“I’m not ‘anti-studio.’ As I said back in the beginning of the book, I am grateful that someone gives me the millions of dollars it takes to make a movie. But for me, and I think for other directors, there is enormous tension in handing the movie over. Perhaps it’s due to the fact that this is the picture’s first step on its way to the public. But the real reason, I think, is that after months of rigid control, the picture is now being taken over by people with whom I have very little influence” (198)—From Sydney Lumet’s Making Movies
Sydney Lumet’s 1996 Making Movies—a personal, tell-all book about the rewards and painful experiences of being a director—Lumet admits to his tiresome fights with the studios throughout his career. When it comes to the filmmaking, whether a director is starting out or already inducted into the business, it is unfortunate that creative risks are threatened when it comes to negotiating with the studios. Nowadays, if the film proposal is not the latest franchise, or conceived from an algorithmic machinery, the latest film proposal will not make it to the theaters. And Scorsese is among the well-established authors-auteurs who cannot find studio financing without the promise of a big return to the studios who gave him the “go ahead.” Acclaimed directors, especially those who have been inducted into the industry for decades, are treated like up-and-coming struggling writers, trying to find a publisher. This is where streaming giants help alleviate this. In the 21st century, streaming providers such as Amazon and Netflix, to name a few, have become the new studio system—and for now, the fight has become more negotiable for directors who must compete with big franchise films or blockbuster films. Established filmmakers such as Scorsese, Cuarón, and Jarmusch are now in handshake deals with streaming companies in order to get their films financed and distributed both in the theaters and in homes through a streaming subscription in order to maintain creative control and/or receive the financial backing they need. Martin Scorsese was able to cut a deal with Netflix in which he was provided the $150 million to create The Irishman. Along with the hefty price tag to make the film, he was also able to have creative rights. What is paramount for a real artist such as Scorsese is the preservation of the creative vision.
However, negotiations with streaming giants can have their drawbacks, especially when it comes to films distributed by Netflix. They often forgo a wider and longer theatrical release, which is in the case of Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman. Nontraditional theater runs (meaning shorter theater lifespans and minimal theatrical exhibitions) will not give Scorsese the similar box office return in which he was able to achieve in the past such as his last gangster film Goodfellas, which grossed $46 million back when it was released in 1990. Bigger theater chains are at negotiation odds with this type of hybrid release. They refuse to partner with Netflix in fear that viewers would opt for the television run as opposed to the preferable and more exclusive three-month theater run. As a result, they refuse to carry such films. And for film enthusiasts who want to see their favorite director’s latest work in the theaters, it becomes a race against time—much to the same dismay I find myself having to contend with when it came to screening arthouse and independent films.
As for any film enthusiast a theatrical experience, given the right film, can be magical, life-changing, and inspiring. As a Gen X, I was too young to experience Mean Streets, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, and Taxi Driver in the theater. The first Scorsese film I screened in the theater was The Age of Innocence, an adaptation by Edith Wharton, a writer I was very much familiar with because I was a literature major. Scorsese was a nobody to me back then. Now, as a cinephile and Scorsese being part of my teaching repertoire, I had to make another arduous journey to a nonlocal theater since The Irishman’s limited release was only featured at an upscale, independently owned theater in West Los Angeles—The Landmark Theater. Again, it brought me back to the same situation when I had to travel further to see Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma on the big screen before its theater life abruptly went into extinction.
The Irishman: A Timeless Gangster Classic
As a gangster genre—a classic that harkens back to the studio system’s conventions—Scorsese’s masterpiece or magnum opus is culled from the pre-established conventions of past narratives, but with a grace and artistry that does not compare to a mere “template” film. It is historical in its depiction of the Bufalino crime family and their political entanglements. The film works its way through history, spanning decades—among them include the political rise of Cuba’s Fidel Castro, the contentious “Get-Hoffa” trials crusaded by then attorney general Bobby Kennedy, the Kennedy assassinations—to name a few. Most importantly, the film is biographical as it chronicles the life of Frank Sheeran (brilliantly performed by Robert De Niro). Amid this historical saga, we follow Frank Sheeran as a truck driver, a husband, a father, a mob hitman and fixer, a labor union official linked to the Bufalino crime family and the charismatic, but hotheaded, Jimmy Hoffa, and then a nursing home resident in his 80s, dying from cancer.
