won an Oscar for his "Schindler's List" script.

Scorsese just completed a screen adaptation of the Dennis Lehane novel "Shutter Island" for Paramount with Leonardo DiCaprio. He's in the midst of settling on his next directing project, with "Silence," "The Wolf of Wall Street" and "The Long Play" at the top of his list.

De Niro has wrapped the Kirk Jones-directed "Everybody's Fine" with Sam Rockwell, Kate Beckinsale and Drew Barrymore. He's also plotting a re-team with "Heat" director Michael Mann on "Frankie Machine," an adaptation of the Don Winslow novel that is also at Paramount.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Alexandro on October 02, 2008, 02:20:02 PM
I love the title. Hope it happens but damn, what about Silence?
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Gold Trumpet on October 02, 2008, 11:48:52 PM
Quote from: Alexandro on October 02, 2008, 02:20:02 PM
I love the title. Hope it happens but damn, what about Silence?

I've come to the conclusion Silence will never happen, but this projects sounds OK for him. It's mobster material, but if I read the synopsis right, it deals with a mobster type character looking back at his criminal life. The irony is that Scorsese's first film about mobsters, Mean Streets, seems to have the most iorta of reflection and context to a mobster's struggle. Goodfellas and Casino are mainly fun rides through the gangster life with reflection and meaning added in as post scripts. Scorsese could really dig into the meaning of the mobster to him with this film, or he could sell himself short like normal.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Alexandro on October 03, 2008, 08:59:42 AM
Truly, the most introspective of his mafia films is Mean Streets, I guess mainly because it's the most autobiographical. I do think, however, that Mean Streets could have been about non mobsters characters and still work. Despite having gangsters in it, it never gets as specific as Goodfellas or Casino about the inner workings and day to day problems of mobsters.

Scorsese has said that one thing that he found intresting about Henry Hill as a character was his lack of guilt about his lifestyle, that he wasn't sorry about anything in the end excepto that the fun was over. So maybe he wasn't the best character to explore an inner struggle in mobsters. The characters in Casino are all very practical too, these are not introspective characters. But I do think both films are very illustrative of the context in which their life takes shape. Also, he's obviously way more interested in both films in the connection between the individual lifes of those characters and the workings of their environments and society.

I don't know what you get out of this synopsis...I don't get anything except is a mobster film with De Niro and Scorsese together again, and that's why it excites me. Other than that this doesn't indicates anything about him maybe exploring this or that.

It really must suck to have a project like Silence and being unable to get it off the ground. Really, that's all it is. Of course, who knows what kind of budget they're trying to get...maybe they're not being reasonable...
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Gold Trumpet on October 04, 2008, 07:12:40 PM
Quote from: Alexandro on October 03, 2008, 08:59:42 AM
Truly, the most introspective of his mafia films is Mean Streets, I guess mainly because it's the most autobiographical. I do think, however, that Mean Streets could have been about non mobsters characters and still work. Despite having gangsters in it, it never gets as specific as Goodfellas or Casino about the inner workings and day to day problems of mobsters.

Any film about the personal characteristics of someone who is a professional something would blend together with other humanistic stories. The profession always takes a back seat when the portrait is personal. You're right that the characters in Mean Streets could be anyone, but that is also a compliment. Good films about people focus on the characteristics that we all share.

Quote from: Alexandro on October 03, 2008, 08:59:42 AM
Scorsese has said that one thing that he found intresting about Henry Hill as a character was his lack of guilt about his lifestyle, that he wasn't sorry about anything in the end excepto that the fun was over. So maybe he wasn't the best character to explore an inner struggle in mobsters. The characters in Casino are all very practical too, these are not introspective characters. But I do think both films are very illustrative of the context in which their life takes shape. Also, he's obviously way more interested in both films in the connection between the individual lifes of those characters and the workings of their environments and society.

Goodfellas and Casino are no more insightful or depth than any general story about gangsters. Scorsese patterned his storytelling off old Hollywood sweeping tales and there are only two major difference between his films and those earlier ones. The first is that his films don't hang off a high moral lesson and that his subject material requires permissive subject matter. I think his style and the latter is what convinces some people to believe his films really are doing something good.

Scorsese is an unapologetic Hollywood filmmaker and makes films that prove that point. He will never be a challenging filmmaker of structure or thought. He will embrace cliches and rework them to suit basic modern expectations. I always find it amazing when reading original reviews of his films from the 1980s. The critics comment on his style like he was the only one who had the imagination to come up with such a style, but now he is just one of many filmmakers making films that have his quota for storytelling. Casino was his filmmaking height. It's been automatic since then and so it's also become old hat.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Alexandro on October 05, 2008, 10:54:02 AM
As usual I don't disagree but at the same time I do. Of course he is now one of many, but he was first. I'm not saying he invented modern cinema, but he did used what was there before him and reworked it in a way that was new when it came out. The use of music mainly, I think is one of his strongest points and more valuable contributions. Yeah, he wasn't reinventing the wheel, and he was probably thinking of old hollywood films when doing it, but the fact is that before him the use of music was pretty boring, with maybe the exception of Kubrick, and then what he did in his first films became the norm.

The other thing is the uniqueness of his voice. He has plenty of imitators. His kinetic style is very seductive, specially for young filmmakers, but he has a special sensibility to it and it shows. I find his films more complete than pretty much anyone else's films. He has an ability to feel at the same time modern and old without seeming like he's just  rehashing stuff. Like Beck, in music I guess. And he makes each one a celebration of "motion picture", and I find his choices appropiate and brilliant most of the time. I agree also that Casino is the peak of the mountain for him, but he certainly found interesting ways to depict the Tibetan life in Kundun and the old Hollywood of The Aviator. He certainly makes me feel joy when I catch his films. I don't expect him to rewrite the book or anything, I certainly don't know if anyone is doing it right now. People talk about the Dardennes, or some of these new "slow" filmmakers like Apichapong, but I don't see anything new there, just an intellectual idea executed with precision. Personally, I don't need that in a film so much.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Gold Trumpet on October 05, 2008, 02:57:47 PM
Quote from: Alexandro on October 05, 2008, 10:54:02 AM
People talk about the Dardennes, or some of these new "slow" filmmakers like Apichapong, but I don't see anything new there, just an intellectual idea executed with precision. Personally, I don't need that in a film so much.

Haha, you're going to get me going on the Dardennes, aren't you?

I had a conversation with a friend about the Dardennes last night. You're right, there is nothing technically new to their style or even their aesthetic ideal. The greatest of filmmakers have experimented with the Dardennes style in trying to film a story so close to the characters and action that it becomes the replication of a personal experience for the viewer. When Michelangelo Antonioni made La Notte right after L'Avventura, he specifically made a film devoid of standard story and detailed composition and instead layered the film with close proximity events. He did it because he wanted the audience to experience Jeanne Moreau's indecisiveness about her marriage with her. The random events she has with her husband (and more importantly by herself) leaves her feeling more confused and adrift about things. It is exactly what the audience is supposed to experience because they have no prior bias of the relationship. Films always try to juxtapose the audience to feel certain ways, but the content of La Notte comes from the disconnect Moreau feels to each new situation. 

That film was a huge break through for the personal experience film, but the Dardennes take it to such greater heights than Antonioni or any other filmmaker has. Too many times the film going public applauses the first instance at the crack of a new style, but usually it is never the best. Antonioni was limited with La Notte because he had camera equipment that had to remain stationery when handheld can do almost anything today. The Dardennes also layer their films with stories that dig at our intrinsic emotions. The Son recollected Bible parables and The Child deals with one of the harshest subjects in child exploitation.

People compliment films like Gummo for gritty realities of tough subjects, but I'm not impressed with those films. These filmmakers take similar routes with using the same camera equipment, but Gummo and others try to insist upon their gritty reality by making every image of the film as uncomfortable for the viewer as possible. There are scenes in Gummo that are revolting to watch, but what I like about the Dardennes is that their tough reality is still focused on the philosophical idea at hand. Film is so connected to reality that it is easy to imply a disgusting and terrible lifestyle just by showing it, but the Dardennes mix grittiness with the idea of terribleness. Because for as bad as Gummo makes life out to be, the crime that the protagonist in the Child commit still becomes a more terrible and unthinkable crime. The Dardennes illustrate this without being overly graphic at all.

I will always argue that Oliver Stone is the most complete filmmaker I've ever seen. I don't take that comment lightly and can talk at great length to why, but the Dardennes are the best filmmakers going today. That statement only represents here and now because every generation has its own issues and concerns, but they are the best for me. I could still go into further detail, but who cares?



As far as Martin Scorsese is concerned, I don't know if he was the first filmmaker to really do what he does. He is certainly the first modern American filmmaker to do it, but a lot of his style draws from filmmakers like Max Ophuls. But I do believe he advanced his style past Ophuls' accomplishments. That is a compliment to him.

The reason why I don't care too much for Scorsese is because his identity is just based on a style. He has shown an ability to mix and mesh it with any type of story possible. Oliver Stone's style requires a certain narrative and so it could never (for him at least) be in a standard action or drama. His style requires stories that are denser and don't have easy answers for the characters. This leads to the development of themes in his films. Even simpleton style filmmakers like Stanley Kubrick realized the importance of themes in an artists oeuvre, but Scorsese takes on films as a handy man would. I still think he is an artist, but I never see him as the complete one.


(Department of Corrections: I originally listed Julien Donkey Boy in place of Gummo. The intention was always Gummo. Sometimes films are confused.)
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Fernando on October 07, 2008, 11:17:43 AM
Quote from: The Gold Trumpet on October 05, 2008, 02:57:47 PM
Oliver Stone's style requires a certain narrative and so....Even simpleton style filmmakers like Stanley Kubrick realized the importance of themes in an artists oeuvre, but Scorsese takes on films as a handy man would. I still think he is an artist, but I never see him as the complete one.

from dictionary.com
sim·ple·ton
n. A person who is felt to be deficient in judgment, good sense, or intelligence; a fool.


gt, what exactly did you mean by that?
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Gold Trumpet on October 07, 2008, 12:06:52 PM
Quote from: Fernando on October 07, 2008, 11:17:43 AM
Quote from: The Gold Trumpet on October 05, 2008, 02:57:47 PM
Oliver Stone's style requires a certain narrative and so....Even simpleton style filmmakers like Stanley Kubrick realized the importance of themes in an artists oeuvre, but Scorsese takes on films as a handy man would. I still think he is an artist, but I never see him as the complete one.

from dictionary.com
sim·ple·ton
n. A person who is felt to be deficient in judgment, good sense, or intelligence; a fool.


gt, what exactly did you mean by that?

Exactly what the definition says. While I have already gone to considerable lengths to detail my disdain for Kubrick, stay tuned to the Kubrick forum today for my promised explanation of how his style not only became predictable, but also facile and simplistic.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Alexandro on October 07, 2008, 11:58:59 PM
sorry gt, i never felt any replication of any personal experience with any of the dardenne films i saw. what you see there i don't by any chance. i liked L'Enfant, but i wouldn't want to watch it again any time soon, because i get their "idea" but get no enjoyment from it.

to me Oliver stone is amazing, but he is just like Scorsese regarding style, they both apply the same tricks to any story available. that's why i like them both, actually.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: RegularKarate on October 08, 2008, 12:47:49 PM
GT, I respect your dedication, but you can't call Kubrick a "simpleton" and then get mad when people say you dislike things just to dislike the popular.

Stanley Kubrick would beat you at chess.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Gold Trumpet on October 08, 2008, 01:43:19 PM
Quote from: RegularKarate on October 08, 2008, 12:47:49 PM
GT, I respect your dedication, but you can't call Kubrick a "simpleton" and then get mad when people say you dislike things just to dislike the popular.

Stanley Kubrick would beat you at chess.

I can reference Kubrick in passing and make it a legitimate comment. I've said enough about Kubrick in detail recently where I'm not just speaking from my ass. I don't expect I have to go into great detail about him everytime I mention his name. If that was the case I would go into detail about numerous people before I would ever get to the subject of the thread. I veer off and go into explanation when my opinion has been lacking on a subject, but I don't see the need to do it all the time.

And I don't think Kubrick is just dumb. Like I said in my recent pieces, he was a master craftsman of production but lacked in filmmaking virtues. The details of production numbed his artistic senses.

Also, people here will always think I dislike things just to dislike them. That's just how it is.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: cron on October 08, 2008, 10:28:52 PM
maybe they're predictable because they're so incrusted (gloriously incrusted) in our pop culture chip.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Alexandro on October 09, 2008, 12:09:56 AM
gt, you haven't said enough about why kubrick is a simpleton. you probably never will.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Gold Trumpet on October 09, 2008, 01:15:58 AM
Quote from: Alexandro on October 09, 2008, 12:09:56 AM
gt, you haven't said enough about why kubrick is a simpleton. you probably never will.

