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I Heard You Paint Houses/ The Irishman

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MacGuffin:
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.

Alexandro:
I love the title. Hope it happens but damn, what about Silence?

Gold Trumpet:

--- Quote from: Alexandro on October 02, 2008, 02:20:02 PM ---I love the title. Hope it happens but damn, what about Silence?

--- End quote ---

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.

Alexandro:
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...

Gold Trumpet:

--- 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.

--- End quote ---

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.

--- End quote ---

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.

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