The Irishman is a throwback to Scorsese’s filmmaking roots in a genre in which he is outstandingly adept in, the gangster. The 1991 film Goodfellas comes into mind—with familiar supporting actors, most notably, Joe Pesci as Russel Bufalino and Welker White as the devastated Josephine Hoffa. Then there are the “gang” of talents such as Al Pacino as Jimmy Hoffa and Harvey Keitel as Angelo Bruno—all recognizable faces in the mean streets of the Mafia world.
Cinematically, The Irishman operates in the same deftness that makes The Irishman recognizably Scorsesean—but with more poise and depth that makes the film, by far, his best film to date. Visually, we experience intimidating close-ups of faces, wide shots of shiny sleek cars (a monument of masculinity for the “wise guys” who drive them), and close-ups of spinning, white walled tires. But his most identifiable signature is the continuous moving camera, an homage to his own work in Goodfellas where Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) takes Karen (Lorraine Bracco) to the Copacabana Club. The camera snakes its way and follows the couple through the bowels of the building, starting from the kitchen’s backdoor and ending at the front of the performance stage. The sequence depicts Henry Hill’s official date with Karen. It was a period of Henry’s peak—big money, big connection, and big VIP status no matter where he went. On the contrary, Scorsese’s use of the continuous moving camera in The Irishman is to reveal a different type of gangster, one who is defunct from the life of crime but his loyalties to his partners (living or dead) are still deep-rooted. The narrative begins with a deep-focused shot of the communal area in a nursing home—a photographic tapering of a frame within a frame, using the depth of space to focus our eyes on a small figure—assumed to be Frank Sheeran himself—the retired Irish gangster. The camera then glides through the hallway and then makes a quick pivot (much to the likeness of a wheelchair turning). The unedited sequence ends at a close-up shot of the back of the wheelchair and then loops around it to reveal an aged Frank Sheeran. This eloquent opening in The Irishman begins the journey into Sheeran’s heart of darkness. While we sort of meander through the nursing home facility, we hear his voice. At first, we are disoriented. We are trying to figure out who is speaking and to whom is the conversation being addressed. We later learn that Frank indirectly speaks to the audience, to the priest, and to the FBI. As an audience, we are active participants because we are left to make the final judgment once he is finished telling his story.
Not a minute dragged and not a scene presented itself to be superfluous in this three-and-a-half-hour epic biopic because it is told through Sheeran’s personal reflections on his initiation into a world of organized crime—a narrative that unfolds from the inside out, which eventually metamorphosed into a despondent, lamenting, self-eulogizing retrospection right before our eyes. This fall from “grace” (that is, from the life of Mafia) is poignant. He is a fallen “big shot” who has outwitted the law and survived the war between gang rivals. From this, he confronts what he is afraid to confront and that is whether his actions can ever be vindicated. We are left to ask whether Frank has the ability to explicitly debunk his own mythology as a “wise guy” as he reflects on his life even though the loyalties are no longer relevant, especially as a defunct gangster. From this, should we trust the sincerity and the cathartics of his confession?
In Goodfellas, Henry Hill breaks the fourth-wall towards the end of his trial when he rats out his fellow Mafia brothers. The scene consists of a camera pan of a row of track homes. It arrives at a full stop that consists of a full shot of Henry Hill with a sneer towards the camera (audience). He is an ordinary citizen and no longer a “wise guy.” On the contrary, Frank Sheeran, a man with intemperate disposition, is still not ready to break any wall when he retells his story of his rise and fall. Instead, he holds the wall he has built because he is still not ready to give up on his allegiance—even though his Teamster family have passed—either through a hit or by natural causes.
Frank Sheeran’s confession is a hollow and well-guarded confession to us, to the priest, and to the FBI. We keep listening anyway because his story shares a likeness to a fallen Greek figure, one who is undone by hubris, and such a tragedy is metamorphosed into an ode to a fallen human spirit. Unlike his other gangster predecessors such as Don Corleone (The Godfather), Henry Hill (Goodfellas), and Tom Powers (Public Enemy) where we sat and watch their rise and fall and their attempts (no matter how feeble) for some kind of moral redemption, The Irishman leaves us with a gangster who is a decrepit, lonely, brooding eighties something nursing home residence who blindly protects his dark and violent past because of his undying commitment to the Mafia that has shaped his identity.
