The Irishman (2019)

Directed by: Martin Scorsese

Written by: Steve Zaillian

I’ll admit it, sometimes I judge a book by its cover. The Irishman is perhaps best known by its non-viewers for its three and a half hour run time. Its poster, meanwhile, is gray, topped with bland images of main actors Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Al Pacino, and its title is written in Netflix-red font. While I convinced myself to watch the movie, all I could think in advance was “wow, Netflix decided it would be good for its profits to have Martin Scorsese and some famous actors recreate an established movie formula.”

In this instance, judging the book by its cover was a mistake. As someone who has not seen many mobster movies, it was hard for me to rule out the possibility that The Irishman was indeed an homage to the past. There’s even a scene where The Godfather’s theme plays in the background. But if The Irishman is a “remake,” at very least it was one made with life (unlike the Netflix poster). The film’s opening scene, in which early sixties music plays over a shot of a Virgin Mary statue, is reminiscent of Scorsese’s lesser-known debut, Who’s that Knocking on My Door. It would seem The Irishman seeks to build and reflect on the past and not simply to reproduce it.

The first thing I would say to those who judge The Irishman by its cover, is that it is far from a “gray” movie. Scorsese uses his music tastes to punctuate vintage yet well tinted scenes of 60s and 70s “Main Street” locales. The crispness of the images somehow provides an appropriate level of damper to some of the film’s dark moments: for instance, a shot of a yellow wood-chipper.

Secondly, while it is true that the film is  a bit over-reliant on the charisma of its leading men, that charisma goes along way. De Niro’s tough, but not-quite-scary presence, along with Pesci’s gentle-cunning are perfect matches for mob roles. The Irishman takes the appeal of The Godfather and kicks it up a notch. Both films play with the weirdness of organized crime’s simultaneous culture or horribly, reactionary violence and classy comradery. 

In fact, the main reason why it’s worth seeing The Irishman if one already knows The Godfather is that the newer film goes further in its exploration of comradery. Vito Corleone might be the archetypal movie mob boss, and Michael Corleone’s story is an interesting variant on the “coming-of-age” arc, but both characters act under a far stronger cloak of solitariness than do Frank Sheeran and Russel Bufalino (De Niro and Pesci’s respective characters).

There’s another important difference between The Irishman and The Godfather, however, and that’s that The Irishman does not simply strive to explore mob dynamics, but also to recall a historical moment. Many of the Irishman’s characters, including the Ray Romano-portrayed lawyer, are real figures, and the most famous of them is union leader Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino). 

The Irishman’s historical character has strengths and weaknesses. On the one hand, it was interesting to see the nuanced dynamic between Catholic mobsters and Catholic President John F. Kennedy. On, the other hand, I felt the film’s mobster dynamic undercut its ability to revisit historical events. Much like The Godfather, the film trusts viewers to understand that mob life is a violent one, sometimes one rife with backstabbing. As with the older film, however, this sometimes means the film (despite its run time time) was willing to rush on certain details. Apparently viewers are expected to recognize characters who barely get any screen-time at the moments of their dramatic deaths. Furthermore, as with Michael Corleone in The Godfather, I felt The Irishman left some of Frank’s jumps on the path to the dark side under explained.

Finally, while the film does a good job of reminding viewers of Jimmy Hoffa’s cultural capital, I felt it fell short in explaining his politics and enmities. While some have worried about the film’s “unions are corrupt” implications, I felt the film’s depiction of “the union” as a concept was too abstract to offer any political lesson whatsoever.

In Who’s that Knocking at My Door Scorsese depicted a young man’s Catholic guilt in regards to his selfishness in a relationship. Fifty-two years later, he produced a film in which an older man experience Catholic guilt over far darker misdeeds. One might say that’s the very definition of a pessimistic career arc, and as far as literal substance one would be right. But The Irishman, despite its subject matter and length, manages to be a fairly lively journey thanks to its fascinating families (including a quiet, but memorable performance by Lucy Gallina as Frank Sheeran’s daughter). “That’s life,” you’ll heard Sinatra sing, and it’ll be a satisfying melancholy finish, even as your life likely doesn’t involve “painting houses.”

Margaret (Extended Cut) (2011)

Written and Directed by Kenneth Lonergan

A drama teacher once told me that a good way to go about playwriting is to take a metaphor and run with it. I don’t believe I am making any radical assumptions in saying that playwright-turned-filmmaker Kenneth Lonergan’s piece is built around the metaphor of the theatre. The film’s final moments feature stunning shots of New York’s metropolitan opera house. One of the central characters’ struggle for connection and authority is shaped by her career as an actor. The central character is said to have no interest in acting, and yet we even see her working behind the scenes in a school play, before participating in a distinctly theatrical bonding activity.

 

One could take things a step forward and say that the central metaphor of Margaret is the over-dramatization of one’s story, as in one of the film’s (many) striking scenes, protagonist Lisa Cohen is accused of just that—playing up her struggles at the expense of others. Viewing Margaret in this light makes it a good companion piece for Lonergan’s later (more successful) film Manchester by the Sea. Both are stories about dealing with guilt and grief: one told from the perspective of an outspoken, big city teenager, the other from the perspective of an emotionally-suppressed man returning to the small town of his birth. One could also go so far as to say that Manchester by the Sea is the story of Margaret “antagonist” Gerald Maretti (to say why would spoil the film).

 

But to call Margaret a film about over-dramatization, about self-aggrandization, would be to miss another element of Lonergan’s style—his neutrality. In its three hours, the film finds times, amongst other things, for characters to debate Israel-and-Palestine. The debate is believably written, and I certainly think the pro-Palestinian side comes out looking better. But the function of this debate is not to teach a (non-sequitorial) political lesson, but to show the complexity of what it means to “root” for or against real humans. For instance, we see the mostly likeable love-interest of Lisa’s mother, make a soft-spoken, articulate intervention on behalf of the Palestinians, only to make a brief, but unsettling anti-semitic slip-of-the-tongue, when he is about to “win” the debate.

 

The allegation that Lisa is “over-dramatic” is similarly portrayed in a neutral light. Lisa, 17, is unquestionably overdramatic (and perhaps drama seeking) in her tendency to yell, argue vociferously in her classes, make questionable spur-of-the-moment decisions, and, most centrally to the film, advocate passionately for a cause mere days after having held an entirely different moral viewpoint. At the same time, Lisa’s recent-life is unquestionably shaped by trauma and instability, making the characterization of her as overdramatic seem inadequate and even insulting. Therefore, when the accusation of over-drama is explicitly levelled at Lisa, an audience is neither inclined to fault the woman for making the remark, nor Lisa for her passionate denunciation of the criticism. Rather the audience is invited to sympathize with both parties in this short-lived, but important conflict.

 

Margaret is a story of many stories. It is a story of character’s who are too deep and too real to have full plot-arcs. It is a dark drama, and a tonally neutral tour of New York City. As audiences watch the picturesque shots of skyscrapers and New York crowds they can read these city-scapes as attempts to aggrandize the stories of characters by setting them amongst the backdrop of the most famous city in the world; or they can read them as a sign that many truly powerful and dark stories are hidden in the countless apartments of New York. Both interpretations are correct.