Friday's words: The reason why this "Irishman" released in North America in late 2019 is a textbook film is three reasons:
First of all, it is not as anti-genre and avant-garde as European films, and the director spends more energy on how to tell the story well; secondly, the subjective narrative and flashback events used in "The Irishman" and the montage editing are things that have developed in the American genre for a hundred years, and this genre thing is put on Martin Scorsese, an old director who is nearly eighty years old, and it is even more controlled; finally, "The Irishman" is a film of three and a half hours - don't underestimate this number. If it is a 100-minute movie, it is simple, and there is no trouble following the routine of genre films. If it is a TV series that is better to do, the director can break it into N themes and episodes, and the progressive relationship between episodes and episodes can eliminate the audience's aesthetic fatigue; but when the film exceeds three hours, it is a big trouble - how to run to the end in one go under a main line, while still making the film always maintain its vitality, and so on. It's like the difference between a marathon and a sprint: it's often a test of the director's and screenwriter's skills, technique, perseverance, and concentration, rather than talent.
In addition, about the length of the film: if you can insist on watching this film, you will find that the film that can cover the entire modern political history of the United States with a story, 206 minutes is really not long, not to mention that the story is so compact and orderly (this is enough to make up for the hard wound of the "aging" of the film).
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >, the story type of The Irishman</h1>
▼ Type 1: Biography
Most of Martin Scorsese's crime films are "biographical" in color. In other words, his cinematic perspective and story line are usually on a particular character (from Taxi Driver to Good Guy to The Wolf of Wall Street). This genre characteristic determines the "counter-mainstream values" of his films - the perpetrator and the perpetrator become the one who speaks out and is listened to.
▲ "Good Guys" movie poster, 1990
"The Irishman" is even more typical of this kind, from the beginning of the nursing home, to the old man looking back on the vigorous past, and then back to the end of the nursing home, the audience almost had to persist until the end to wake up: it turned out that the old man who told the story was a "bastard"! It turned out that the memory was not so happy, it was more like a confession.
▲ Stills from the Irishman movie, 2019
▼ Type 2: Gangster
When the main body of a biographical film becomes a "gangster", then it is fundamentally different from films such as Forrest Gump and The King's Speech - the latter is to establish some mainstream values (such as persistence, such as hard work) through the protagonist, while the former is subverting and disintegrating the values of the protagonist.
Going back to the type of "gangster", there is another type tied to it: crime. From a cinematic point of view, "gangsters" are obviously invented for commercial purposes, while crime is social.
A director's grasp of the "degree" of gangsters and crime determines the height of the idea of "gangster films".
Going back to The Irishman, I think one of the most important aspects of the value of this film is in the director's grasp of gangsterism and criminality.
In other words: if we watch this movie and are completely intoxicated with the love-hate feud of its "gangsters", it is a completely commercial entertainment film (from this point of view, I think the Godfather series is more commercially focused).
And if the viewer can't even watch those crime scenes, then it is realism. Obviously, the irishman genre is somewhere in between.
▼ Type 3: History
History does not exist absolutely and purely, but if it is too fanciful and divorced from factual evidence, it is called "legend". I think The Irishman is very balanced between the two genre concepts of story and history, and look at it—
Vertically, the film's storyline spans half a century of america, involving pre-war, postwar, Nixon, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon assassination, Cuban Missile Crisis, and other events.
Horizontally, the director and screenwriter dig out a lot of shady scenes and networks behind politics from historical materials, including behind-the-scenes transactions between politicians and gangsters, including money laundering, weapons transactions and so on.
And the "historical" line formed by the crisscrossing of these realistic materials is reasonably set on the story line of gangsters and biographies, and finally brought out with the narration of one person and the love-hate relationship network of several people.
To sum up, the genre color of "The Irishman" is naturally very prominent, and the concept of gangsters it covers, whether it is the concept of biographical history, is enough to single out for people who like movies to learn and study. And the director can put these genres together to tell a good story, but also need a solid film basic skills!
Of course, it is not only the historical materials and professional techniques that are used by the director, but the "star" effect is one of the undeniable factors of this film.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > second, the role of "stars" in the structure of the story</h1>
We mentioned earlier that one of the hard wounds of The Irishman is that the protagonist is aging (several old actors have to go from young to old).