Thus, the confessional gangster—is quintessentially Scorsesean—and it befittingly makes a gangster narrative more provocative than ever—as it pays homage to the moral coding of the genre in which the criminal’s redemption is unattainable. As a criminal, Frank Sheeran has created his own irrevocable tragedy.
Public Enemy and The Production Code
Like the early pioneers of the gangster genre such as William Wellman’s Public Enemy that takes place during the 1930s Prohibition Era, the responsibility behind law and order rests on the shoulders of the public enemy himself and society. This works well with the soon-to-be incepted Production Code of the 1930s, which consists of oversights to make sure gangster films did not promote disorderly or unlawful conducts. The Production Code of the 1930s (also known as the Hays Code) stipulated that the gangers must not “teach methods of crime, inspire potential criminals with desire for imitation, and make criminals seem heroic or justified” (Schatz 99). Although Public Enemy is considered a pre-code gangster film, the stipulations were already cemented in Wellman’s cinematic dogma, particularly for a gangster genre. Tom Powers (played by James Cagney) always wanted to be a gangster, even as a child. During that time, he started off with petty crimes such as stealing for the Mafia men he admired and looked up to. As an adult, the life of crime gave him women, power, money—but it was short-lived. When his racketeering killed his friend-partner and separated him from his family (especially his brother, a veteran who does not hold back on his disapproval of his brother’s bootlegging business), the glamour takes a different turn. With the threat of loneliness, near fatal injuries, and the uncontrollable danger hovering over him, he reconciles with those who matter the most, his family, and decides to leave the world of organized crime. But it was too late. Wellman makes sure that one cannot survive when one sells his soul to a life of crime. Furthermore, society cannot afford to remain complacent in such moral undertaking. Therefore, Wellman’s Public Enemy appropriately ends with the epilogue: “The end of Tom Powers is the end of every hoodlum. The “Public Enemy” is not a man, nor is it a character—it is a problem that sooner or later, we the public, must solve.”
Scorsese’s throwback and homage to past conventions of the gangster genre (which also follows the Hays Code moral provisions) enhances the genre’s narrative tapestry. Along with this, Scorsese creates his own didactic code that manifests in the confessional gangster genre where we hear the story of a gangster, reflecting on his actions, particularly in the form of voiceovers, thereby, creating a chronologically skewed narrative where flashbacks interrupt the present narrative. Through this, we learn that Frank, without qualms, and with full premeditation and calculation, has willingly signed up for a life of a criminal, not just any criminal but a criminal that comes with a package, a Mafia family, for whom he protects from the law, either through killing or withholding information, and not ratting out any of his fellow partners. It is his undying commitment that makes the spirit of his own humanity wither—he is a man without conscience—even though he mistakenly believes that staying within the tenets of the Teamsters is like having one.
The American Dream or the Scoffing of the “Dream”
The Irishman chronicles Frank Sheeran’s quest for the American dream, but through sordid means. Frank Sheeran’s past as a World War II combat veteran in Italy has provided him the qualifications to be a hitman for Mafia kingpins. Moreover, his ability to speak Italian easily cements his “brotherhood” initiation with the Italian gangsters. In his post-war life, civilian institutions did not suffice, especially as a married man with children and a nine-to-five job that did not provide him any big shot “wise guy” privileges such as women, cars, money, protection, and prestige. Because of this, he puts his soul “up for grabs.” One of the most notable themes of a gangster film is a gangster or soon-to-be-gangster’s explicit repudiation of the institutions pertaining to class, occupation, politics or anything that deals with the ordinariness of civilian life. “The classic screen gangster represents the perverse alter ego of the ambitious, profit-minded American male. His urban environment, with its institutionalized alienation and class distinction, has denied him a legitimate route to power and success” (Schatz 85). Frank was drawn to the power, prestige, and money, which helped support his growing family but most of all, his ego.
