THE IRISHMAN, A Martin Scorsese Picture with de Niro, Pacino, Pesci, Keitel

was not aware that joe pesci was close with Jimmy Scott... and that they cut some shortly-before-scott-died duets together where pesci held his own!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwyTikxUW0Y

Let me put it this way: something that I’ve been working on over the years is with narrative. On certain films I’m locked into a narrative – I used to say plot, but it’s more than plot, it’s narrative. But I’ve been trying to break free of it, and tell stories in a different way, and I found that the documentaries helped me with that.

Rolling Thunder; the George Harrison one, Living in the Material World [2011]; Public Speaking [2010], about [author] Fran Lebowitz. They helped me go by tone – where the inspiration comes from takes us to another story, or to another place – and it’s more spatial than time....

In The Irishman – and in Silence too – you use little mini-dissolves within a scene. That’s because there are bits of two different takes that you wanted?

Yeah. Just pragmatic. But it *works*.

It’s a technique from documentary, isn’t it? You notice, but you don’t mind.

Exactly, and that’s what I was trying to get to. I enjoy doing that now particularly from the documentaries. Sometimes you find yourself unnecessarily locked into a form: “Oh, you can’t go from here to there.” Well, you know what? Let’s just do it. And we’ll *know* if it’s disruptive. We’ll feel it. Let’s break the form.

Really, this film is pretty straightforward in that way, but – well, it’s all throughout the picture, too, there are moments like that. I’ve been trying to *fight* that form and “It isn’t *done* that way!” Well, maybe it should be.

it was completely obvious that was what he was going for, and it was one of the more awkward threads in the movie

the AP bits, I mean

I really like that about narrative - it comes through

i think some of the perceptions of sheeran's character not changing might unfortunately derive from deniro not being a very good actor any more

finished last night. Whether Sheeran comes through transformed at the end seems open-ended to me. It's clear he deeply regrets alienating Peggy, but he still can't bring himself to talk openly about his life per his final convos with the FBI guys and his other daughter.

MS does not center on a protagonist who "doesn't change" unless it's a satire. This is not a satire.

maybe we should take this to some other thread, but in "Silence" the final shot w the crucifix... I don't think that's a satire.

he still changes

also "changing" is well short of the "transforming" bar

perceptions of sheeran's character not changing might unfortunately derive from deniro not being a very good actor any more

you're wrong. he clearly knows he fucked up, it's even in the dialogue and voiceover.

was thinking back over the pacing and structure of this, what felt unnecessary etc. Initially thought the whole Joey Gallo subplot was self-contained and superfluous but then realized the whole point of that sequence is its ending ie Peggy wordlessly glowering at him over the TV coverage. The more leisurely sequences worked best - the long road trip to Detroit, the final post-Hoffa 30-minutes.

his face when the gallo hit comes up and her reaction to him is a pivotal moment in the film imo.

was thinking back over the pacing and structure of this, what felt unnecessary etc. Initially thought the whole Joey Gallo subplot was self-contained and superfluous but then realized the whole point of that sequence is its ending ie Peggy wordlessly glowering at him over the TV coverage.

Sheeran narrated it hoping Dylan would write a song iirc

i just enjoyed seeing comedian sebastian maniscalco shot

perceptions of sheeran's character not changing might unfortunately derive from deniro not being a very good actor any more

you're wrong. he clearly knows he fucked up, it's even in the dialogue and voiceover.

― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Thursday, December 5, 2019 12:56 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

i'm not sure what i'm wrong about, that people perceive sheeran's character as not changing (which is seen in this thread) or that deniro is not a very good actor anymore (which isn't contradicted by dialogue and voiceover)

i just learned from the best show that sheeran is supposed to be 26 years old in the first flashback with the truck LOL

the more i think about it the more awful the de-aging is. we will probably look back at it and it will look like the cgi in lord of the rings looks now, hokey as hell. the fact that the also used cgi for BREAKING FUCKING GLASS was pretty egregious

I didn't mind it b/c I saw the de-aging as another example of Sheeran as unreliable narrator.