All you asked for is explanation to how his films became predictable. You're right I haven't produced that effort yet, but I will. I was going to do it last night but got slammed with homework I had to do. It will be done. Hopefully in the next few days. See, his being pedictable has an association with his being a simpleton, but it doesn't encompass the idea. I've gone enough into his general faults that would point some idea to why I could call him a simpleton.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Alexandro on October 09, 2008, 02:46:43 AM
try it you want to, dude. i didn't meant or refered to the absence of your  "predictable" argument, i meant that you can write three books on the "stanley kubrick is predictable" subject, and still you know...don't get the point across...
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Gold Trumpet on October 09, 2008, 10:50:11 AM
Quote from: Alexandro on October 09, 2008, 02:46:43 AM
try it you want to, dude. i didn't meant or refered to the absence of your  "predictable" argument, i meant that you can write three books on the "stanley kubrick is predictable" subject, and still you know...don't get the point across...

I'll get the point across. So far I have only explained myself in how he isn't good. His predictability is a whole other game but it isn't a complicated idea to get across. And at least I am trying to explain myself. It shouldn't be assumed that Kubrick is God, but yet it happens all the time.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Alexandro on October 09, 2008, 11:23:53 AM
i know you have explained yourself. at least i don't really understand your points regarding that subject. from what i gather, not many people do. perhaps you are a genius and perhaps we are stubborn. I have passed my "Kubrick is God" phase. It was happening when I saw A Clockwork Orange in 1995. Now I just think he's one of the best filmmakers in history, without putting down a lot of other true masters. you seem to come from a place very much like the one this guy mutinyco used to be, in which he for some reason wanted to "bring down" filmmakers from their "pedestal". I just don't see how that serves any porpuse except the satisfaction of your own masturbatory pleasures. I personally wouldn't need to bring down a considered master in order to praise another one. Or viceversa, yet you do this for argument's sake all the time.

In any case, what i mean was that you can say all you want, but in the end your arguments are always constructed on the base of a rulebook only you care about, and from where i'm standing there are no rulebooks for film or filmmakers, so the point doesn't get across dude.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Gold Trumpet on October 09, 2008, 12:30:22 PM
Quote from: Alexandro on October 09, 2008, 11:23:53 AM
i know you have explained yourself. at least i don't really understand your points regarding that subject. from what i gather, not many people do.

Are you serious? In the Kubrick Boxes thread, where most of my posts on the subject are, the people that have responded have said that while they don't agree with me, they respect and understand the arguments I made about him. I have yet to get any "I don't know what you mean" replies. It's true I have gotten few replies, but that's always normal when writing longer posts. Happens to everyone.

Quote from: Alexandro on October 09, 2008, 11:23:53 AM
you seem to come from a place very much like the one this guy mutinyco used to be, in which he for some reason wanted to "bring down" filmmakers from their "pedestal". I just don't see how that serves any porpuse except the satisfaction of your own masturbatory pleasures.

Haha, it's hard to continually deal with praise of bad filmmakers on the board. Not only just praise, but blinded praise that comes off as smug and arrogant to me. I know what filmmakers a lot of people on the board like, but I have no idea why they like them. And not only that, but whenever I would write negative reviews, I would get attacked as if I was the person just ripping on them without any reason. It's been a long history.

Has it created a pleasure in some of my opinions? Sure, but considering I come from the opposite view point than most other people here, I also think it was natural. Other people enjoy whenever I make a mistake and they can call me on it so that could be seen as a perversion in itself. I don't know. I have never written a review to just disagree with someone, but I think it's natural to have a little scorn for the majority opinion. I don't dislike anyone personally on the board. In fact I like most people here, but I don't see a little scorn as such a bad thing.

Quote from: Alexandro on October 09, 2008, 11:23:53 AM
I personally wouldn't need to bring down a considered master in order to praise another one. Or viceversa, yet you do this for argument's sake all the time.

Promoting argument isn't the same as for argument's sake. The latter means I don't believe in what I'm saying when that couldn't be further from the truth.

Quote from: Alexandro on October 09, 2008, 11:23:53 AM
In any case, what i mean was that you can say all you want, but in the end your arguments are always constructed on the base of a rulebook only you care about, and from where i'm standing there are no rulebooks for film or filmmakers, so the point doesn't get across dude.

Everybody who writes reviews here have a rulebook of sorts. They may not realize it, but it's very apparent to me.  Every review is based on ideas of what you think is good and bad. Everyone has their own set of value systems. Yes, I do have one too, but the beauty in art is that it can always change and evolve.

But I'm starting to understand P's point about how my reviews can be impossible to break through. I try to be specific with my points so anyone who may argue me can have a good points of reference, but I'm the only person who goes to such an exaspperated length. People used to argue films on the board to incredible lengths, but it's a different board now. My reviews aren't promoting argument when I'm the only one writing ones like them. Now I'm just promoting disagreement at best.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: ElPandaRoyal on October 09, 2008, 06:18:47 PM
I have to say that, even though I don't agree with about 90% of GT's opinions on many filmmakers, he does defend his cases to the fullest. Of course it's always bad when someone doesn't like Kubrick when we all think he was one of the best, but GT's a world apart from those guys who go on the IMDB and say "this guy sucks!". Now that's arguing for argument's sake. He (and so did mutinyco, which, by the way, was a very well made comparison) has his filmmaking ideas and knows how to defend them, which is always great, because in the end, the most enjoyable debate comes from very different opinions on a subject - I know I'm not one to talk, since over the past few years I've been making very little contributions to Xixax, but I've been reading them and this kind of polarizing opinions are the best ones to read.

That said, well, GT, calling Scorsese a handyman is just wrong. I mean, the man puts his heart in every movie he makes. "The Departed" may have been the closest he ever was from being a handyman, but even that is pure celebration of the greatness of movies. Just compare it for real with something like "American Gangster" and you'll see the difference.

As for Kubrick, well, you're the one who called him a simpleton, so you'll have to deal with it. I'm actually waiting for your deeper analysis on this. Not that I'll agree at all, but I'd like to understand a bit more where you're coming from.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Alexandro on October 09, 2008, 07:47:31 PM
I'm sorry if I sounded like an idiot gt. No offense, really. I didn't explain myself very well. I don't promise to do that this time either. What I meant wasn't that we don't understand how you conclude what you conclude. But speaking only for myself, even though I get clearly where you're coming from, you usually leave me with a question mark over my head, because I just didn't understand why you give a fuck about the things you give a fuck. You don't have to like Kubrick or Marty or anyone. I know people in my life who are not crazy about them either, but the reasons you choose to make these guys simpletons and handymans, are completely not valid for me.

When I said the "for argument's sake" bit, I meant that when you construct your arguments you usually do it comparing one filmmaker unfavorably to another, not that you say things for saying.

We all have our rules, but they're there to be broken. Each film requires a different set of rules, in fact I think, each films establishes those set of rules for itself.

And of course, Scorsese is no handyman. You can say what you want, but he isn't. And it doesn't even have anything to do with his status as a good, bad, great or godlike filmmaker. It has to do with personal ethics, which I think are just fine in his case.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: SoNowThen on October 09, 2008, 10:04:17 PM
Quote from: The Gold Trumpet on October 08, 2008, 01:43:19 PM
Quote from: RegularKarate on October 08, 2008, 12:47:49 PM
GT, I respect your dedication, but you can't call Kubrick a "simpleton" and then get mad when people say you dislike things just to dislike the popular.

Stanley Kubrick would beat you at chess.

I can reference Kubrick in passing and make it a legitimate comment. I've said enough about Kubrick in detail recently where I'm not just speaking from my ass. I don't expect I have to go into great detail about him everytime I mention his name. If that was the case I would go into detail about numerous people before I would ever get to the subject of the thread. I veer off and go into explanation when my opinion has been lacking on a subject, but I don't see the need to do it all the time.

And I don't think Kubrick is just dumb. Like I said in my recent pieces, he was a master craftsman of production but lacked in filmmaking virtues. The details of production numbed his artistic senses.

Also, people here will always think I dislike things just to dislike them. That's just how it is.

I found it interesting once when I read an interview with Rivette (who has a crazy eclectic taste in films and is not a snob by any stretch of the word) that he and the other New Wave filmmakers really disliked Kubrick and nicknamed him "The Robot" because they thought all his films were totally devoid of any human emotion or feeling. Also, in Godard's early writing (before he made films) he used to rip on Kubrick (pre-the move to Britain) for shamelessly cribbing from Ophuls.

It's funny, cos I had never heard anyone speak ill of Kubrick before, and then here were my filmmaking Gods, trashing him.

Which doesn't change the fact that I still really like Kubrick. However I have definitely cooled on him recently. But by cooled I mean not wanting to watch his movies all the time and shoot and frame exactly like him.

However, when one thinks of the Olympus of cinema, a Kubrick just doesn't quite belong at the top with a Bresson or a Bunuel or a Tarkovsky.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Gold Trumpet on October 09, 2008, 10:28:37 PM
Quote from: ElPandaRoyal on October 09, 2008, 06:18:47 PM
That said, well, GT, calling Scorsese a handyman is just wrong. I mean, the man puts his heart in every movie he makes. "The Departed" may have been the closest he ever was from being a handyman, but even that is pure celebration of the greatness of movies. Just compare it for real with something like "American Gangster" and you'll see the difference.

The funny thing is that "handyman" comment isn't even mine. It's his. He says he wants to be like an old Hollywood director who goes from project to project and is more of a professional filmmaker. That goes against the ideals of a filmmaker as film artist. Of course Marty always has his religous films which are his passion projects, but he sums himself up as someone who wants to be able to interject his style into numerous different stories. Steven Soderbergh believes you have to mix and match the personal film with Hollywood ones, but Scorsese makes a totally personal film for himself just once every ten years. He's more interested in the bigger budget ventures.

I said it back in 2003, but I would love for Scorsese to mix his bigger budget films with 5 - 10 million dollar personal films. His name would get any project funded and he could do well to make films on the scale of a Mean Streets level. His hero Sam Fuller was very comfortable going back to low budget after losing studio backing, but Scorsese clings to bigger projects. Other filmmakers like Spike Lee fight to make personal projects, but recently said Lee could easily get 90 million dollars tomorrow if he wanted to make a comedy (I believe). I think Scorsese wants to keep making big budget films and is too comfortable to stray from Hollywood so he just takes the most interesting project that a studio will commit significat money to. Spike Lee could be making a film every year if he did just that, but I don't think he does.

Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Gold Trumpet on October 09, 2008, 10:40:54 PM
Quote from: Alexandro on October 09, 2008, 07:47:31 PM
We all have our rules, but they're there to be broken. Each film requires a different set of rules, in fact I think, each films establishes those set of rules for itself.

You may think I disagree with that, but I don't. But I also believe that each film requiring its own set of rules isn't reason to just rationalize their faults.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Alexandro on October 10, 2008, 02:19:12 AM
Quote from: The Gold Trumpet on October 09, 2008, 10:28:37 PM
Quote from: ElPandaRoyal on October 09, 2008, 06:18:47 PM
That said, well, GT, calling Scorsese a handyman is just wrong. I mean, the man puts his heart in every movie he makes. "The Departed" may have been the closest he ever was from being a handyman, but even that is pure celebration of the greatness of movies. Just compare it for real with something like "American Gangster" and you'll see the difference.

The funny thing is that "handyman" comment isn't even mine. It's his. He says he wants to be like an old Hollywood director who goes from project to project and is more of a professional filmmaker. That goes against the ideals of a filmmaker as film artist. Of course Marty always has his religious films which are his passion projects, but he sums himself up as someone who wants to be able to interject his style into numerous different stories. Steven Soderbergh believes you have to mix and match the personal film with Hollywood ones, but Scorsese makes a totally personal film for himself just once every ten years. He's more interested in the bigger budget ventures.

I said it back in 2003, but I would love for Scorsese to mix his bigger budget films with 5 - 10 million dollar personal films. His name would get any project funded and he could do well to make films on the scale of a Mean Streets level. His hero Sam Fuller was very comfortable going back to low budget after losing studio backing, but Scorsese clings to bigger projects. Other filmmakers like Spike Lee fight to make personal projects, but recently said Lee could easily get 90 million dollars tomorrow if he wanted to make a comedy (I believe). I think Scorsese wants to keep making big budget films and is too comfortable to stray from Hollywood so he just takes the most interesting project that a studio will commit significant money to. Spike Lee could be making a film every year if he did just that, but I don't think he does.



What I remember is Scorsese saying he wished he was like those old Hollywood filmmakers, and that at some point he wanted that, but realized it's another time and he has to approach things differently. Since he also sees directors as smugglers in Hollywood, no doubt he feels like one. But that's different than just being a gun for hire who will do what is expected of him. He has a personal print in every one of his films, and it's not only about style, but about human concerns and themes.

About the new wave guys criticizing Kubrick for being emotionless, that's some lazy shit comment on the guy. By now it's a cliche, and it's bullshit, because the amount of emotion a person feels with one film is individual. I find Kubrick's films very moving, and not only because I think the craftsmanship is so good it can be emotionally moving, I think he finds ways to communicate those emotions and feelings too. I have never felt him to be cold as he is usually accused of. Some people confuse distance with coldness. 2001 is very moving to me, the death of Hal almost brings me to tears, it's hard to explain, but I feel sorry for the computer. The Shinning is scary not because it makes you jump but because it has a dark disturbing undercurrent, those are feelings.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Gold Trumpet on October 10, 2008, 03:13:01 AM
Quote from: Alexandro on October 10, 2008, 02:19:12 AM
What I remember is Scorsese saying he wished he was like those old Hollywood filmmakers, and that at some point he wanted that, but realized it's another time and he has to approach things differently. Since he also sees directors as smugglers in Hollywood, no doubt he feels like one. But that's different than just being a gun for hire who will do what is expected of him. He has a personal print in every one of his films, and it's not only about style, but about human concerns and themes.