The Irishman follows the web of corruption in the Mafia—in which Frank, without qualms, enters and later becomes a key figure in the corruption. From this, he becomes entangled with the tenants of the Mafia—who to trust, who to kill or eliminate, who to include in the “family,” especially when it comes to the business. There are intricate connections between “familial” ties that bind together the blue- collared employees such as truck drivers and local business partners, political affiliates such as Nixon, and Mafia-protecting lawyers such as Bill Bufalino (played by Ray Romano) who is skilled in hoodwinking or bending the law. As a result, law enforcements find themselves stonewalled in the courts where the Mafia code of silence becomes their binding force, making them above the law and emboldening them to continue to break the law.
The Irishman is also exact in its treatment of the gangster genre as it explores the “under the table” business deals between Mafia union leaders such as the use of employees’ pensions to finance lucrative Mafia deals. Bruised egos and unstoppable ambition (such as Hoffa’s determination to reinstate himself as union president after being released from jail) threaten brotherhood loyalties, creating in-fighting Mafia wars and wars against other rival Mafia businessmen. Frank Sheeran’s rise is buoyed by his strong connections with Russel Bufalino as well as Jimmy Hoffa—and his conviction not to be the “everyman” but rather a man indoctrinated into a powerful crime family. From this, Frank becomes the leading hitman who helps speed up monetary transaction deals. The culmination of Frank Sheeran’s comradeship is his official induction into the International Brotherhood of Teamsters by Russel Bufalino. With his ties to Hoffa, as a friend, bodyguard, and confidante, he is promoted to becoming a high-ranking leader for one of Hoffa’s union divisions. However, Hoffa’s eagerness to reclaim his presidency leads to a public repudiation of the Teamster’s business practices. As a result, his death is sanctioned by Russel Bufalino because he “demonstrate[es] failure to show appreciation” and refuses to look at other business potentials. Frank is ordered to carry out the murder by Russel Bufalino—in spite of the fact that Jimmy Hoffa was more than a friend, he was actually a highly regarded family member who developed a close relationship with his children, especially his daughter Peggy (played by Anna Paquin). It is through this action that Frank realizes that loyalties can be broken not only within the Teamsters’ family but also within his immediate bloodline family. Knowing that her father is responsible for Hoffa’s death, Peggy, a silent, watchful, and disapproving observer of her father’s wrongdoings, severs ties with her father for good.
A Criminal’s Atonement
Even dating back to William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, a sinner’s forgiveness is predicated upon whether he is willing to relinquish what he has capitalized after committing the sin. For King Claudius, he must forgo his crown, Gertrude (his wife’s brother whom he marries after murdering his brother), and all that he has gained from committing the sin in the first place. He confesses: “But, O, what form of prayer/Can serve my turn? ‘Forgive me my foul murder’?/That cannot be; since I am still possess’d/Of those effects for which did the murder,/My crown, mine own ambition and my queen” (3.3.51-55). King Claudius has committed the ultimate mortal sin that was self-serving, premediated, and egregious. The sin of fratricide is what ultimately destroys his kingship (especially as divine ruler) as well as his spirit. Although King Claudius is wracked with guilt, he makes a confession but realizes that in order for a confession to be sincere he must be able to atone for his sins. But he refuses to do so. Not only does he hang on to his crown and his queen, he also continues to sin in order to secure his political capital. While he attempts to pray for a pardoning of his brother’s murder, he carries out a second one, the murder of his son, Hamlet. This contradiction of morality is also illustrated in Frank Sheeran’s dichotomous and troubling conscience. Brotherhood does not seal the fidelity among close-knit families—especially a Mafia family. He betrays Hoffa and, in a sense, commits fratricide in order to attest his allegiance to the Bufalino crime family. His ultimate destruction is his inability to reconcile within himself the choices he has made, which can be described as ambitious, self-serving, negligible (especially towards his children), and most of all, deliberate acts of evil.
According to Thomas Schatz author of Hollywood Genres Schatz discusses a gangster’s harmful dichotomy that manifests within the self:
The ultimate conflict of the gangster film is not between the gangster and his environment nor is it between the gangster and the police; rather, it involves the contradictory impulses within the gangster himself. The internal conflict—between individual accomplishment and the common good, between man’s self-serving and communal instincts, between his slavery and his rational morality—is mirrored in society, but the opposing impulses have reached a delicate and viable balance within the modern city. The gangster’s efforts to realign that balance to suit his own particular needs are therefore destined to failure (85).
