It is not unusual for a great director towards the
end of his career to become a little retrospective in their work. Clint
Eastwood, for example, did it in Unforgiven
(1992) and his Iwo Jima movies, and to a certain extent in Gran Torino (2008). These were meditations on his career and his
very screen persona which considered the effects and consequences of violence
In The
Irishman Martin Scorsese does something similar as he considers a directing
career spanning more than 60 films in almost as many years. The themes at play
in his work are broadly religion and masculinity. The search for God began in Mean Streets (1973) and ended three
years ago in Silence (2016), still
the most underrated of his films in my opinion.
If that film examined his quest for faith, The Irishman is a companion piece of
sorts which visits the other great theme of his work. It is a look at
masculinity, not the toxic masculinity of Mean
Streets, Raging Bull (1980) and Taxi
Driver (1976) but a more particular version. This film looks at what it
means to be a certain type of man in post war America.
The Second World War is a touchstone in this film for
our hero Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro) and his generation. Often styled by
those who followed as the greatest generation they operated under their own
code and their own system. Frank, working for the Bufalino crime family, works
under an even stricter code. This is literally Mob rule.
Frank is a blue collar hit man but he cannot say
what he does. I Hear You Paint Houses
is the title of the source book, a reference to his work as a hired killer in
which houses are painted with blood and brains. Euphemistically Frank also proudly
boasts that he does his own carpentry which means he disposes of the body too.
Somewhere along the way, it’s implied, he also disposes of his decency and
humanity.
We first encounter Frank as a truck driver, a
teamster, who has a chance meeting with Russell Buffalino (Joe Pesci). The
mobster takes a shine to him and Frank starts augmenting his income with a
little off the books criminality. His wartime skills and combat experience lead
him to work as a hitman, an enforcer. Frank is also a staunch union man and
through Bufalino meets Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino) the head of the Teamsters Union,
a man who Frank adores
The story of Jimmy Hoffa in many ways is the story
of post war America, the rise of the blue collar workforce, and Frank has a
ringside seat as the American century hits its stride. That this is also a
history of corruption and wrongdoing is neither here nor there.
It is what it is, as the most fateful sentence in
the film has it, and Frank is left alone with nothing but memories. He is the
last man standing.
Unusually given that Scorsese is revisiting his
standard themes of sin and repentance, Frank cannot repent. Even when his
priest is delivering the Sacrament of the Sick towards the end of his life
Frank appears to be approaching God but will not repent. Does he genuinely feel
no remorse or has his life cost him so much in terms of those he holds dear
that he feels he has already atoned? That is for us to decide in a film which
lays out the information without ever judging.
The Irishman
is a towering piece of work from America’s greatest living director. It runs
for a whisker under three and a half hours but never sags or drags. Scorsese is
in command of the immaculately-paced material from the first elegant oner that
announces his cinematic mastery to the final enigmatic closing shot. It is a
compelling and hypnotic piece of storytelling which is completely absorbing.
Given the length of the film, it is the very
opposite of the typical Scorsese gangster film. The effervescence of Mean Streets is entirely absent here;
this is a ruminative and reflective film in which a master looks back at his
career.
Robert De Niro is excellent as Frank with the sort
of performance we haven’t seen for some time, Al Pacino – unaccountably working
with Scorsese for the first time – is great as Hoffa but, for me, the
performance of the movie comes from Joe Pesci. He is sublime as Russell
Buffalino, a portrayal of complete and unquestioned power. Bufalino is a man
whose every whim is catered to until he realises that even he has to accept limits
to the extent of his authority.
In some ways the bond between Russell and Frank,
and their particular type of friendship, is at the heart of this film. Unlike
the scabrous relationships between the two of Goodfellas (1990) or Casino (1995), this is
affectionate and sustaining like a surrogate father and son. Russell is all
Frank has left when, like Ethan Edwards in The
Searchers (1956), his actions have driven him beyond the pale.
In some ways The Irishman is like a greatest hits
album for the director. As well as De Niro and Pesci we also see Scorsese alumni
such as Harvey Keitel, Bobby Cannavale, Stephen Graham, Gary Basaraba, Barry
Primus and many others. Given that the theme of the movie is fast and
retributive violence there is also a great deal of warmth and humour in the
film; at times it’s like watching some people you’ve known for years having a
great time at a really cool party.
Behind the scenes it is also old home week with
Scorsese collaborators such as Irwin Winkler, Jane Rosenthal, Rodrigo Prieto,
Robbie Robertson and the incomparable Thelma Schoonmaker playing their part in
bringing this masterpiece to life.
De Niro has famously described The Irishman as ‘unfinished business’
between himself and Scorsese. Over the years their collaboration has resulted
in some of the greatest American films ever made. It is unlikely we will ever
see their like again and, that being the case, this is a fitting coda to their
earlier work.