I don't know. He doesn't involve himself in the writing of his films and recent films have come to him with some development already behind it. Gangs of New York was a personal project for him, but it seems his last few projects already had screenwriters and some money behind it and he was convinced to jump aboard.

Haha, I really hope you don't take human concerns and themes idea serious. Howard Hawks was able to jump from movie to movie. Some of those films of his also had human concerns and themes. The fact you could argue that both The Departed and The Aviator has those concerns don't make them identifiable with Scorsese. Like I said before, he doesn't have themes that cross his filmmaking like the stamp of his style does.

Quote from: Alexandro on October 10, 2008, 02:19:12 AM
About the new wave guys criticizing Kubrick for being emotionless, that's some lazy shit comment on the guy. By now it's a cliche, and it's bullshit, because the amount of emotion a person feels with one film is individual.

If that's the case then their emotions matter as much as yours. so it's not just bullshit or lazy.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: ElPandaRoyal on October 10, 2008, 05:13:09 AM
Quote from: The Gold Trumpet on October 10, 2008, 03:13:01 AMI don't know. He doesn't involve himself in the writing of his films and recent films have come to him with some development already behind it. Gangs of New York was a personal project for him, but it seems his last few projects already had screenwriters and some money behind it and he was convinced to jump aboard.

Haha, I really hope you don't take human concerns and themes idea serious. Howard Hawks was able to jump from movie to movie. Some of those films of his also had human concerns and themes. The fact you could argue that both The Departed and The Aviator has those concerns don't make them identifiable with Scorsese. Like I said before, he doesn't have themes that cross his filmmaking like the stamp of his style does.


Well, as much as I know, Scorsese always tries to improve from the scripts he has. I think a lot of the dialogues and some of the scenes from The Departed were re-written to some extent, mainly concerning Jack Nicholson's character. No doubt those movies were already ready to start production, but I think Marty really had something to say. As for the human concerns, I think Alexandro means that those concerns are very specific and repeat themselves from movie to movie. I mean, I'm not even that fond of The Aviator, but I really see his Howard Hughes as an extension of Travis Bickle and Jake LaMotta - guys who couldn't live with the world around them, and closed themselves from it. And of course The Departed is all about coming from that place where loyalty (to someone, to a lifestyle) and "wanting out" enter in conflict. From Mean Streets (Keitel wants the restaurant, but also wants to leave Little Italy with Johnny's cousin, but can't leave Johnny behind. He pays for it), to GoodFellas (Liotta loves that life, lives on loyalty but in the end has to give it up and leave his world to save himself and become the worst thing in the world - a rat, betraying his boss) to The Departed (Damon is a rat for the mafia, lives on loyalty, but becomes attracted to the lifestyle outside the mafia, so he betrays his boss to leave that situation, but at a price; DiCaprio is a rat for the cops, lives on loyalty, but then gets into conflict about not knowing who to trus/be loyal to, so he wants out. He gets out, but at a price).
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Alexandro on October 10, 2008, 10:38:01 AM
About emotions. Maybe so. But I think a lot of people accuse Kubrick of being cold because he has a distant approach to the situations he presents. And he had a bittersweet worldview that imprinted even the most tragic and painful situations with dark humor. Like saying: "this is the most importnt thing in the world right now, and yet is irrelevant". I find that to be a very truthfull way to experience the world, yet thera are people that find that cynic. On the other hand, without reading the new wave guys exact words, I bet it was all about his style. His "perfect" shots and attention to detail. He embodied everything they were against in "old" cinema. But to me it's like the communist kid in the 60's unable to see beyond his own ideas. Just because he didn't followed their dogma didn't mean he was following the old dogma either. He had a personal vision. Godard and Truffaut also started being very similar, following their little rules, and eventually each one developed his own style. Godard is still changing it.

Scorsese always has a hand in the screenplays of his films, even if he is uncredited. Only The Aviator and The Departed are films that were already in developement before he arrived there, and surely you notice the similarities between Howard Hughes and all the other lead Scorsese characters. I don't think he actively searches for opportunities to develop those themes and ideas, but he does anyway. And from what I've read on him and from him, he makes every film because he finds something interesting to say in them, concerning his personal experiences. That's why he said he can't be really a gun for hire as in the old days, because he wouldn't be able to do exactly that.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Gold Trumpet on October 10, 2008, 11:34:23 AM
Quote from: Alexandro on October 10, 2008, 10:38:01 AM
About emotions. Maybe so. But I think a lot of people accuse Kubrick of being cold because he has a distant approach to the situations he presents. And he had a bittersweet worldview that imprinted even the most tragic and painful situations with dark humor. Like saying: "this is the most importnt thing in the world right now, and yet is irrelevant". I find that to be a very truthfull way to experience the world, yet thera are people that find that cynic. On the other hand, without reading the new wave guys exact words, I bet it was all about his style. His "perfect" shots and attention to detail. He embodied everything they were against in "old" cinema. But to me it's like the communist kid in the 60's unable to see beyond his own ideas. Just because he didn't followed their dogma didn't mean he was following the old dogma either. He had a personal vision. Godard and Truffaut also started being very similar, following their little rules, and eventually each one developed his own style. Godard is still changing it.

I don't understand how Kubrick's attention to detail represents an older cinema. Their main criticism of older cinema (specifically French Cinema) is that the films tried too hard to be bad imitations of literature and feature very few cinematic traits. They weren't just rallying against films of little style exuberance. Eric Rohmer maintained a realtively conservative style through out his career and he was part of their pack.

When they say they felt Kubrick was cold, I believe just that. Look at Barry Lyndon. There are moments in that film that are suppose to be everything from light to tender and even sentimental. Kubrick tries to extend himself to meet the emotional depths of those scenes, but they still come out flat. Kubrick numbs all the scenes.

Quote from: Alexandro on October 10, 2008, 10:38:01 AM
Scorsese always has a hand in the screenplays of his films, even if he is uncredited. Only The Aviator and The Departed are films that were already in developement before he arrived there, and surely you notice the similarities between Howard Hughes and all the other lead Scorsese characters. I don't think he actively searches for opportunities to develop those themes and ideas, but he does anyway. And from what I've read on him and from him, he makes every film because he finds something interesting to say in them, concerning his personal experiences. That's why he said he can't be really a gun for hire as in the old days, because he wouldn't be able to do exactly that.

Even though ElPandaRoyal makes better points, I'll quote you of my conveniance. I see the similarity between Hughes and Bickle, but only in the very loosest sense. Scorsese did continue Bickle with Bringing Out the Dead, but the main importance of Bickle is that the existence of his character has as much to say about societal problems as it does about Bickle himself. The great shock of Taxi Driver is that urban decay was such a back drop it almost became a second character.

I think when filmmakers continue themes and characterizations, they do take notice of those contexts as well. They also take notice of styles and tone of the storytelling. Bringing Out the Dead isn't very similar to the style in Taxi Driver, but it has a similar temperment. The view of urban decay being everywhere is still the main highlight and the film decides on a style that will go against conventional storytelling.

The main thing to say about the Aviator is how classical the storytelling is. Everything looks clean and in order. Even when Hughes is in the depths of his disorder suffering the film still looks cleaner than any inch of the previous two films. In fact the differences are so great that the similarities are only in the general story. You could say that Scorsese was attracted to the project because he saw some familiar grounds in Hughes, but I don't think he did much to make the film a continuation of any themes of his. I think to do that you have keep more similarities going than just general emotions like isolation going.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: SoNowThen on October 10, 2008, 12:23:18 PM
Bringing Out The Dead (the most underrated MASTERPIECE in the Scorsese canon, alongside Gangs Of NY) is similar to Taxi Driver because Paul Schrader wrote both scripts and he is the screenwriter with the most personal style in Hollywood. I suppose it's not for nothing that Marty said, upon reading the book, that only Schrader can do this adaptation... but I don't see it is a continuation of the Bickle cycle. Schrader did that himself with American Gigolo, Light Sleeper, and Walker.

As to what Rivette said: "A Clockwork Orange (1971), a film that I hate, not for cinematic reasons but for moral ones. I remember when it came out, Jacques Demy was so shocked that it made him cry. Kubrick is a machine, a mutant, a Martian. He has no human feeling whatsoever. But it's great when the machine films other machines, as in 2001 (1968)"

I think the example of Hal's death bringing tears to one's eyes proves the point perfectly. The guy is capable of bringing some kind of feeling out of a computer, the same feeling that is generally lacking from his human characters. It may be a point, even a valid one at that, but it still means that Kubrick's domain and strengths do not lie in the subtle interweaving and development of human emotions. He's good at the extremes, whereas a guy like Rohmer couldn't do an extreme if he tried, but shows the subtle everday interplay like no one else. I mean, it just speaks of one filmmaking MO vs another, but I think that is what the new wave guys were reacting to in this case. And yes, GT was right in that when they railed against a kind of "traditional cinema" it was specifically the French commercial industry and their major literary adaptations in the preceeding decades.

Also, you can read what Godard had to say, here (it is actually more balanced than I remembered): http://books.google.ca/books?id=fU78LdDClHUC&pg=PA223&lpg=PA223&dq=Godard+comments+on+Kubrick&source=web&ots=uzzbIbG5m9&sig=A6eUWQnq59B0lUqAWRe4W8utKRg&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: ElPandaRoyal on October 10, 2008, 12:32:13 PM
It's funny because the first time I saw The Aviator, I also thought it kind of looked cleaner than I'd like, but after watching it again, I kind of understood it. The movie is shot (by Robert Richardson) as an old Hollywood big studio extravaganza, and it all looks beautiful. But that contrasts in a very interesting way with the mental degradation of Hughes. In fact, I'd say that scene where he's in the projection room, all naked, watching some movie, the light looks almost too beautiful, as Howard looks his worst. Perfect contrast between camera and character.

I also think that when you take a Travis and a Howard, you can't ask for that much similarity, because the characters come from completely different backgrounds. They are united by disease - they have a pathological need to be away from everybody else - but one is an ex-Vietnam fighter from New York, and the other an overly protected rich kid from Hollywood. But even The Aviator makes social comment, even though to a lesser extent (let's face it, John Logan isn't Schrader, and Scorsese didn't have much time to make adjustments to the script), but it's there. About capitalism, about censorship and in a sense about the decay of values in LA LA land, but it's all covered by that Hollywood gloss. I think the script deals very badly with some moments (yeah, Ava Gardner now wants to help Howard go to court, and he lets her, and cools on being a whacko for a while, just because the movie needs to), but if I enjoy that movie to some extent, it's because of Scorsese's contribution, it's shot like a Scorsese movie, edited like one and, in the smaller, most intimate scenes, Howard Hughes really looks like he's from a Scorsese movie.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Alexandro on October 12, 2008, 11:02:19 AM
style is like handwriting. i still don't know of any of the big filmmakers who are not guilty of becoming apparent with their own style. but the film themselves are different usually. gangs of new york, the aviator and the departed have all of them a very different look and feel. gangs and the aviator are almost opposites, one being clean and the other being filthy.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: MacGuffin on April 15, 2010, 04:29:42 PM
EXCLUSIVE: Robert De Niro Reveals Plans For Two-Part Film Of 'The Irishman' With Scorsese
Soutce: MTV

Earlier this week, MTV's Josh Horowitz had the rare privilege of speaking with screen legend Robert De Niro. The subject for much of the conversation was the Tribeca Film Festival, New York City's annual celebration of film which the actor co-founded in 2002 as a way to aid the recovery of the once-vital neighborhood. Josh did get to probe De Niro with a few questions about upcoming projects. He mentioned one particularly intriguing adaptation he's been working on with Martin Scorsese, called "The Irishman," which could have a unique twist that hearkens back to one of the director's great influences: Federico Fellini.

"It's based on a book called 'I Heard You Paint Houses.' It's a very simple, terrific story about [mobster Frank Sheeran], who supposedly killed [Jimmy] Hoffa and Joe Gallo and so on," De Niro said. The story might be simple, but the plans that the actor is cooking up with Scorsese are anything but.

"We have a more ambitious idea, hopefully, to make it a two-part type of film or two films," he continued. "It's an idea that came about from Eric Roth to combine these movies using the footage from 'Paint Houses' to do another kind of a [film that is] reminiscent of a kind of '8 1/2,' 'La Dolce Vita,' [a] certain kind of biographical, semi-biographical type of Hollywood movie — a director and the actor — based on things Marty and I have experienced and kind of overlapping them."

The two films De Niro references -- "8 1/2" and "La Dolce Vita" -- are works of the late, great auteur, Federico Fellini. The director is known for his unique style, blending reality and fantasy, fact and fiction. Echoes of his influence can be seen in Scorsese's formative work, "Mean Streets," which served up a semi-autobiographical story of Italian-Americans finding their way in mid-20th century New York City. The film also featured a notable early role for De Niro, his first collaboration with the director.

