Silence in The Irishman (2019): Is Anybody Listening?
By Kia Khalili Pir
This review contains minor spoilers
It is probably since the ’70s, when young filmmakers like Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Martin Scorsese, Joe Pesci, and Harvey Keitel formed and shaped the New Hollywood wave that people have been wanting to see them working all together. “Could you imagine if they all did a gangster movie together?” And everybody starts foaming at the mouth.
But nothing happened. De Niro and Pacino did work together on a couple of great films, but never with Scorsese—who started making movies with Di Caprio. Pesci went into self-imposed exile, and Harvey Keitel was first Mr. White and then, Wolf. And that was that.
In 2004, Robert De Niro is given the book I Heard You Paint Houses (2004) by Charles Brandt, and falls in love with it. It is the story of convicted mafia hitman and occasional labour union official Frank Sheeran, based on a series of interviews with the latter. De Niro approaches Scorsese, who is immediately impressed with De Niro’s interest with and attachment to the figure of Sheeran, and a movie based on the book gets underway in 2007.
The homonymous movie, I Heard You Paint Houses, spent eleven years in development hell. By the time Netflix acquired the rights, Scorsese, still set on using De Niro, Pacino, and Pesci for all the decades covered in the film—instead of younger actors—opted to use de-aging technology for most of the movie. It was a new step for the director and cinema together, since nobody had used this technology to this extent for a dramatic movie before, and quickly skyrocketed the budget to about $150 million—making it Scorsese’s most expensive movie to date.
In November 2019, the movie, now re-titled The Irishman to make it more commercial, comes out. It is a three hours and twenty minutes mastodontic gangster drama covering Frank Sheeran’s life from the 1950s, when he first started working for mob boss Russell Bufalino (Pesci), all the way to the early 2000s. It is here when the movie opens, showing us a decrepit and alone Sheeran talking directly to the camera about the time after he came back from World War II and started ‘painting houses’ for the Mafia, when he drove Russell to his niece’s wedding. From there the film shifts seamlessly through the Irishman’s memory, waltzing from one decade to the other, lingering fastidiously on the time and the relationships he built with Russell and Teamster union leader Jimmy Hoffa (Pacino)—on the crimes, and the punishments.
On screen, it is the quietest movie by Scorsese, but the scope and reach are huge.
The Irishman sees Scorsese at his most restrained after his previous effort, Silence (2016): gone are most of his long, easily recognizable one-takes, the expressionistic use of light, and most of the camera sweeps, jibbing across the room—save for a few courtroom scenes when the point of view of the story changes briefly to another character, like Hoffa or lawyer Bill Bufalino. There are those very distracting subtitles telling the audience when and how this or that mob guy was killed, but they did serve the purpose of not glamorizing the characters and the life-styles portrayed. So it is what it is, I guess.
Rodrigo Prieto, the Director of Photography, said that this decision to make the shots as minimalist and clean as possible was to reflect Frank Sheeran’s perspective. Sheeran, the filmmakers believe, was a soldier who after coming back from the war found for himself a new one to keep on killing in. Thus, the shots had to look methodical, cold, and efficient—like a slow pan from one character to Frank walking to him, following Frank stopping in front of the man and shooting him twice in the face at point blank. The end. The camera behaves like Frank’s matter-of-fact thought process. This thought process then governs all aspects of the movie, starting from the narration at the beginning, which very smartly tells us that what we are going to see is not a historical truth, but the memories of a man. Even the various time periods reflect this, having the earlier periods like the ‘50s and ‘60s look like “home movies”—as Scorsese had instructed. As we then move towards the later decades in Frank’s life, and consequences of his actions take a toll on his life and the lives of the people around him, color is literally drained from the film. By the end, we feel Frank’s loneliness and old age; the sense that he belongs to a different era and that his life has reached a very unhappy zenith permeates the screen.
According to Thelma Schoonmaker, Scorsese’s historical and legendary editor, the film was intended to be quiet. Scorsese abhors explaining too much to the audience and did not want the movie to feel like a documentary about a mob killer. It had to be subjective without being hyperkinetic in its expressionism—a quiet naturalistic realism, if you can call it that. The editing thus tends to be subdued and almost invisible, reminiscent of Classic Hollywood period, though there were a few, rare, jarring moments—not uncommon for a Scorsese film—that were seemingly meant to call attention to themselves, though typically for all the wrong reasons, as it took me out of the movie.