lol come on

man morbs you know i find your takes on movies so often helpful and thoughtprovoking, but don't you think it might better facilitate converstion to type "i read that scene differently," or "that's interesting but it isn't how it landed with me," instead of "wrong" and "you're wrong"?

cgi in lord of the rings looks now, hokey as hell.

think most of this still looks p good tbh

this was more like Benjamin Button

also lol how did I miss that Joey Gallo was Dylan's "Joey" omg

That explains why he was so frail and slow in his youth

and yeah i actually really like the take that the uncanny de-aging effect is really appropriate for a tale told by an old man about his own life. it could be bogus, but it makes me get something extra out of the movie. certainly it would be SOME kind of artistic justification not to just cast a younger actor (like when that one guy whose name I forget played Marlon Brando's younger self in that other mafia movie). now if scorsese uses it again in some other movie where that doesn't apply, that might fall apart a little.

I can't see this process being used in a similar way ever again, frankly

now i'm kind of amazed at marty's restraint in not fitting a rambunctious live version of "Joey" into the soundtrack. or having de-aged Dylan show up to croon it at Frank's honorary dinner.

Lol DC

no regrets coyote

rolling thunder era dylan face, makeup and hat

"must be santa" era dylan voice and facial hair

joooooooo-ey

and as a result, in a tarantino-esque twisted-history ending, hoffa does himself in

Shoots himself in the back of the head so it will look like foul play, forever trolling his survivors

Joe Pesci in rolling thunder era dylan face, makeup and hat would look like Robert Blake in Lost Highway.

He kinda looked like an aging Hamburglar as it was

Doc C, it's NA.

Anyway, can't say I've seen deNiro better in 30 years.

Soderbergh used de-aging on Matt Damon in the Liberace film, right?

deniro better in : heat, casino, jackie brown

and

analyze that

I know when I think about my own younger years, I look to myself like a video game NPC whose face never moves.

oh i and was wrong he's supposed to be 24, not 26, in the earliest flashback

Don't people from Philly come out the womb looking 40

jiv, he's good in JB and Casino (Heat went in my memory dump). This is by far a tougher role, very little volatility or big emotions.

sheeran is supposed to be 26 years old in the first flashback with the truck LOL

Alfred Hitchcock ("I call those people The Plausibles") to thread

stay away from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance i guess

Don't people from Philly come out the womb looking 40

― master of nuggets (Neanderthal),

https://i0.wp.com/www.nationalreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/dem-debate-112019-40.jpg?fit=789%2C460&ssl=1

Lol touche

feel responsible for this change argument cuz i glossed dc's "tragedy" remark as meaning "unchanging characters", which was bad. "what kind of man makes a call like that?" is as much as to ask "what kind of man am i?" but then since the answer is right there (the kind who makes a call like that) maybe he does understand (see) himself at the end-- that is, learn something. this is a kind of change. however i do think the movie believes character is destiny, which is also why it works that its image of aging is of fully human faces emerging over decades from beneath layers of mask.

oh he said "nobody changes" too actually, whatever

understanding certainly feels like a change but you are still the same suspended quantum string ykno?

since its idea of damning yourself is about surrendering the will-- to orders and jargon (the orwellian pairing)-- it is a particularly cruel universe the movie makes for us in which we never see him be any other person than this one, unless you count the one who wonders if he has been this one. but the priest does offer him redemption of the will (redemption rendered impressively precise and mechanical-- "seeing yourself" as the last action available to take for yourself) and at the end the door is literally open to it, so i suppose it is a catholic movie and not a tragedy.

what if you believe people never change -- instead, people discover or suppress virtues/flaws?

then there is the nietzschean nurse, who's gonna have to put him through all of this again. is self-knowledge the first step out of recurrence? idk xp2self

Saw this a second time for something I'm working on--would not have otherwise. Nothing much to add to what I posted above: it's good, and it's also careful and kind of forgettable. I did confirm something that I noticed the first time and forgot to check: Hoffa's wife is played by Welker White, Lois the babysitter in Goodfellas.

oh word? very cool

Yea i recognized her immediately. Made me happy

forgettable? no, that's HEAT.