I think "8 1/2" is a big clue here for what we might expect. That film follows a fictional Italian director who is struggling with his latest effort, an elaborate sci-fi production. As he labors to bring his dream together, viewers are taken through a series of flashbacks and fantastical dreamscapes which weave their way into the director's present-day reality; as an added layer, much of the story features autobiographical elements from Fellini's own life.

This is pure speculation, but a Fellinian treatment of "The Irishman" could come in some way address Scorsese and De Niro's long history of collaborations in the telling of the mob assassin's story. Sheeran is not a great stretch for De Niro, who has frequently done wonders in wiseguys roles for Scorsese. So perhaps "The Irishman" will feature some meta elements, taking into account the duo's long history together and weaving it into the based-on-truth tale.

From the sound of things, "The Irishman" is coming along. "Steve Zaillian wrote the first script, which is terrific," De Niro said. "The other part, Eric [Roth] is supposed to do it. And we're hoping to move these things together."
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Gold Trumpet on April 15, 2010, 05:26:23 PM
OK, if I was a contemporary to Martin Scorsese the way Pauline Kael was, I would have also considered Bringing Out the Dead a final straw to him trying to reclaim his old self, but this is one of the most exciting ideas I've heard in a long time. A few years ago Oliver Stone considered making a film similar to this one but he's labored over doing a little so congratulations to Scorsese for pushing ahead with a good idea.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: polkablues on April 15, 2010, 07:29:40 PM
It's been so long since De Niro pushed himself, I'm hoping he still remembers how.  I can imagine a situation in which this would be his swan song, one last great gasp before he fades away from a life of acting.  If he goes from this straight into another damn Fockers sequel, I might cry.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Alexandro on April 21, 2010, 09:22:26 AM
I bet Scorsese makes him shape up. This particular idea certainly sounds more exciting than pretty much every other that has been mentioned as a possible vehicle for any of those two in the last 10 years. They should do it as an indie with no budget, but with the star-director combination I'm sure I'm dreaming, yet it would just feel right to really go back to the roots. They should also star in it together.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: jerome on December 15, 2010, 05:16:54 PM
Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Al Pacino are making a mob movie together
Source: The A.V. Club

Here's some mob movie news with a little more stugots: Robert De Niro has confirmed to MTV that he will indeed reunite with both Martin Scorsese and Joe Pesci on the upcoming The Irishman, and as previously reported, Al Pacino will come along for the ride—and that's actually a delightful play on words, seeing as De Niro is playing Frank Sheeran, who may or may not have had something to do with the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa, not that Jimmy Hoffa "disappeared," or that there was anything out of the ordinary there, we're not saying that. Earlier this week Scorsese announced that The Irishman would be his very next project after finishing Hugo Cabret, with production perhaps starting as early as next year, and things do seem to be moving forward rather quickly. Another frequent Scorsese collaborator, Steve Zaillian, is currently tweaking the script.

Fortunately, De Niro says he's now less sure about attempting the strange, Fellini-inspired meta-textual companion film he'd initially suggested doing with Eric Roth (The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button), which would shoot at the same time and approach The Irishman as a "semi-biographical" exploration of De Niro and Scorsese's relationship. But considering The Irishman itself is already sort of a Five People You Meet In Heaven reunion of everyone who's had an impact on De Niro's life (save Ben Stiller), that seems sort of unnecessary. Just give us one last Goodfellas or Casino and then you can go make all the weird self-reflective stuff you want.

http://www.avclub.com/articles/martin-scorsese-robert-de-niro-joe-pesci-and-al-pa,49132/
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: P Heat on April 27, 2011, 08:53:37 PM
CAME ACROSS THIS.

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11639

great interview with Bob and he talks about i heard you paint houses :yabbse-grin:
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Reel on April 28, 2011, 11:12:02 AM
that's gonna be a classic. really exciting news  :)
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: MacGuffin on November 28, 2011, 08:57:04 AM
Martin Scorsese Says 'The Irishman' Could Shoot Next Year; DiCaprio Wanted for 'Sinatra'
Source: The Film Stage

The release of the wonderful Hugo has us in something of a Martin Scorsese overdrive this week. We've brought you a review of his latest film and two features on it — and that's not even counting news that he would direct an adaptation of Jo Nesbo's mystery novel, The Snowman. That lattermost bit is rather significant; now that he has something else out in theaters, it's time for him to move on to whatever might be next. To me, that's basically as exciting.

And of all the projects Scorsese has been cooking up, the one I'm most desperate to see is probably The Irishman, a mob film that would star a dream cast consisting of Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Harvey Keitel, and Al Pacino. As a result, it's been a little unfortunate that talk of the possible epic has been drowned out by the noise of so many other developments for the filmmaker. There's almost nobody I'd rather talk about than him, but a piqued interest is, almost by definition, something that requires quite a bit to be overcome, and not much else has managed to do that when it comes to him.

Then you can imagine that I'm filled with joy to hear Scorsese comment to MTV that he hopes to get The Irishman made "in the next year or so." What will seem like small words to some is a great relief to myself; I only hope he can cool down a bit on the whole attaching himself to projects phase and get this out when he hopes to.

Scorsese also filled us in on a project that's had an even quieter development, Sinatra. The last news on this film's front came in March when Scott Rudin signed on as producer, which is a good step — but not enough when nothing else has been made public for the better part of a year. His most recent comments, almost as if he were making up for lost time, are quite a handful.

First, Scorsese confirmed what everyone sort of knew: He wants Leonardo DiCaprio to play Frank Sinatra. Now, I've loved almost everything they've worked on together, so I won't object. Some might, but that's their choice. Otherwise, it was noted that Phil Alden Robinson's script is being jettisoned in favor of a new one — they're "staring again with a new script," a process that will begin "in January or February." He couldn't say who's actually doing the new screenplay, so I'm thinking the Sum of All Fears helmer is out of the picture.
The bigger question is now what they'll do with the music. Scorsese's "first instinct" is to use the original recordings instead of having DiCaprio lip synch, since there's "no one that can [sing in his place]," simply because "you wouldn't accept it." The challenge is then shooting it in a way where it isn't obvious — where "you know it isn't him up there, at that moment," while still being "interesting narratively, you buy whatever's happening there."
I think he's got the talent to pull it off.

How about 3D? As he said, "Why not? Open your minds." He isn't joking, by the way.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: wilder on February 22, 2017, 02:18:09 PM
Wow.


Martin Scorsese's 'The Irishman' Is Headed To Netflix
via The Playlist

Given the climate of the film industry, perhaps this was inevitable. Martin Scorsese's next film, the long gestating "The Irishman" is heading to Netflix, in one of the streaming service's biggest power plays.

The project was originally set up for domestic distribution at Paramount, Scorsese's longtime home, for pictures like "Shutter Island," "The Wolf Of Wall Street," and "Silence," with indie upstarts STX acquiring significant foreign rights last summer for $50 million. The project was going to be fully financed by Gaston Pavlovich's Fábrica de Cine, but they recently exited due to the escalating budget, which essentially left any distribution deals up in the air.

Even more, the shakeup at Viacom and the exit of longtime Paramount honcho Brad Grey, left it unclear if Paramount would be able to release the film. Instead, Scorsese and his team, who are moving fast on "The Irishman," put together another package, and Netflix swooped in. "Scorsese's movie is a risky deal," a source told Indiewire's Anne Thompson. "And Paramount is not in the position to take risks. This way, he can make the project he wants."

Part of that risk is the budget of the movie, which is said to be around the $150 million mark, thanks to the cost of "The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button"-esque special effects that will be used to de-age Robert De Niro for portions of the film. There are no other confirmed cast members just yet, but Scorsese and De Niro are still keen on getting a reluctant Joe Pesci, and while Al Pacino, Bobby Cannavale and Harvey Keitel have all been rumored for roles as well, nothing as been confirmed (the latter said last summer he hadn't been asked to join the movie).

Whether Grey left or not, the move to Netflix isn't much of a surprise. Scorsese's "Silence" was an expensive money loser that has only earned $7 million worldwide against its whopping $50 million budget, and even a seemingly sure thing like the "World War Z" sequel with the tantalizing duo of Brad Pitt and David Fincher was living in a not-green-lit limbo — Paramount was hedging its bets.

"The Irishman" has been kicking around since 2008 and centers on a mob hit man who looks back on his career of high profile slayings, with rumored ties to the deaths of President Kennedy and Jimmy Hoffa. Steve Zaillian ("The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo," "The Night Of") adapted the screenplay from the book "I Heard You Paint Houses" by Charles Brandt.

Per usual, Netflix has acquired worldwide rights and is expected to give the film a theatrical release and awards push. Expect a limited run though as Netflix will likely still be using their service as the main method of distribution. No start date is set, but the film is aiming for a 2019 release.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Just Withnail on February 22, 2017, 04:52:14 PM
Wow indeed.

Why Netflix Will Release Martin Scorsese's Next Film
via The Atlantic

A $100 million gangster epic starring Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci has become too risky a proposition for major studios.

Martin Scorsese's next project, The Irishman, is as close as you can get to a box-office guarantee for the famed director. It's a gangster film based on a best-selling book about a mob hitman who claimed to have a part in the legendary disappearance of the union boss Jimmy Hoffa. Robert De Niro is attached to play the hitman, Al Pacino will star as Hoffa, and Scorsese favorites Joe Pesci and Harvey Keitel are also on board. After Scorsese branched into more esoteric territory this year with Silence, a meditative exploration of faith and Catholicism, The Irishman sounds like a highly bankable project—the kind studios love. And yet, the film is going to Netflix, which will bankroll its $100 million budget and distribute it around the world on the company's streaming service.

Netflix's ascension in the world of film distribution has largely been on the margins. Its insistence on releasing movies online the same day they come out in theaters has thus far stopped its projects from being shown in most major cinema chains. The fact that a Scorsese movie—and one this expensive, with a cast this stacked—is opting to go to Netflix rather than one of the major studios is an indication of something seismic. Until now, big directors have avoided the company, afraid it would doom their films to only be seen in people's homes. But with Scorsese aboard, that could begin to change.

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Anne Thompson of Indiewire, who broke the news of the Netflix deal, noted that The Irishman had long been planned as a Paramount Pictures production. Paramount distributed Scorsese's last four movies, three of which were huge hits: Shutter Island ($294 million worldwide), Hugo ($185 million worldwide), and The Wolf of Wall Street ($392 million worldwide). Though all had big budgets, Scorsese's brand recognition is peerless. His name, and the A-list movie stars who work with him, are usually enough to attract audiences, even if the film is a baroque, profane, sexually explicit 3-hour comedy about a sociopathic Wall Street broker.

Yet, Scorsese's most recent effort, Silence, was a bomb. It cost some $40 million to produce and has grossed only $7 million, receiving just one Oscar nomination (Best Cinematography) after its late-December release failed to draw audiences. Paramount arguably botched its roll-out, though the studio was hampered by the crowded slate of awards films (including Arrival and Fences) and by being unsure until late in the season that Silence would even be ready for awards contention. The film itself is an undoubtedly punishing watch and probably would have benefitted from opening ahead of the usual glut of prestige Christmas films.

Though Silence's failure was very specific, it seems to have scared Paramount off. According to Thompson, an industry source put it this way: "Paramount is not in the position to take risks. This way, he can make the project he wants." There's no better indicator of how much the film industry is changing than the fact that a Scorsese gangster film starring De Niro, Pacino, and Pesci seems risky, and Netflix is the safe haven to make the big-budget picture of your dreams. Some of Paramount's upcoming projects might seem, on paper, riskier, such as a sequel to Daddy's Home featuring Mel Gibson; certainly, the chances at awards contention are miniscule. But that is the calculation executives made.

In the world of streaming media, Amazon has so far proven itself far more attractive to big-name directors, because it gives films a proper theatrical release and waits for months before moving them onto its online Prime service for viewers at home. That approach is how Amazon acquired Manchester by the Sea at last year's Sundance film festival and got it a Best Picture nomination, and turned Love & Friendship into one of the surprise indie successes of the year. Netflix, on the other hand, only puts its films in a handful of theaters to qualify them for awards eligibility. It mostly expects viewers to watch movies at home (an approach that has, so far, gotten the company ignored by Oscar voters and beaten to big acquisitions at Sundance and other festivals).

Making The Irishman is on a whole other scale than the small indie films Netflix has worked on so far. Though Thompson reported that the deal will include a "limited Oscar-qualifying release" in theaters, this is an expensive film that will be made for television screens first and foremost. There is a chance that the appeal of Scorsese would be enough to break the embargo big theater chains have imposed on Netflix's releases, but it's unclear if that's something Netflix even wants. After all, the primary purpose of these investments is to draw subscribers, not to make money in cinemas.

Scorsese is not the only big-budget director working with the company. This year, Netflix will release Bright, a $90 million sci-fi cop drama starring Will Smith and Joel Edgerton, set in a world where humans and Orcs co-exist. Directed by David Ayer (Suicide Squad), it also sounds like the kind of film best served on a big screen. The same goes for Bong Joon-ho's Okja; the Korean director's follow-up to the acclaimed Snowpiercer is a "multi-lingual monster movie" that features Tilda Swinton, Steven Yeun, and Jake Gyllenhaal.