Fortunately, the film's storytelling makes up for this hard wound.
Of course, I think there is another important factor, that is, the director's "platooning" of several old actors in the scene, we listed the roles and scenes of the four heavyweight actors (Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Percy, and Harvey Keitel), and we can see the layout:
▼ Robert De Niro
He is the narrator of the whole story and has the most drama. However, his position in the play is always in the hands of the hand, he is attached to other "big bosses", to say, he is just a working dog leg. (Pay attention to the matching of role and status)
▼ Al Pacino
He is the political leader of the show (which echoes the actor's temperament), and he is also inextricably linked to the gangsters. In other words, he is the absolute focal point (or boss) in the play. However, the character of Al Pacino did not appear until fifty minutes of delay in the play, and then disappeared around two hours and fifty minutes, and the length of the scene was generally a little more than the total proportion of the film. (Pay attention to the proportion of role and status)
▼ Joe Percy
Joe Pesci's character is a little more numerous than Al Pacino's, a little less than Robert De Niro's, and his role in the play is somewhere in between, more like a hidden line attached to Robert De Niro's character. (Pay attention to the matching of role and status)
▼ Harvey Keitel
Harvey Keitel is a heavyweight actor, but he doesn't play much in the play, not even a few lines and close-up shots (he is more like a cameo actor), but his status in the play is an absolute "big brother", he has not even gotten up, and he is full of aura when he sits there. (Again, pay attention to the proportion of role and status)
We look at the balance of the roles and identities of these four characters in the play, and we know the well-intentioned and superb techniques of the director and screenwriter - he let each bowl play a proper role in the story structure without reducing the image of the actors. They either have more scenes, the director uses the role status to balance, or the status is higher, and the director uses to reduce the role to neutralize, the technique is extremely clever!
As a movie "human design link", this is enough to be a movie textbook!
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > third, the difference between "horse gangster film" and "Hong Kong gangster film"</h1>
In the whole process of watching "The Irishman", when I realized that the protagonist of the story, the character played by the actor I admired, turned out to be a rebellious, innocent, mercenary bastard, my brain began to produce dialectical thinking, and the movie-watching mentality also changed from the obsession with the story when I entered the play to the thinking of evil after the play;
Strangely enough, this kind of movie-watching experience is not available when I watch "old Hong Kong gangster films (such as "The True Colors of Heroes", "Ancient Puzzle Boy", "Infernal Affairs", etc.). What's the difference?
Quite simply, the original intention of the old Hong Kong gangster film is to create stars (such as "Fa Ge", "Hao Nan Ge", "Hong Xing Thirteen Sisters"), establish values (such as jianghu morality), while Martin's gangster film is to disintegrate brotherhood (such as "Good Guys"), disintegrate jianghu morality, and expose the nature of gangsters and even politicians in pursuing interests and satisfying selfish desires.
Rather than saying that Martin is speaking up for the perpetrators, he is repenting for them and reflecting on behalf of society.
This is the gap between "Infernal Affairs" (Martin Scorsese, 2006) and "Infernal Affairs" (2002), and it is also the gap between "Horse Gangster Films" and "Hong Kong Gangster Films".
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > four, a director's film literacy</h1>
I knew Martin Scorsese not from his films, but from his two documentaries, Journey to Italian Cinema and Journey to American Cinema. I distinctly remember him in front of the camera wearing his trademark eight-pointed eyebrows to tell the audience about the film.
▼ Since then I have realized two things:
First, as an excellent director, the importance of the amount of reading and thinking;
The second is that while some directors are creating films, they are also helping others to achieve their film dreams, and they are not only artists, but also film educators!
This is probably the quality that a "big director" should have.
Finally, I recommend that all those who are studying film, whether you want to work in commercial genre films or pure art films, whether you like it or not, give yourself three and a half hours to watch this "The Irishman" patiently, because he covers the basic elements of various film compositions, from screenwriting to cameramanship to creative thinking... It can be a reference for you to study movies.
Pay attention to "Friday Literature and Art" and interpret classic movies.