Costume Designer Sandy Powell and Co-Designer Christopher Peterson had the task to dress the characters naturally and anonymously, but while still maintaining each person’s uniqueness. The characters of the movie should feel like people you could meet every day, but somehow stick to your head. Eugene Gearty, the sound mixer and editor said that the movie was “all about intimacy.” This unobtrusive, subdued approach proved advantageous for sound because it made the violent moments of the film, especially the bangs of the guns, so much more noticeable. Nonetheless, sound is kept to a minimum in most of the movie, and lots of the scenes seem to have nothing more than the quiet room-tone as background noise.
Scorsese did this for the movie and for himself, and that’s one of the many beauties of this film. The director’s vision neither overpowers the narrative nor disappears in it like in those recent Spielberg films custom-made to make money—instead vision and story compliment each other. Scorsese found something to say about himself in the tale of Sheeran; that’s why the movie never fails to feel devoted and personal.
In the last thirty minutes of the film, I could not help but think that Sheeran’s last years on screen was Scorsese’s own meditation on old age. He captured it with a quiet, mature, and compassionate eye that never fell into sentimentalities, drawing out the ending almost to the point of annoyance. Some critics have lamented the imposing length of the movie, David Rooney calling it: “excessive and ultimately [its] weakness,” but I believe it is exactly at the end that Scorsese reaches the conclusion of his argument: how life makes us inevitably frail and alone. It might be due to being a Mafia hitman or what you did when you were younger. But then again, old age happens to everyone, so as Frank Sheeran struggles to walk because his body is failing him, so will we one day. It is inevitable, but mostly it is impartial by nature.
The film is not perfect, and for fans of Scorsese’s previous efforts like Goodfellas (1990) and Casino (1995), the structure and plot will most likely feel familiar. Steven Zaillian’s script is without a doubt an immense feat but far from being extraordinary and new. All the actors did a great job, but I was more in love with De Niro, Pacino, and Pesci, than the characters they portrayed. Stephen Graham was top notch as well, but I could not help but see Al Capone from “Boardwalk Empire” every time he was on screen. And the de-aging technology? Did it work? Yes and no: if one pays close attention to it, then yes, it is noticeable, but never distracting. On the small screen it is virtually unnoticeable. The length of the film as well, maybe was not the smartest business move.
But fuggedaboutit!
The Irishman finally sees the kings of gangster films meeting under one of the greatest American movie directors of all time, answering millions of fans’ prayers (it surely answered mine), and making a statement regarding today’s cinema. While watching it, one cannot help but feel like they are witnessing something great happening on screen. Something that everyone involved in the project keeps on promising will be a one-time thing. As Scorsese said: “We wanted to make a movie that ultimately added to a life.” To me, this was a film that most closely resembled a grand epic novel since The Godfather (1972). The result? A quiet, flawed opus like no others in this genre, a meditation on the consequences of one’s actions, loyalty, betrayal, and male friendship. And it is only in the silences that one can hope to find some answers to the questions that our lives pose us.
Lastly, some people have been calling this movie the last, great gangster film, both because it is highly unlikely Scorsese will make another one in this genre, but also because of the whole scope of the project: a subdued drama of such grotesque length, so detached from the fast, easily-consumable movies of today is impossible to be funded by major studios anymore. The Irishman is the last balustrade of a different era of filmmaking closer to the creative verve of the New Hollywood than of this period—which so often has critics reaching for that melodramatic “Death of Cinema!”
While I agree that the film’s ridiculous length and its lack of Thanos will make it difficult for some people to get excited by the movie—I can see my father changing to (the great) Mission Impossible 5 after ten minutes—I don’t believe in the death of cinema. Changes in the instruments and the venues of screening are inevitable, but entertainment and art are core components of the human consortium and will withstand such changes if affected. Change does not imply the demise of the medium, but a desire to improve upon it.
Unless, that is, you are nostalgic. But sitting down in that dark room, surrounded by strangers, and watching a singular vision on screen? No, I don’t see anyone killing that any time soon. Actually, watching The Irishman gave me hope for the future, it reminded me how people are still willing to sit down for three and a half hours and watch a film. And if you don’t believe me, just go to the cinema this weekend, pick a movie you would like to watch, and see for yourself.
Kia Khalili Pir was born in Verona, Italy, and does his best to be a good writer and film director. He is a trained classicist who graduated from the King’s College of London and now resides in the Old Smoke. Apart from movies, he enjoys chess, boxing, and getting angry at modern technology.