Still, it makes sense that these filmmakers would be drawn to Netflix. Ayer's experience on Suicide Squad was one that saw Warner Bros. tinkering with different cuts up to the last minute. Bong fought with The Weinstein Company over the length of Snowpiercer, as the famously intrusive producer Harvey Weinstein tried to make it shorter and more accessible to a wider audience. Scorsese has wrestled with such intrusion for most of his career; Netflix is essentially offering him a blank check, and is the rare studio that couldn't care less about running time. The appeal is obvious, and if other artists follow suit and migrate to streaming companies, the impact on theatergoing culture could be profound.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Alethia on February 25, 2019, 11:10:23 AM
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: wilberfan on February 25, 2019, 08:49:12 PM
Nicely done.  Hope the film is as good as this teaser.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Alethia on February 25, 2019, 09:59:11 PM
Prediction: this will be Scorsese's biggest hit, and will encourage Netflix to engage more thoroughly with the theatrical market.

Am I naive? Maybe. But people WILL pay good money to see something like this in the theater. You can't convince me otherwise (can you?)
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: ©brad on March 08, 2019, 07:53:23 PM
Quote from: wilberfan on February 25, 2019, 08:49:12 PM
Nicely done.  Hope the film is as good as this teaser.

If I ran things all trailers would be this simple -  just text and VO and nothing else.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Drenk on March 09, 2019, 06:41:45 AM
The first pages of this thread were fun to read again.

An answer to eward:

Personally, I think it will be really disappointing; I'm not familiar with the source material but I wonder why Scorsese wants to tell this story, why he needs that much money, and I don't think that it will be a hit. Can a Netflix movie be a hit? I don't even know. Why bother? They needs subscriptions and we'll never know how many people or money it will really make—this is abstract and can, therefore, make that kind of movie possible, but I'm worried that it doesn't also affect their existence. Netflix movies wither away more easily than other movies.

I'm curious as hell, though. Silence wasn't the disaster I expected like most of the "dream projects" are (remember Don Quixote by Gilliam? it was in cinemas in France for a week or two, people've seen it and all) but it was also not as strong as it should have been—as if, yes, it was too late. That director. That cast. That release. It will probably be spectral once the Oscar campaign is done. Or it will be halfway there? à la BlacKkKlansman?
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Gold Trumpet on March 12, 2019, 02:39:36 PM
Quote from: Drenk on March 09, 2019, 06:41:45 AM
The first pages of this thread were fun to read again.

Haha, not as much for me. I needed to calm the fuck down.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Alethia on March 12, 2019, 02:48:09 PM
It is rarely, if ever, advisable for one to go digging through old posts.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Gold Trumpet on March 12, 2019, 05:45:15 PM
Getting back to Scorsese, he's found more willingness to let his films breathe in the last 10 years. Silence could have been slimmed down and Wolf of Wall Street really should have had an editor focused more on trimming. Now, I don't mind he didn't (Wolf is hilarious and crazy all the way through). I imagine Netflix will allow his Scorsese's first cut on The Irishman to be his only cut if he wants it to be.

The question I have, sorta off topic, why can't he revisit Gangs of New York and re-edit that film to make it longer? It is the one film of his that really needs to be fleshed out more (and critics who have seen longer cuts say it is much better).
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Fuzzy Dunlop on March 12, 2019, 10:31:12 PM
Quote from: Gold Trumpet on March 12, 2019, 05:45:15 PM
The question I have, sorta off topic, why can't he revisit Gangs of New York and re-edit that film to make it longer? It is the one film of his that really needs to be fleshed out more (and critics who have seen longer cuts say it is much better).

Maybe a rights issue? Harvey was the one that took the scissors to it in the first place if memory serves. I'm guessing a longer cut does exist but I don't see anyone in the business of re-releasing old Weinstein stuff these days.

Would be cool to have a Criterion extended cut, maybe a version where someone loops over all of Cameron Diaz's dialogue. 
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Alethia on July 29, 2019, 11:28:42 AM
Now slated for opening night at NYFF 57

https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2019/daily/martin-scorseses-the-irishman-will-world-premiere-as-opening-night-of-nyff57/?utm_source=wordfly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2019NYFF57-OpeningNightAnnounced&utm_content=version_A (https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2019/daily/martin-scorseses-the-irishman-will-world-premiere-as-opening-night-of-nyff57/?utm_source=wordfly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2019NYFF57-OpeningNightAnnounced&utm_content=version_A)
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Alethia on July 31, 2019, 07:22:04 AM
Yep this looks awesome

Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Drenk on July 31, 2019, 08:31:58 AM
Baaaaad trailer for such an hyped project. It looks generic as hell. Like some "prestige" TV series trying to imitate Scorsese.

Do they need the Netflix logo? It highens the direct to streaming feel of it all. They didn't add it to the trailer for Roma. EDIT: No logo on YouTube, cool. I watched it on Twitter.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Shughes on July 31, 2019, 10:01:01 AM
This looks ok. But as predicted the de-ageing is distracting as hell. I hope the story is strong enough that this feeling fades away whist watching.

There's nothing more interesting than human expressions, and they can't (successfully) be manipulated by VFX in my opinion. I doubt the effort will even be appreciated in the age of Deepfake. If you have to spend millions on this process then you've cast the wrong actor. If you need an actor to play ages ranging from younger to older aim for the middle and use make up and performance to age/de-age.

Also if the VFX look bad on a laptop screen the problem is only going to be (literally) magnified on the big screen. So maybe Netflix is the right home for this after all.

I know I sound negative but I'm rooting for this film to be a success. Early signs don't look good though.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Alethia on July 31, 2019, 10:06:03 AM
Yeah Deniro's eyes look especially weird in that one reveal shot. We'll see how that all works out. Otherwise though, I find this trailer pretty diggable.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: wilberfan on July 31, 2019, 10:18:42 AM
I'm gonna try dialing down my anticipation for this one.  I've been burned recently.   :yabbse-wink:
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Drenk on July 31, 2019, 10:41:26 AM
"The best special effect is a special effect on the face of an actor." Paul Thomas Anderson
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Something Spanish on July 31, 2019, 11:28:14 AM
fuck this looks incredible, now I have a new movie to obsess about post OUATIH
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Alethia on August 27, 2019, 05:33:46 PM
Netflix Forgoes Wide Release for Martin Scorsese's 'The Irishman'

The streamer and theater owners have been unable to reach a compromise that would allow the star-studded drama to play on thousands of screens across the country.
Not even a Martin Scorsese mob pic could bridge the divide between Netflix and cinema chains.

The streamer will forgo a wide theatrical release for Scorsese's The Irishman in order to make the film available to its subscribers as quickly as possible, a longstanding policy that doesn't fly with exhibitors. There had been rampant speculation that the Oscar-hungry Netflix might further soften its stance in regard to honoring theatrical windows, but in the end, it couldn't reach a compromise with chains including AMC and Cineplex.

The Irishman will open Nov. 1 in select indie cinemas willing to carry the drama. More than three weeks later — or 26 days to be exact — it will debut Nov. 27 on Netflix, much as Alfonso Cuarón's Oscar-nominated Roma did last year. This rules out the sort of big-screen blitz Scorsese and other seasoned directors are used to, unless something changes at the 11th hour. (The Irishman makes its world premiere Sept. 27 at the New York Film Festival, where it's the opening night film.)

Last year, Netflix acknowledged the value of the theatrical experience when announcing that Roma and other Oscar hopefuls would play exclusively in cinemas for two to three weeks before being made available to its subscribers. But that wasn't enough to appease all Oscar voters — or theater chains, which insist on a 90-day window between the time a title opens and is released on home entertainment (for digital sell-through, it can be 74 to 76 days).

When Roma lost the best picture race even while winning best director and best foreign language film, some cited the lack of box office grosses for the snub. According to sources, top Netflix executives and Scorsese himself immediately began a dialogue with theaters to see what could be done for The Irishman, starring Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci and Harvey Keitel.

Scorsese has been nominated for the Oscar for best director eight times, more than any other living director. He's also a proven force at the box office. Hits include The Wolf of Wall Street, which grossed nearly $400 million globally, and the Oscar-winning The Departed ($291 million).

Based on the 2004 book I Heard You Paint Houses by Charles Brandt, The Irishman tells the deathbed story of a mob hit man who claimed to have had a role in the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa.

Earlier this summer, sources say Netflix offered up a 30-day window before talks broke off.

In the weeks just before and after last year's Oscars, some Academy members were debating proposing a rule that would have required a four-week exclusive release for a film to qualify for the industry's highest honors. Ultimately that rule was never proposed, but Netflix's minor expansion of its theatrical window this year suggests the streamer has been willing to inch closer to traditional business models for certain films with awards prospects (Roma's exclusive theatrical window was 23 days).

Last week, AMC CEO Adam Aron said in a statement that talks with Netflix had resumed, but that his company has to be mindful of its studio partners in terms of shortening the window. In the days since, Netflix and AMC weren't able to reach a compromise, according to sources.

Netflix is hardly alone in questioning the validity of the traditional 90-day theatrical window, considering that most films earn the majority of their gross in the first few weeks. And with the rise of other streaming services such as Disney+, the debate is sure to grow louder.

In the meantime, without the support of a chain like AMC, Netflix will continue to be relegated to playing its titles in indie cinemas such as the Landmark, iPic and Laemmle. (Netflix either rents the locations, known as "four walling," or pays generous terms.)

Netflix picked up The Irishman, costing as much as $200 million to produce, after Paramount stepped aside. Scorsese shot the movie on both film and digital and is relying on Industrial Light & Magic to de-age his principal cast for flashback sequences.

The Irishman will play first in cinemas in New York and Los Angeles before expanding into additional markets in the U.S. and the U.K. on Nov. 8. It will further expand on Nov. 15 and Nov. 22, according to Netflix.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Drenk on August 29, 2019, 07:07:10 AM
QuoteA bigger problem that theaters are probably considering is what kind of precedent a deal with Netflix would set for other studios that are entering the streaming space in earnest. If NATO, the governing body for major exhibitors, negotiated with Netflix, then Disney might want the same deal in order to get its movies to the online Disney+ service more quickly. Warner Bros., which is prepping a streaming app called HBO Max, would want in, too, and so on.

Just like that, the movie business would be inexorably changed, with multiplexes existing only to screen films for a few weeks. That could be the beginning of the end for theaters, part of an inevitable slouch toward the cinematic experience taking place exclusively at home. Theaters, of course, still offer the kind of immersive and communal experience that at-home viewing cannot. But it would be risky for NATO to allow a one-month window to become the new norm across the industry.

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/08/netflixs-irishman-wont-be-shown-major-theaters-martin-scorsese/596989/?utm_content=edit-promo&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_term=2019-08-28T17%3A08%3A33
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Sleepless on August 29, 2019, 10:33:34 AM
It'll be interesting to see what solutions are proposed or tested. There's two forces at work here, of course, the theaters business and the awards qualification criteria. Netflix isn't making multiplex blockbusters, they're making mid-budget adult fare - classic awards bait. They want to show their films in theaters not only to appease their filmmakers but to qualify for awards. Disney is a different beast, and you've got to imagine they're happy to milk as much money as they can from their IP - both in theaters, and Disney+, and countless special edition blu ray releases. The theatre model does need to change, but it absolutely can survive. They just need a major shift to satisfy what their customers want. Likewise, maybe awards qualification standards need an overhaul - each studio submits a limited quota of films for consideration, theatrical release be damned, perhaps something similar to how different countries submit for the international Oscar?
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Drenk on September 26, 2019, 06:31:33 AM


It looks...bad.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Alethia on September 26, 2019, 09:34:45 AM
I think it looks like good old Casino-esque fun, gonna try to snag some standby tix at the NYFF screening Saturday, before the Marty talk.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Sleepless on September 26, 2019, 10:47:28 AM
I heard it's long and slow, but that trailer looks good. Just got to get your expectations in the right place.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: jviness02 on September 26, 2019, 05:27:43 PM
Quote from: Drenk on September 26, 2019, 06:31:33 AM


It looks...bad.

The effects or the movie itself? The de-aging is a misfire, but the movie itself looks like typical Scorsese, in the best way possible.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: jenkins on September 26, 2019, 05:31:22 PM
nah it doesn't look like Silence (best possible Scorsese)
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Drenk on September 26, 2019, 05:48:25 PM
It looks like watered down Scorsese. And a really classic and overlong life story of a mob guy. With that extraordinary cast I was imagining something more...urgent.

I wasn't expecting anything else for the effects, I made my peace with it, and it looks less distracting than Gemini Man.

Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Something Spanish on September 26, 2019, 06:34:20 PM
The deaging doesn't bother me, my two cents is it's like when actors get made up to look older but in reverse, the performance is still the De Niro.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Alethia on September 27, 2019, 11:52:03 AM
https://twitter.com/davidlsims/status/1177623950433472512
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: wilberfan on September 27, 2019, 02:22:37 PM
On the other hand,

https://twitter.com/cevangelista413/status/1177620481442287619
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: WorldForgot on September 27, 2019, 03:21:28 PM
https://twitter.com/ZeitchikWaPo/status/1177621746393989121
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Alethia on September 27, 2019, 03:53:17 PM
...Mean Streets?
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: jenkins on September 27, 2019, 06:57:37 PM
earlier i threw down for Silence, bc i cherish that movie, but i don't want to get twisted into sounding as if i won't see this movie. and ill like it, it's just a matter of how ill like it
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: jviness02 on September 27, 2019, 10:15:42 PM
It's getting a lot of love. I'm excited.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: wilberfan on September 27, 2019, 11:37:55 PM
Currently 100% on RottenTomatoes (33 reviews) and 90 on Metacritic.  I didn't realize it had a 3 hour 29 minute run time.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: wilberfan on September 28, 2019, 11:48:30 AM
Wonder what he thought of it?
https://twitter.com/TheDCTVshow/status/1177930880846839808
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Drenk on September 28, 2019, 12:43:55 PM
Has he ever criticized a movie?
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: wilberfan on September 28, 2019, 12:58:58 PM
I was thinking the same thing. Not that I've ever seen...
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: polkablues on September 28, 2019, 04:27:20 PM
I distinctly remember reading something where he did some shitting on the movie "Go," but I can't seem to figure out the magic string of keywords that will make Google find it for me.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Drenk on September 28, 2019, 04:34:20 PM
There was Fight Club. But that was transparently linked to his father cancer.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Fernando on September 29, 2019, 05:36:42 PM
https://twitter.com/robdelaney/status/1178343427064369152
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Alethia on September 30, 2019, 08:24:53 AM
Spoiler: ShowHide

I wasn't expecting this much sadness. Which is not to say there aren't a ton of hilarious moments, because there are (particularly from Pacino, who, along with his small part in Once Upon a Time..., hasn't been this delightful in years). It's about getting old; living with deep regret as your body gradually falls apart, trying feebly to atone for your sins only to find very quickly that it's too late, that your attempts to make amends for those who've suffered due to your selfishness are actually merely a core symptom of said selfishness and there ain't no redemption coming. Living with the regret of betrayal, friendships/family needlessly lost, ... coming to the end of a life with no real wisdom or insight or even basic understanding of why you've done the things that you've done, hurt the people you've hurt, seen the things you've seen, ended up where you've ended up, and suddenly, the world has moved on, all the icons of your life lost to the quicksand of history and no one even remembers their names. This is easily De Niro's best work since...Jesus, what was the last film he was even kinda decent in? Silver Linings Playbook? (Not a fan of that movie, but he had some touching moments.) He has a scene maybe 30 mins from the end where the terrible truth of the situation he is in, that he desperately tried to stop but could not and instead had to put into motion to save his own skin, sees him attempting to feign ignorance/innocence on a phone call to a concerned party and he's so heartbroken and full of self-hatred that he struggles to string together even a basic coherent sentence and it just goes on and on and it hurts like hell.

The film is very sedate. It crawls, it breathes, it naps (lotsa naps), it digresses, it explodes abruptly, it laughs nervously, it blinks in knuckle-headed befuddlement as we wind almost Gump-like through a series of major historical events spanning post-WW2 America. Comparisons to Silence have mostly to do with the pace, the patience of Scorsese's touch. It doesn't have the coke-addled needle-drop kinetic energy of his best-known work. Everyone here seems to be playing against type, while donning ostensibly familiar clothes. Joe Pesci, in particular, quietly stuns. Usually the loud-mouthed psychotic brute, here he's just an old, stately mob boss, his calm and reserve as menacing as the constant threat of Tommy DeVito's explosive violence.

The de-aging effects aren't quite there yet - they're initially jarring, but you quickly grow used to them and it's more or less fine throughout. The performances are so strong across the board that it really doesn't detract/distract in any way.

I am desperate to see this again. There's just so much to take in and I was on about 2 hours of sleep - it's long but I wouldn't cut a frame. My initial impression is that it's kind of perfect, and hopefully a harbinger of things to come - surprising considering how late in the game this has appeared.

Also some very cool mischief going on with the title cards. Scorsese's still a punk.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: ©brad on September 30, 2019, 03:54:33 PM
Quote from: Fernando on September 29, 2019, 05:36:42 PM
https://twitter.com/robdelaney/status/1178343427064369152

God I love him. DeNiro's fire really comes out when he's ripping Trump a new one. 
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Alethia on September 30, 2019, 04:05:52 PM
All my uncles have "disowned" him due to, ahem, problematic politics  :shock:

I'm sure Bobby's really feeling the loss.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Alethia on October 01, 2019, 01:07:14 PM
https://twitter.com/RealGDT/status/1178726048617222146
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: jenkins on October 01, 2019, 01:36:07 PM
it's interesting that the first tweet could easily apply to Gangsters of New York. it could in fact pronouncedly apply to that movie. so this has been a theme in Scorsese's mind, and i imagine this one weaves together lush textures
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: JG on October 05, 2019, 10:15:43 AM
just chiming in to say i had a chance to see this last week and its amazing! this thing is long and much more deliberately-paced than goodfellas or casino or wolf, but it FLIES by. this is an effortless 3.5 hours.

i actually think del toro is spot in discussing deniro's performance, he's very good, but for me Pacino was the standout.  he's amazing and i would be surprised if he doesn't get at least a little bit awards recognition... he seems to slip into middle-age with more ease than deniro or pesci.

the effects are a bit odd but you get comfortable with them very quickly. at a certain point you stop thinking about it.

this movie made me want to re-read libra and re-watch JFK.

for my money, scorsese's last three movies have been a revelation and a real treat!!! can't wait for the xixax fam to get to enjoy this one - i bet you love it!!

Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: wilberfan on November 04, 2019, 11:51:49 AM
This is extremely spoiler-filled, but I highly recommend this Q&A with Spike Jones & Scorsese AFTER you've seen the film.   

https://soundcloud.com/thedirectorscut/the-irishman-with-martin-scorsese-and-spike-lee-episode-224
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Drenk on November 04, 2019, 12:25:18 PM
What's your The Irishman/I've Heard You Paint Houses take? I need some dissent.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Alethia on November 04, 2019, 12:59:29 PM
Quote from: Drenk on November 04, 2019, 12:25:18 PM
What's your The Irishman/I've Heard You Paint Houses take? I need some dissent.

From what I could tell in the shoutbox, his reaction was overall mixed, while erring on the side of positive. But Wilberfan shall speak for himself when he feels ready!
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: wilberfan on November 04, 2019, 01:08:48 PM
Quote from: Drenk on November 04, 2019, 12:25:18 PM
I need some dissent.

Congratulations.  You actually made me LOL.

It's a good film.  Made by a Master Craftsman.  With wonderful performances.  The CGI didn't bother me a whit.  I liked it.

But somewhere around the 2.5 hr mark, when I found that I wasn't completely engrossed for the moment, I found myself searching for a metaphor for what was...missing?....for me?  The image that came to me was of Michaelangelo revealing his 3rd or 4th version of his statue of David.  (To extend the metaphor, maybe this one was David as an older man.)  Beautifully done, very moving...but that sense of "we've seen this before, Mike...".  And while on some level appreciative of this new work, on another level kind of wanting to be dazzled by something...different.  {Not a spoiler, but I must confess I winced when the films opening steadicam shot had a do-wop song going on the soundtrack. "Oh, no....". }

In fact, that's why the last 30 minutes really perked me up.  That was the part of the film that was different.  At least felt new and different to me.

The 3.5 hour run time blazed by for many, but not necessarily for me.  I checked my watch at least twice.  ("Wow.  Really?  Another hour-and-a-half?  Yikes.")  I also amused myself by trying to come up with a DVT-themed tweet.  (You youngsters might have to look up DVT...)

I will certainly watch it again, at home, which I think (hope) will deepen my appreciation for the film--but this initial viewing, while enjoyable, didn't hit as hard as I was hoping it would.  (Those pesky expectations again.)
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: WorldForgot on November 04, 2019, 03:24:31 PM
The "family" elements work better for me here than they do in Raging Bull or Goodfellas, one particular "Peggy" motif kept me in suspense for its entirety. Hadn't expected so much of this film's runtime to include both Pesci and Pacino. In a sense, it carries as much textual weight as Godfather Part I and II, or Soderbergh's Che, just wrapped up in one go-round.

Must have checked my watch around the same scenes Wilberfan did, first time I went out to concessions I found we still had an hour and a half to go -- but that's to the film's benefit. It doesn't waste a scene.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: jenkins on November 05, 2019, 03:51:21 AM
the family elements in raging bull tiiiiiight, one of the tightest elements in a movie without a lot of elements. literally the pinnacle of the movie

i haven't seen goodfellas recently enough to remember if same or etc. this irishman movie can be okay at best for me really. ill be seeing it, im excited
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: jenkins on November 06, 2019, 11:13:56 PM
Quote from: wilderbanIn fact, that's why the last 30 minutes really perked me up.  That was the part of the film that was different.  At least felt new and different to me.

that's cool yeah he kept going

Quote from: WorldForgottextual weight

hundred percent

it's the widest view of the human condition he's yet depicted. i think it's most like Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore in terms of its narrative pitch, and it's the least elegant depiction of gangsterism he's captured by far. it's v contemporary in terms of its wide perspective gazing beyond the glamor. and Scorsese is aged and wiser, and all the actors are killing it

the silence of the daughter. buying a green casket from somebody who doesn't give a fuck about your death. dying forgotten

they really brought it, great job everybody
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: jenkins on November 08, 2019, 11:54:04 PM
QuoteLife's a battle that scars us all, victor and vanquished alike.

that's a line from The Sot-Weed Factor that leads into a specific spoilerific discussion about this movie, Jojo Rabbit, and This Must Be The Place

Spoiler: ShowHide
Frank Sheeran (De Niro) experiences the scars of life through the flow of time and his daughter's reaction to him. in this instance and in other Scorsese movies the flow of time takes with it culturally significant and personally meaningful materials. both the culture and the meaning is being lost in the river of time. Sheeran being unable to establish a relationship of love with his daughter is spurred on not by the passage of time but by history, and actions of his past. in one way he wishes the past was alive, and in other way the past is alive in his daughter who does not forget his worst side

Jojo Rabbit is a satirical fairytale that offers a degree of nazi sympathy to Captain Klenzendorf (Rockwell) which bothers me. i do not know if it was a thematic intention (as in Sorrentino's This Must Be The Place) but the direction here points to the quote that began this post. and that is still nazi sympathy, with the message to not-hate anybody, including people in a terrible position they wish not for themselves. did Frank Sheeran not wish to be in the terrible position he was? does the audience come to despise him the way his daughter did? these are the complexities within a full perspective of who a person was and why
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: samsong on November 13, 2019, 10:52:37 PM
scorsese's the man who shot liberty valance.  stone-cold masterpiece, especially impressive coming off the heels of silence, a film that's only risen in my esteem with each rewatch and further consideration. it's a really great film, and up until now the very best of his recent output.  can't wait to watch it over and over again.  there isn't a filmmaker alive who paces a film better than marty.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: ForTheHungryBoy on November 14, 2019, 04:15:49 PM
Loved this movie, and happy I mentally was prepared for the long run time before going in

Such a beautiful (and bleak) culmination of that certain gangster lifestyle.... The length made it feel almost as though you lived this long slug of a life, where you just sorrowfully fade into black full of regret

Certain edits like Pesci and De Niro talking, then cuts right to the bed full of guns... Classic Scorsese
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: jenkins on November 14, 2019, 04:46:53 PM
Quote from: ForTheHungryBoy on November 14, 2019, 04:15:49 PM
Such a beautiful (and bleak) culmination of that certain gangster lifestyle.... The length made it feel almost as though you lived this long slug of a life, where you just sorrowfully fade into black full of regret

i think you've expressed this in a poignant manner reflective of the movie's appreciable qualities, therefore i appreciate your expression, and it's only that final part which i would like to build a conversation upon in order to further explore a certain dynamic within the movie

Spoiler: ShowHide
when Frank Sheeran speaks with the priest about his gangster history was it not from the priest's own question it may not have been i could be remembering incorrectly, but when that topic is being discussed with the priest Frank's perspective is one detached from the emotional realities of his killings. he says he didn't know the families but once, referring of course to Hoffa. and this is a crucial point here: do you think he regrets, his choices as a person, or the realities of his job? i don't know much about veterans because i'm not one but i know that Frank killed some people in WWII, and is thus acquainted with this perspective. i don't think Scorsese is so basic that he would have that scene unless it could evoke what cannot be seen.