Although guilt has gnawed at him, he fails to reform morally or to see his own moral faults. There is also the failure of redemption, especially in fatherhood. When he seeks out a Mafia family, his own family becomes secondary—especially with his daughter, Peggy, who watches him with an unrelenting stare of disapproval and disappointment. She silently tallies her father’s sins, which has started during her childhood, especially when her father violently beats a grocery store clerk for accidentally pushing her.
As an old man, he attempts to repair his relationship with his daughters. When Peggy continues to deny him, he goes to another daughter to try to convince her that his actions were his way of trying to be a protective father. She crosses him by telling him: “You didn’t see what I see . . . We wouldn’t go to you for protection because of the terrible things you would do.” Again, he is warped by his own sense of morality as he tries to justify his life as a violent criminal.
There are plenty of natural alternatives for Tagamet that can rescue you from the recurrence of chronic purchase cheap levitra prostatitis. It is a combination of both surgical and non-surgical methods to treat ED, prices viagra generic continue reading for info it is important that you use ED medicine only after consulting with the doctor. The goal wasn’t young ones who viagra samples free actually push many people ridiculous through Include as well as Hyperactivity indications as well as grown ups. After suffering through generic viagra mastercard six straight losing years in a worn-down stadium, the Colts franchise moved to Indianapolis in 1984.
Therefore, the responsibility of sin, guilt, despair, and existential melancholia is solely placed on Frank Sheeran—and Scorsese does not waver in this decision as the entire film is a introspective soul search that manifests in the form of a confession. Thus, confession lures us inside Frank Sheeran’s uncompromising soul—one in which he cannot fully come into grips with. We hope he will eventually but he never reaches that point. There is no penance; there is no restitution.
As a result, The Irishman is an elegiac confession with an understanding that “nothing gold can stay”—which echoes the universal theme of aging and the tragic cycles of life that is reminiscent of Robert Frost’s poem “Nothing Gold Can Stay.” The heyday of Frank’s life of crime with big money, brotherhood, political connections, and sleek cars are emblems of the past that have no place in the present. When the FBI asks for a final confession of the murders he has committed (including Hoffa) in order for the victims’ grieving families to have closure, he remains evasive in spite of the fact that brotherhood loyalties and codes of silence are irrelevant—since most of them no longer exist. When he shows pictures of his family, especially a photo of Jimmy Hoffa and his estranged daughter, Peggy, he asks his young nurse whether she recognizes the man. Her failure to recognize him reveals how life moves forward and people from the past are forgotten—yet wrongdoings and pain remain fresh in memory. Frank’s inability to let go of the past is indicative of his failure to reconcile with his present. Although he was one of the few who has survived the life of crime, he could never atone for his sins mainly because he refuses to do so—even though time was on his side.
Scorsese’s Lasting Legacy as an Auteur
The Irishman gracefully moves through the pre-established conventions of a gangster film while unveiling Scorsese’s brilliant redesign and vision of the genre. He takes a further leap in the genre’s moral coding while exploring man’s quest for relevance in a world that seems to have failed him or alienated him in one way or another. We see this in a lot of Scorsese’s characters, Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, Jake Lamotta in Raging Bull, and Henry Hill in Goodfellas. These fallen men have suffered from a false entitlement that has led them to a life of destruction—one that is filled with regret, disappointment, and disillusionment.
In the Netflix extra for The Irishman titled “The Irishman: In Conversation”—which is a roundtable discussion of the film with Scorsese, Pesci, Pacino, and De Niro—Pacino notes how it is a film about “our world, our America” and an exploration of the human condition in a gangster genre. Scorsese, now in his seventies and working with actors who are also near his age, mentions that they all have seem to age with the characters as well. Because of this, it has given them better insights into the human condition within the context of brotherhood, fidelity, love, and betrayal in the Mafia world. Scorsese, Pacino, De Niro, and Pesci are renown veterans in the cinematic universe and artists in their own right. With Pesci coming out of semi-retirement to do this film, it begs the question whether this might be the last hurrah for these artists to come together in resurrecting a classic genre with insight and precision. This brings me to the new “de-aging” technology. It still has a long way to go to make it believable on the screen. As a cinephile, I know what a young Pesci, De Niro, and Pacino look like. I know how they move when they were young—and to see these men with “young” faces in the flashback scenes, I was not totally convinced. An older woman, perhaps in her seventies, who sat next to me in the theater said it was jarring to see the actors with young faces and walk like old men.
