The portentous screening of “The Irishman” at the world’s most famous movie palace, Hollywood Blvd.’s capacious TCL Chinese Theatre, part of the American Film Institute’s annual film festival, was preceded by an in person interview with one of the world’s greatest living directors, Martin Scorsese. Clips from his half century oeuvre were screened, reminding us of the cinematic realms Scorsese has unspooled, and his personal appearance was punctuated by sincere, enthusiastic applause.
Interestingly, if I heard correctly, the loudest clapping was when Scorsese was lauded as a foremost film preservation advocate – but then again, what would you expect from a film festival audience packed with fervent cineastes like moi?
Scorsese’s latest is a sweeping endless epic reminiscent of some of Bernardo Bertolucci’s historical films. Among other things, Scorsese – who is in his mid-70s now – has created a rumination on aging, and at about four hours-long you’ll feel as if you’ve aged after sitting through this sprawling saga. In “The Irishman,” Scorsese has returned to the organized crime genre he paid homage to in 1990’s “Goodfellas”, 1995’s “Casino” and I guess his early 1973 Little Italy-set feature, “Mean Streets”.
In doing so, Scorsese has reunited with some of his “stock” players over the decades, including Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Harvey Keitel (in a small role). For the first time ever, Scorsese has cast “Godfather” co-star Al Pacino in a movie and the great New Zealander actress Anna Paquin, who won an Oscar as a child for 1993’s “The Piano” (opposite Keitel).
In “The Irishman,” Scorsese looks at American history through the lens of the mob and the Teamsters union, which had allegedly been mobbed-up. In addition to class struggle, the epic follows the course of events in the USA from the late 1940s or 1950s for around 30 years or so and we get a Mafioso-eye view of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the JFK administration, including Attorney General Bobby Kennedy’s war on organized crime, followed by his brother’s assassination, and more. It’s a period piece, complete with references to Jerry Vale (Steve Van Zandt is cleverly cast as the crooner) and “insult comic” Don Rickles (Jim Norton).
In a bravura performance, Pacino plays Teamster president Jimmy Hoffa (previously portrayed by Sylvester Stallone and Jack Nicholson), who I guess could be called the “Godfather of working class heroes.” “The Irishman” seems to suggest that the mafia and Teamsters were somehow involved in these major historic events, with De Niro as the title character, who rises from racketeer to union local president, at the center of it all. His Frank Sheeran is under the tutelage of Pesci as mob boss Russell Bufalino, who unlike the memorable manic mobster he portrayed in “Goodfellas,” tries to run things more by brains than brawn here.
There is a competition between Bufalino and Hoffa, who Pacino cannily plays as a hubristic Icarus-like figure who flew too close to the sun, courting disaster, from RFK’s Justice Department to the mob. Bufalino and Hoffa compete for Frank’s loyalty and strangely for the affection of his daughter Peggy, played as a little girl by Lucy Gallina and as a young woman by Paquin. Throughout the years, Peggy always prefers Hoffa to Bufalino, which may play a role in The Irishman’s denouement.
I enjoyed this epic three quarters of the way through but I could have lived without the final hour or so, which basically deals with growing old. To be fair, it is very truthful – if not dramatic or eventful. Will Frank fall off his walker? And so on. I guess this is what happens when you’re a superstar helmer and presumably get final cut. After sitting through four hours you might feel as if you’ve just endured “mean seats” – but the first 75% of the maestro’s “The Irishman” is well worth the effort for lovers of near-great (if way too overblown and long) moviemaking.
For more info: http://www.afi.com/afifest/.
Ed Rampell is a film historian and critic based in Los Angeles. Rampell is the author of “Progressive Hollywood, A People’s Film History of the United States” and he co-authored “The Hawaii Movie and Television Book,” now in its third edition. This review originally appeared at HollywoodProgressive.com.
From The Progressive Populist, December 15, 2019
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