Frank is most def experiencing the fading meaning of a cultural past, an established topic within Scorsese's filmography. and Frank's is a long slug of a gangster's life. but i'm not sure if he experiences regret so much a lack of control over his lack of a relationship with his daughter, which makes him a failure of a father. are his failures as a father more significant than his being a killer? to Frank's own emotional self, yes. so with Hoffa he misses a friend who died on the job
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: jviness02 on November 16, 2019, 05:04:17 PM
Yo this was great! Nothing beats his holy trinity(Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, GoodFellas) but this might be his fourth best film.  Pesci was the standout to me. He was incredible.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Alexandro on November 17, 2019, 10:35:33 AM
Quote from: jenkins on November 14, 2019, 04:46:53 PM
Quote from: ForTheHungryBoy on November 14, 2019, 04:15:49 PM
Such a beautiful (and bleak) culmination of that certain gangster lifestyle.... The length made it feel almost as though you lived this long slug of a life, where you just sorrowfully fade into black full of regret

i think you've expressed this in a poignant manner reflective of the movie's appreciable qualities, therefore i appreciate your expression, and it's only that final part which i would like to build a conversation upon in order to further explore a certain dynamic within the movie

Spoiler: ShowHide
when Frank Sheeran speaks with the priest about his gangster history was it not from the priest's own question it may not have been i could be remembering incorrectly, but when that topic is being discussed with the priest Frank's perspective is one detached from the emotional realities of his killings. he says he didn't know the families but once, referring of course to Hoffa. and this is a crucial point here: do you think he regrets, his choices as a person, or the realities of his job? i don't know much about veterans because i'm not one but i know that Frank killed some people in WWII, and is thus acquainted with this perspective. i don't think Scorsese is so basic that he would have that scene unless it could evoke what cannot be seen.

Frank is most def experiencing the fading meaning of a cultural past, an established topic within Scorsese's filmography. and Frank's is a long slug of a gangster's life. but i'm not sure if he experiences regret so much a lack of control over his lack of a relationship with his daughter, which makes him a failure of a father. are his failures as a father more significant than his being a killer? to Frank's own emotional self, yes. so with Hoffa he misses a friend who died on the job


Spoiler: ShowHide
 I agree he understands his failure as a father but that's as far as he can go into that kind of introspective  thinking. He's not, or at least that how I interpret it, equipped emotionally to grasp the full dimension of what's happening to him. All possible regret expresses itself and barely comes out in his longing for a reencounter with his daughter, but he is unable to let it all out. If it did, it would probably destroy him emotionally. I think the fact that in the end he doesn't get it, and we see his situation more clearly than he does is what makes the ending so devastating and poignant.


All in all, the film is a masterpiece... by far the fastest 200 plus minutes film I've ever seen (and  without being paced with flashy velocity at all). Can't wait to watch it over and over.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Drenk on November 27, 2019, 10:45:21 PM
He's a mumbling sociopath with low IQ. The family stuff is weird: doesn't work at all. When it dwelves into the utter weirdness of his robotic life, especially in the climatic sequence of the movie, I find it interesting, moody, cinematic. The rest? Awkward, déja vu, stiff and kind of dumb.

But there's a full hour that I really like:

Spoiler: ShowHide
From the meeting with Tony to the murder of Hoffa. The denial of Frank, the slow travel, the fact that, ultimately, the act itself is very fast: great stuff.


Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: jenkins on November 27, 2019, 11:45:26 PM
Spoiler: ShowHide
Hoffa and Frank in hotel rooms

Hoffa hating people being late. that meeting they have in Florida. people dressed differently. the side guys being like "let's just calm down." and Hoffa and that guy he had a beef with in prison are like "yeah all i'm doing is being strong."

how different of a man Hoffa is from when we meet him to when he waits 40 minutes

when Frank beats the shit out of the grocery guy who pushed his daughter is that when she began to lack respect for him, was that the same daughter who became quiet, i think so right

other things i'm forgetting

these are parallel threads developing, nuanced human stuff that is so Scorsese


i still think Raging Bull has more pound-for-pound cinema, Taxi Driver is a gold star in the field of depressing people so i actually have to appreciate that really, Last Temptation and Silence are literally spiritual, and Hugo is his most dream filled, but i'm sticking with this being my favorite out of his gangster movies

and it casts a wider portrait of the human condition than Once Upon A Time
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Drenk on November 28, 2019, 12:02:26 AM
Spoiler: ShowHide
The daughter scene at the beginning was...*sighs*. It's supposed to explain everything, to have ripples, but it just feels fake to me. "All right: they're scared of Pa, see? Let's move on." And it's the kind of scene that contains the scene that has to happen three hours later, so when the follow up does happen...well, you knew...And I don't care. Where's the life?
It would have been more interesting if the movie had the courage to admit that this dude doesn't give a shit about his family.


I forgot to write here that, yes, Pacino is fantastic and the best parts of the movie are centered around his character. The Wolf of Wall Street doesn't have a Pacino.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: jenkins on November 28, 2019, 12:43:21 AM
Spoiler: ShowHide
way more tragic that he does care and she closes him off and what about when he visits with his crutches, brutal!

i think that to him it's the greatest loss that came from his job
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Drenk on November 28, 2019, 07:43:59 AM
Spoiler: ShowHide
She closes him off from the beginning, and it's just plot, shots to establish the ending: thirty seconds of a soap opera moment. The movie decides to totally erase his family outside of the necessary exposition, which makes it artifical. The movie being what it is, I would have been more affected if he had simply regretted having neglected his kids at the end: it's harsh, real, and like mobsters would say: "What are you gonna do?" Anyway, not a fan of the last thirty minutes, it's Boyhood for eldery people. And I don't like Boyhood. I don't feel the time at all. The scene where he says to the priest that he doesn't regret anything is interesting, but it's mixed with this artificiel storyline with the daughter. It doesn't take seriously the fact that he knows nothing about his daughters, it prefers putting moral judgment into a Special Kid. It's cheap. It's dead.

It's the best of the mobs flicks, too, because it seems avare of the emptiness of the protagonist—even if you get Hoffa with him—that's just a guy doing his job, you know, everything is easy, even if a little bit weird sometimes when you gotta whack the guy with whom you had all these pajama parties. But the way these movies are build around illustrating facts told through voice over kills almost every scene, it's the cinematic equivalent of a cop file.

By the way, I had a similar feeling when I watched Barry Lyndon regarding voice over/illustration, and I thought that Scorsese must be a big fan of this movie.

That's all very negative, but my impressions come from a place of frustration: I was not bored for a second, and I like thinking about it. The movie also subverts the narration I dislike by entertwining the decisive moment of his life with the moments before the murder.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: jenkins on November 28, 2019, 03:01:05 PM
i think that went well. i'm highkey addicted to soap opera which i call melodrama and consider emotional realism, personally. you know there isn't like a coked-out paranoid looking for helicopters scene, so it's a gangster movie with a wider perspective, and really cinema continues riffing on narrative concepts introduced by Shenmue 1&2
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: ©brad on November 30, 2019, 08:09:45 PM
They couldn't turn one woman in almost 4 goddamn hours into an actual character? Anna Paquin was so silent some scenes with her felt like self-parody. The crowd I was with was literally laughing at how muted she was.

This movie was overall quite delicious and I can't wait to rewatch, but fucking hell Marty/Steve there's no excuse for women in this story to be such a nonfactor. It's such a boring choice.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Drenk on November 30, 2019, 09:00:39 PM
You're supposed to care about The Special Kid representing the moral judgment of the audience. I don't believe that excluding the women is a good way to represent the misogyny of the characters: the moments with Pesci's wife in the car, smoking, or when she reminds him to take his shoes off, are good—but in the first twenty minutes. Is it possible to capture an inadequate family life by not showing it?

I watched Serpico after The Irishman, and Lumet brings so much life to the girlfriends, you feel like you know them in a few minutes, and that's as much a "man" movie as this one.

ItalianAmerican is wonderful, but Scorsese seems unable to capture the energy of his mother in fiction, even when she appears in the movie.

Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: jenkins on December 01, 2019, 01:00:48 AM
i think Sharon Stone plays the most interesting and expansive character in Casino
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Alexandro on December 01, 2019, 11:26:19 AM
Quote from: ©brad on November 30, 2019, 08:09:45 PM
They couldn't turn one woman in almost 4 goddamn hours into an actual character? Anna Paquin was so silent some scenes with her felt like self-parody. The crowd I was with was literally laughing at how muted she was.

This movie was overall quite delicious and I can't wait to rewatch, but fucking hell Marty/Steve there's no excuse for women in this story to be such a nonfactor. It's such a boring choice.

that's the point. he doesn't speak to them, he doesn't know, but more than anything, he doesn't tell us anything about them, he doesn't think they're as worthy  of telling us as his own job and people from the job. this is his point of view. by the time he is dying is too late to be interested.

you can think it's a boring choice, but I think it was the right one and a bold one, precisely because it can get reactions like yours and people laughing, as if it were some kind of accident from the writers. 

anyway, I enjoy the film too much. I was telling a friend the other day, the film is so good is not even worth debating how good it really is or isn't. time will put it in its rightful place.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: samsong on December 01, 2019, 06:50:35 PM
i put this on just to see how it looked in 4k on my tv and ended up watching the whole thing.  flew by faster, resonated deeper, strengthened my resolve that this is among the very best of scorsese's oeuvre.  what a fucking movie, and one i'll likely be revisiting often. 
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Alethia on December 02, 2019, 07:18:53 AM
Fish? Fuck you know about fish?

Never put a fish in your car. That'll help you out in life.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Alethia on December 02, 2019, 05:14:49 PM
Watching "The Irishman" on Netflix Is the Best Way to See It

by Richard Brody

Having seen it both ways, I can attest that "The Irishman," which I first experienced on the big screen, at its New York Film Festival première, is even more satisfying, even more thrilling, when viewed at home on Netflix. The reasons for my preference have to do with the specifics of the artistry and the choices of the director, Martin Scorsese, and also with the emotions and ideas that home viewing left me with. "The Irishman" is three and a half hours long, and, watching it at home, I took breaks for reasons other than banal practicalities: I found myself overwhelmed by feelings and thoughts and sheer beauty, and I often stopped the movie to savor the moment, back up a bit, and watch a scene again. Viewed this way, the movie stretched out closer to five hours—a day very well spent.

One reason for the pausing and the savoring is the majestic intricacy of the tale's construction. "The Irishman" is the story of Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro), who was, around 1950, a Philadelphia-based driver of a refrigerated meat truck for a supermarket chain. While hanging around in a tough-guys' bar, he got inspired to steal sides of beef in order to ingratiate himself with a local gangster (Bobby Cannavale), and was then recruited by a big-time Mob boss, Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci), to do strong-arm work. A series of steps and missteps lead Frank to become a hit man (or, in the code of the trade, a "house painter"—think blood on the walls), and then the bodyguard and right-hand man to the labor leader Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino), who disappeared in 1975 and hasn't been seen since (and Frank has something to say about that). The story (from a script by Steven Zaillian) is told in three ingeniously intertwined movements: the elderly Frank's reminiscences from a nursing home, which give rise to two layers of flashbacks, one centered on a 1975 road trip that he took with Russell, and the other going back to his first meeting with Russell and moving ahead until it catches up with and continues past the 1975 events.

"The Irishman," rather self-evidently, is filled with the subtle and deadly half-tone negotiations and whispered hints on which the bloodily decisive realm of the Mob is formed. The real-life Hoffa (as the movie makes clear) was a major political and cultural figure of the time, the head of the Teamsters union and a crucial player in both gangland politics and the actual practical politics of the day, and the movie's key through line is the inseparability of those two realms. "The Irishman" is a sociopolitical horror story that views much of modern American history as a continuous crime in motion, in which every level of society—from domestic life through local business through big business through national and international politics—is poisoned by graft and bribery, shady deals and dirty money, threats of violence and its gruesome enactment, and the hard-baked impunity that keeps the entire system running.

Yet on a second viewing—and a closeup one—the grim political implications of the story took a back seat to its near-metaphysical ones. Scorsese presents not merely one skein of interlocking scandals but an existential vision of society, the very immoral essence of humankind, looked in the face and wearing suits. "The Irishman" struck me, this time, as the most perversely secular of Scorsese's religious films (or vice versa), as a mighty fresco of temptation and damnation—and, as such, a companion piece to the best of Scorsese's later films, "The Wolf of Wall Street," from 2013. That wild ride, about a financial fraudster's rise, fall, and scaled-down return, ends with one of the most ingenious scenes in the modern cinema, one that turns the movie's themes of greed and desire around to implicate the audience, the public at large, in its consuming frenzy. In "The Irishman," Scorsese does something similar, and he does so by way of a set of gestures that play an exceptional and forcefully significant role in the drama and, above all, by way of a character who, in the sweep of the action, seems diminished by its emphases—yet who, in home viewing, with the power of the proximity to a smaller screen and the power to rewatch, comes devastatingly to the fore.

The gesture is silence—specifically, the silent gaze—and the character is Peggy, one of Frank's four daughters with his first wife, Mary (Aleksa Palladino). Peggy is played as a child by Lucy Gallina and as a teen-ager and an adult by Anna Paquin. Much has been made of the fact that Peggy, who's prominent throughout the film—and whose ultimate rejection of Frank is a wound that he never gets over—has very few lines of dialogue. That's certainly true; the question of what purpose Peggy's (relative) silence serves is something else altogether, and that purpose, that context, and the extraordinary role that Peggy plays in the movie's thematic web struck me when I watched "The Irishman" at home. What's more, the spotlighting of Peggy results from crucial artistic choices made by Scorsese that particularly invite and reward the intimacy and the repetition afforded by a home viewing.