One of the most emotional and cathartic aspect of the film is the examination of aging—and how people leave us before we leave the world. From this, we are forced to contend with the loneliness and solitude and how our identities go through a confusing transformation. As I write this commentary, I think of my ninety-three-year-old father whose faint heartbeat keeps going and his memories run rampant. His dementia takes him to different periods in his life where he is still with the people who have already predeceased him. He is rarely in the present. I do not blame him. The present can be a painful confrontation with one’s mortality.
It is unfortunate that Scorsese—a titan in cinema—is now considered an embattled director who has received undeserved backlash for his 2019 Esquire magazine interview where he compares superhero films to “theme parks” and not art. He then elaborated on his dismissal of Marvel films in a November 2019 New York Times Op-Ed. The culture of cinema has changed in the 21st century in which there is a schism between movies (moving images) and cinema (an intellectually conscientious aestheticism of moving images). In response to Scorsese’s Op-Ed, Marvel directors Anthony and Joe Russo make a distinction between movies and cinema. They refer to their Avenger franchise as “movies,” specifically created for a wider audience as opposed to Scorsese’s beloved cinema that seems to be for the exclusive elite in which the Russo brothers disdainfully pegs as a New York “thing.” (The Russos are from Cleveland, which supposedly exempts them from any kind of snobbery). But who is actually being snobbish here?
There is no doubt that there is a clear demarcation in the culture of film watching particularly in the choices we make. All of this goes back to how we were acculturated in our experiences with film. For me, it was through my drive-in experience as a teenager, my love for literature, which, I, have over the years developed a taste for cinema as being textual (i.e., a language) and, therefore, literary in its narrative form, as opposed to being about moving images. Moreover, my watching of pop culture film critics Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel debate about the newest foreign release and studying cinema as a humanities discipline for my Master’s Degree are also part of my acculturation of cinema as an intellectual art. I can accept the fact that we all “grew” into cinema or movies, whatever you we want to call it, in different ways. But I cannot accept the potential obsolescence and irrelevance of other films that are not considered franchise or loved by popular culture. Let us still make room for those films in the theaters and the people who still desire to screen them.
Many misunderstood Scorsese’s main concern in which I have also lamented as a cinema teacher and cinema enthusiast: it is the threat of cinema as art. From this, the film going experiences will be about spectacle and regurgitation of content. This is the algorithmic cinematic canvas that Scorsese decries and repudiates. The threat of the movies’ (as the Russo Brothers call them) unyielding dominance threatens originality, risks, authenticity in the creative process of filmmaking. Directors will be reduced to camera technicians (and not authors of their work). They become part of a different type of studio “equation” that follows a “scripted” movie narrative—buoyed by spectacle (likened to a “live action” animation), littered with a menagerie of costumed action figures, and devoid of real characters. Scorsese considers himself to be one of the leading crusaders of elevating film to the same artistic and intellectual standards of other forms of art such as literature, dance, and music. Now there is a regression due to the dumbing down of the medium.