Early in the film, sometime in the late nineteen-fifties, the young Peggy is at the center of a sequence that scars her for life. After she accidentally made a mess in a corner grocery story, the grocer shoved her. Learning of this, Frank takes Peggy by the hand, brings her to the store, and, so that she can see, pushes the grocer through his own glass door and kicks him in the head and repeatedly stomps on his hand, audibly breaking it—on the sidewalk, in front of Peggy and other passersby who look on in mute horror (and it's quite certain that their horror will remain mute, because they know what they'd get for snitching).

Peggy's own sense of horror is manifested, soon thereafter, in her aversion to the cagey and calculating Russell, who's a frequent presence in the Sheeran family (and whose increasingly transparent efforts to ingratiate himself with her grow all the more hopeless). Her sense of principle is displayed in her affinity for Hoffa, who also spends time with the family, and whose public role as a labor leader whose celebrated achievements for Teamsters members (wage increases, pensions, medical benefits) endear him to her (as does his expansive personality). She doesn't talk much—not in Frank's presence, and it's never clear what she has to say when she's not around him. But it's pretty clear what she thinks—and, above all, what she knows.

Peggy not only knows that her father and his associates are violent monsters; she is a sharp observer, who is present at key moments throughout the film and who detects and discerns—even more than do other gangsters, let alone union officials, politicians, and law-enforcement officers—what's being planned behind the scenes and what will ultimately be done with deadly and devastating effect. She isn't just sitting on the sidelines looking frontally but askance at the ruthless and violent people in her midst; she is one of them. No, she's certainly not violent. But she has the same temperament—the same insight, the same steely clarity of observation, the same acumen—as they do. (There's a crucial banquet scene that she dominates without saying a word—she solves it visually, as if it were an equation.)

Her powerfully penetrating gaze, however, isn't alone; it's not in dramatic isolation. Rather, Peggy's silences are merely the counterpart of other silences. The crucial moments of understanding in "The Irishman," the crucial bond of trust between the criminals at its center, are moments of silence—and Peggy's silences are of exactly the same kind, exactly the same caliber, exactly the same level of insight as Frank's and Russell's silences, as well as those of other gangsters whose communications must take place in code and in silence for the purpose of legal deniability. (Even the euphemism of "house painting" suggests the deceptions at the story's core.)

Peggy is aware; she is part of the same regime of power—the regime of silence—as Frank and Russell. Hoffa, by contrast is different—he is the opposite of silent—not only is he a literal speechmaker at the rostrum, he's a running-off-at-the-mouth talker in private, in one-on-ones and "business" meetings. Peggy isn't merely enticed by Hoffa's political rhetoric; she has confidence in him precisely because he's different—because he's a talker. Though Frank tells, in a voluble voice-over and an on-camera narration, the story of his life and his, um, work, the crucial moments between Frank and Russell, the ones in which the hit man gets an assignment, are silences.

It's worth watching "The Irishman" for these silences; seen at home, they resound mightily. One of the moments that forges the bond between Frank and Russell involves Frank's telling of his experiences as a soldier in the Second World War, fighting in Italy; there, too, he explains, a code of silence prevails—and leads to bloody outcomes. The movie's silent gazes—whether the fearful silence that protects criminals whose retaliation would be devastating, or the loyal silence of criminals protecting each other, or the symbolic silence of criminals communicating with each other—are sublime to observe, and they're the mark of Cain.

Peggy's silence, too, is a grim and tainted one, which she finally breaks—briefly, decisively, judgmentally, essentially, prosecutorially, and to devastating effect. Her ultimate rejection and repudiation of her father and his world is more than merely practical—it's a sort of monastic renunciation. Endowed with the same talents, the same smarts, the same audacity as Frank, Peggy chooses the workaday life that he gave up for a life of crime. It's depicted as a life behind glass, cut off from human contact. It's as close to a repudiation of society at large as a functioning member of it can pull off. (For a further mark of the existential drama underlying the political, historical, and familial one of "The Irishman," trace out the obsessive repetition of the line "It's what it is.")

Scorsese clearly knows the power of these silent gazes—and the essential silence of implacable power. He knows their historical role in the history of cinema, and he brings them to the fore, making sure that they register with the viewer. (The movie's editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, Scorsese's longtime collaborator, has brilliantly honed these moments into razor-edged glints.) He does so, above all, in a scene (I won't spoil the specifics) in which Russell orders Frank into a high-stakes and risky mission. The meeting takes place in a motel restaurant, in an early-morning quiet, and, at the decisive moment, Frank, who is staring intently at Russell, flicks his gaze straight into the camera; he does it again a few moments later. The gesture has the same cataclysmic power as the collective look into the camera of the striving and yearning crowd at the end of "The Wolf of Wall Street," except that in "The Irishman" it's not a look of desperate ignorance but of desperate knowledge—and of unfathomable solitude, the closest thing to a spiritual trial of which he's capable.

The telling details that overrun the sweeping narrative of "The Irishman" are all the more conspicuous, all the more thunderous, when watching the movie at home. Scorsese—consciously or not, but nonetheless conspicuously—has composed the film to reward repeated viewings—and, for that matter, to reward the kind of closeup, hands-on intimacy that laptop-watching affords. The movie places enormous weight on visual asides, of a sort that haven't dominated Scorsese's previous work. "The Irishman" isn't a work of television; it's a feature film, but one that, having been made for a studio that's mainly in the business of streaming, derives particular benefits from the streaming experience.

Only Netflix was willing to spend the money that it took to make "The Irishman" as it needed to be made—namely, with elaborate digital technology applied to De Niro, Pesci, and Pacino, so that they could play roles ranging over decades. (Scorsese is one of the great digital artists of the time; this film, no less than "The Wolf of Wall Street," depends on digital technology and uses it more audaciously than anyone else does.) The decision does more than make sense; it's definitive. The movie is populated by actors who, like the protagonists, are marked by the selfsame moments in history, the identical forces, the same tones and moods as the ones that it dramatizes; it turns the movie into a virtual documentary. "The Irishman" is a film of fear, of terror. It's not merely a fear of the deadly threats of ruthless criminals but, rather, a fear that, by functioning and being shaped by a world dominated by such criminals, we are inescapably sharing in their sin. It's a movie made by a filmmaker who fears not only for society, not only for humanity—but also for his soul.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/watching-the-irishman-on-netflix-is-the-best-way-to-see-it (https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/watching-the-irishman-on-netflix-is-the-best-way-to-see-it)

Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: jenkins on December 02, 2019, 05:27:53 PM
people are so funny
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Alethia on December 05, 2019, 09:57:55 AM
 :yabbse-smiley:
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: jviness02 on December 05, 2019, 03:17:35 PM
Quote from: ©brad on November 30, 2019, 08:09:45 PM
They couldn't turn one woman in almost 4 goddamn hours into an actual character? Anna Paquin was so silent some scenes with her felt like self-parody. The crowd I was with was literally laughing at how muted she was.

This movie was overall quite delicious and I can't wait to rewatch, but fucking hell Marty/Steve there's no excuse for women in this story to be such a nonfactor. It's such a boring choice.

As others have mentioned, that's the whole point. Also, to act like it's "self-parody" isn't exactly an honest way of looking at human behavior. My sister was exactly like this to the extreme of staring and not saying a single word to my father after we discovered he was having an affair. I literally sat next to her on his birthday one year where she would talk to me and feed my niece and say nothing to him. Awkward, but it can happen.

I find it humorous and quite on point that the film is essentially framed as an old man's ramblings. We have an unreliable narrator which makes the whole "Forest Gump in American Organized Crime" feeling of the story easier to digest.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Alethia on December 12, 2019, 08:49:46 PM
Indiewire Headline: Disney CEO Bob Iger Arranging Meeting With Scorsese After 'Nasty' Marvel Comments
If you thought the battle between Scorsese and Marvel was over, you thought wrong.

https://www.indiewire.com/2019/12/disney-ceo-bob-iger-meeting-scorsese-mcu-diss-1202196911/ (https://www.indiewire.com/2019/12/disney-ceo-bob-iger-meeting-scorsese-mcu-diss-1202196911/)

Marty better wear fuckin shorts and be AT LEAST 15 minutes late to this meeting.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: ©brad on December 13, 2019, 11:06:34 AM
Quote from: eward on December 12, 2019, 08:49:46 PM
Indiewire Headline: Disney CEO Bob Iger Arranging Meeting With Scorsese After 'Nasty' Marvel Comments
If you thought the battle between Scorsese and Marvel was over, you thought wrong.

https://www.indiewire.com/2019/12/disney-ceo-bob-iger-meeting-scorsese-mcu-diss-1202196911/ (https://www.indiewire.com/2019/12/disney-ceo-bob-iger-meeting-scorsese-mcu-diss-1202196911/)

Marty better wear fuckin shorts and be AT LEAST 15 minutes late to this meeting.

WORLD: Thank christ this "feud" has finally been click baited to death-

BOB IGER: Hold my beer... 
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Axolotl on December 13, 2019, 12:28:08 PM
Quote from: ©brad on December 13, 2019, 11:06:34 AM
Quote from: eward on December 12, 2019, 08:49:46 PM
Indiewire Headline: Disney CEO Bob Iger Arranging Meeting With Scorsese After 'Nasty' Marvel Comments
If you thought the battle between Scorsese and Marvel was over, you thought wrong.

https://www.indiewire.com/2019/12/disney-ceo-bob-iger-meeting-scorsese-mcu-diss-1202196911/ (https://www.indiewire.com/2019/12/disney-ceo-bob-iger-meeting-scorsese-mcu-diss-1202196911/)

Marty better wear fuckin shorts and be AT LEAST 15 minutes late to this meeting.

WORLD: Thank christ this "feud" has finally been click baited to death-

BOB IGER: Hold my beer...
Goodfellas (1990)
"With Marty being made it was like we were all being made. We would now have one of our own as a member"
...
...
Marty: "Oh no..." *Bang* *Bang*
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Fuzzy Dunlop on December 14, 2019, 12:13:27 AM
Have y'all read this? Maybe there's a better thread but it does touch on the Scorsese thing.

https://gen.medium.com/the-decade-comic-book-nerds-became-our-cultural-overlords-f219b732a660 (https://gen.medium.com/the-decade-comic-book-nerds-became-our-cultural-overlords-f219b732a660)

Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on December 18, 2019, 06:09:35 PM
I neglected to chime in on this, but I think I loved it. For a movie that's supposedly "slow," I found it very propulsive and engaging. Stayed up late because I just could not stop watching it.

And I greatly admire how Scorsese (of all people) was able to strip the glamour away from this lifestyle and give us a clear, ultra-sober view of its consequences.

Speaking of which—the daughter character worked for me. I don't find the portrayal to be misogynist, and I also don't feel it engages much at all with the potential misogyny of the male characters. Scorsese is going for something else. This practice of counting lines vastly undersells what an actor can do with very few words. The daughter is a lot like Sharon Tate in OUATIH. She's kind of the soul of the film. She gets a lot done with her searing presence alone. This character is maybe half as effective as Sharon Tate was for me, but I think that's what Scorsese was going for.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on December 22, 2019, 02:51:35 PM
...
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: ©brad on December 23, 2019, 07:04:44 AM
Surely there's more to that quote...
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: jviness02 on December 24, 2019, 12:15:18 PM
Quote from: ©brad on December 23, 2019, 07:04:44 AM
Surely there's more to that quote...

It's not a real quote. It's a joke.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: ©brad on December 24, 2019, 07:36:42 PM
Oooooh. Carry on then.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: WorldForgot on December 27, 2019, 07:37:07 PM
Not trying to fuel the fire in favor of DeepFakes  (I think it's obvious there's more nuance to the film's effect work) -- sharing because it's making the rounds

https://youtu.be/dyRvbFhknRc
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Drenk on December 27, 2019, 08:28:37 PM
The de-aging just doesn't work with De Niro. His face is just old, you know. He looks fifty throughout the movie. The eyes don't help...
But with Pacino and Pesci (the two Ps), it's all right. Generally, they seem to go from old to very old, without much nuances—I'm not sure it was worth as much millions...
Especially when you got a scene on a roof with awful effects.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on December 27, 2019, 09:35:48 PM
Yeah, no, the deepfake version just looks too smooth and blurry. I doubt that would hold up at a high resolution.

I think the major issue with The Irishman's de-aging is that the actors don't really move around or carry themselves like younger men. (Not that it actually bothered me, really.)
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: jviness02 on January 06, 2020, 12:42:30 AM
According to the script, Pesci is supposed to be almost 50 in his first scene. He and Pacino are fine, maybe a bit older, but overall, fine. DeNiro definitely looks too old the first section of the film, but it doesn't ruin the film for me. It's not much different to me than Ray Liotta playing 21 in GoodFellas for a portion of the film and DeNiro playing 28 at the beginning of GoodFellas. You just kinda go with it.
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: wilberfan on January 16, 2020, 07:53:10 PM
Terry Gross did her thing with Marty this week: 

https://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/2020/01/15/796590006/fresh-air-for-jan-15-2020-martin-scorsese?showDate=2020-01-15 (https://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/2020/01/15/796590006/fresh-air-for-jan-15-2020-martin-scorsese?showDate=2020-01-15)
Title: Re: I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman
Post by: wilberfan on November 26, 2020, 11:50:19 PM
https://youtu.be/WuhBT1GShi4