Furthermore, as Marvel and the term franchise become synonymous, the distinction between a franchise versus a genre film becomes more prominent nowadays, especially in a more artistic sense. Louis Gianetti author of Understanding Movies mentions “The most critically admired genre films strike a balance between the form’s pre-established conventions and the artist’s unique contributions . . . Incompetent artists merely repeat. Serious artists reinterpret” (356). On the other hand, franchise films are about algorithms and the hard-as-nails vetting process by studio officials that cater to what the audience wants. Furthermore, what distinguishes a franchise versus a genre is room for exploitation—and this is where risks come in. Genre films not only creates a cultural discourse, but they also exploit the discourse. When it comes to making a genre film, “filmmakers are in a rather curious bind: they must continually vary and reinvent the generic formula. At the same time, they must exploit those qualities that made the genre popular in the first place” (Schatz 36). Western revisionists exploits, questions, and criticize the conventions of the genre. And as I mentioned earlier, Scorsese’s The Irishman, was not the run of the mill gangster film. Scorsese’s confessional approach in a gangster genre fleshes out the protagonist’s self-deprecating personality even though he could not make restitution for the victims and their families and his family. This is what makes the gangster film so revealing and trustworthy in its depiction of humanity. Most importantly, such approach to filmmaking is the very core of what Scorsese means by cinema as art. Scorsese eloquently states that “cinema [is] about revelation—aesthetic, emotion and spiritual revelation. It was about characters—the complexity of people and their contradictory and sometimes paradoxical natures, the way they can hurt one another, love one another and suddenly come face to face with themselves.”
Scorsese is not afraid to exploit his characters in which franchise films are afraid to do. His characters leave a lasting legacy—unlike most superheroes who seem untouchable in a franchise world—recasting themselves in an immortality that makes their very existence already a given even before we take the journey with them. This hollow existence is too predictable and without flesh because they are mainly action figures and not characters.
If Marvel films continues to give what audience wants, the industry will keep churning them out because the industry operates on greed and commodity. Anthony and Joe Russo claim that cinema has always been “up for grabs” for anyone to do what they please. Because of this, “nobody owns it”[1]–but I beg to differ. Their movies claim “ownership” of local and big chain theaters and their audiences. Franchise films are tethered by big studios who pull the strings. Directors who are not interested in making the next blockbuster, get pushed aside or must contend with a short theatrical run that will make it impossible for a filmgoer to see the film in the theater. Consequently, he or she must resort to streaming it on television. It is ironic that television, cinema’s biggest competitor during the 1950s and also a stepping stone for novice directors, has now become the new platform for cinema watching. As I mentioned before, I still feel wary about this. For one, it is not the same as a theatrical experience in spite of the fact that home “theaters” are equipped with the technology that mimic the theatrical experience. Watching films on phones, especially The Irishman (which Scorsese advise not to do), is egregious. Secondly, Roger Ebert mentions in his 2011 memoir Life Itself that there is something powerful about being part of an audience who share the same discourse about cinema. He does not favor watching films at home in solitude or in small groups. He laments: “There is no sense of audience, and yet an important factor in learning to be literate about movies is to be part of an audience that is sophisticated about them” (Ebert 160).
My lasting impression of The Irishman theater experience is when the film ended with a five-second black screen with the score “In the Still of the Night” playing. Finally, the film signaled the end with the first credit “Directed by Martin Scorsese.” The audience applauded. The ambiguity, the lack of closure, the unfinished finale was hard to accept, but at the same time, it worked with the film’s sentimental heartbeat. There was something else that ended that was also hard to accept. The nostalgia of watching a Scorsese film in the theater has already settled in even before its time has passed. The thought occurred to me when the same seventyish woman, who, I can tell just by talking to her, has followed Scorsese’s career, told me that it was a real treat to see it on the big screen. For all of us in the theater, it was a moment of joy and sadness as there might not be another theater experience like this again.
January 4, 2020
This commentary is dedicated to my father, the first film aficionado who came into my life. He is a lover of western films, which also became my favorite genre in classic American cinema.
Works Cited
Ebert, Roger. Life Itself: A Memoir. Grand Central Publishing, 2011.
Gianetti, Louis. Understanding Movies. 9th edition. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2002.
Lumet, Sydney. Making Movies. First Vintage, 1997.
Schatz, Thomas. Hollywood Genres: Formulas, Filmmaking, and the Studio System. McGraw-Hill, inc., 1981.
Scorsese, Martin. “I Said Marvel Movies aren’t Cinema. Let me Explain.” 4 November 2019. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/opinion/martin-scorsese-marvel.html. 11 November 2019.
[1] Jones, Ja’han. The Huffington Post. 17 November 2019. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/avengers-directors-respond-to-scorsese-after-marvel-criticism_n_5dd1d632e4b01f982f04287c. 2 January 2019.