Post by The Social Introvert on Jul 5, 2018 13:28:36 GMT
Video version: www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIZ6klP7SVI
During the mid-2000S Robert De Niro contacted his good friend and regular colleague Martin Scorsese about a book he read called I Heard You Paint Houses, a best seller which De Niro saw potential in a movie for. De Niro expressed interest in playing the lead character Frank Sheeran, a hitman for the Italian mafia. A script was written, actors were cast but the project then seemingly disappeared destined for the ‘what might have been’ articles on Scorsese’s unmade films including his Frank Sinatra and Leonard Bernstein biopics. However, fast forward to 2018 and the movie has finished filming and is currently in post-production.
Information we know of the film shows us that it is incredibly ambitious and if done correctly could legitimately be one of the greatest American motion pictures of our time. Martin Scorsese is pulling no punches. At 106 days it was the longest shoot of the veteran’s career and when no Hollywood studio was willing to finance his vision instead of compromising he took the project to Netflix, where it was welcomed with open arms. Now that the much-anticipated project is finally being made here are 5 things you need to know about the film:
1) The cast. As if reuniting with Robert De Niro for their first feature length film together since 1995 wasn’t exciting enough, Scorsese somehow managed to coax funny-guy Joe Pesci out of retirement for a role in the film, after the actor repeatedly turned down the project, with this movie being the 4th time the trio have worked together. In addition to this, in what is being hyped as the best mafia movie ensemble, screen legend Al Pacino has joined the cast in what will be his first and likely only Scorsese movie. Marty has also acquired the talent of his original muse Harvey Keitel, who he hasn’t worked with since 1988. So that’s De Niro, Pesci, Pacino and Keitel all in the same film for the first time as the movie’s leads. It’s an incredible line one, a mouth-watering prospect for gangster movie fans, and it’s garnished with the fact that Ray Romano, Stephen Graham, Kathrine Narducci, Bobby Cannavale, Jesse Plemons and Anna Paquin are also in the movie in supporting roles. Oscar-winning screenwriter Steven Zallain penned the script and Oscar nominated Rodrigo Prieto is the director of photography.
2) The story. As we all know, a great cast does not make a great film. There has to be interesting material to work with. And as I put it in another video, many of the characters in The Irishman led such interesting lives that they could easily have an entire film based on them. This project will follow hitman Frank Sheeran in his old age, as flashbacks delve deep into his past embroiled in murder and corruption. After returning from combat duty in WWII, Sheeran had a chance encounter with a man called Russell Buffalino whom he later befriended, and will be played by Joe Pesci in The Irishman. Sheeran would later come to realise that Buffalino and his good friend Angelo Bruno (to be played by Harvey Keitel) were actually two of the biggest gangsters in New York. He would end up working for the pair, in particular Buffalino, who would eventually put him through to Jimmy Hoffa, leader of the Teamsters Union. Pacino will play Hoffa, who used Sheeran for muscle work including killing members of rival unions. Sheeran and Hoffa would grow close, until the latter started to rub the mob up the wrong way, eventually leading to mafia to sanction a hit on Hoffa. The disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa is one of the great American mysteries, and the real Frank Sheeran on his death bed told author Charles Brandt that the mob told him to carry out the killing. Brandt would go onto write the book I Heard You Paint Houses. Sheeran’s claims are as yet inconclusively proven but this forms the basis for the movie’s plot. The entire story is very expansive, concerning many different characters and many different events, such as the murder of gangster “crazy” Joe Gallo and the weapons supplied for the assassination of JFK. It’s a magnificent story and a really great book to act as the foundation of this mafia movie reunion.
3) The budget. The Irishman is no modestly budgeted crime film like Goodfellas before it. No, instead, this film will cost at least a whopping $150m. The insane costs of the movie are thought to be one of the main reasons that no Hollywood studio would finance the project, despite it being helmed by Martin Scorsese. This is the reason why instead the film is being produced by streaming service Netflix. Netflix picked up the film after it became clear a number of independent financers would not be able to fully fund the picture, and it is set to be their biggest original movie ever. No doubt with the calibre of actors and the sheer amount would mean some heavy paychecks are being dished out, but even still, why would a crime drama cost $150m? The reason brings us to
4) The de-aging CGI. Just before production started on The Irishman last year, Robert De Niro revealed that Benjamin Button style special effects would be used on the senior citizen cast, to make them look younger during the flashbacks scenes. Now as we know CGI is expensive, and CGI is going to be doubly expensive when you need to de-age your cast for most of the runtime and you want to do it properly. This has been the major talking point of the movie, the key creative decision which has split fans. No digital de-aging of actors has ever been done on this scale before, and fans are worried that they might not be able to pull it off and it won’t look right, and Scorsese should have just used different actors. Others are optimistic, happy that these actors will share screen time with each other and confident that there are enough funds for it to be implemented successfully.
5) The release. No doubt cinephines everywhere are jumping at the chance to see Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci and Harvey Keitel on the big screen for the first and only time in history. It’s a landmark in American cinema, the last great gangster movie directed by one of the great gangster movie directors and starring some of the great gangster movie actors. Well, don’t get too excited just yet, because remember the film is being produced by Netflix and, unless you live in China where the film will be distributed by STX Entertainment, you are at the mercy of Netflix’s decision as to whether even release the movie in cinemas in the first place. There’s a very real chance that Netflix will release the film on their streaming service alone. It sounds like a catastrophic sacrilege for a Martin Scorsese movie, one of the greatest directors alive and a forefront activist of cinema restoration, to have one of his biggest movies released on a streaming service and to never make it to the big screen. A producer for The Irishman has said the film will definitely get a theatrical release, but at the moment we don’t know whether that means a standard Netflix 2 week limited cinema run to qualify for the Academy Awards, meaning many of us will never see it in cinemas, or whether that means it will get a full wide release. At the moment, the real answer is, we don’t know.
Here’s hoping though, the film gets the full release it deserves, and Scorsese and the actors knock it out of the park in what is looking to be one of the best films of the decade…if they pull it off.
During the mid-2000S Robert De Niro contacted his good friend and regular colleague Martin Scorsese about a book he read called I Heard You Paint Houses, a best seller which De Niro saw potential in a movie for. De Niro expressed interest in playing the lead character Frank Sheeran, a hitman for the Italian mafia. A script was written, actors were cast but the project then seemingly disappeared destined for the ‘what might have been’ articles on Scorsese’s unmade films including his Frank Sinatra and Leonard Bernstein biopics. However, fast forward to 2018 and the movie has finished filming and is currently in post-production.
Information we know of the film shows us that it is incredibly ambitious and if done correctly could legitimately be one of the greatest American motion pictures of our time. Martin Scorsese is pulling no punches. At 106 days it was the longest shoot of the veteran’s career and when no Hollywood studio was willing to finance his vision instead of compromising he took the project to Netflix, where it was welcomed with open arms. Now that the much-anticipated project is finally being made here are 5 things you need to know about the film:
1) The cast. As if reuniting with Robert De Niro for their first feature length film together since 1995 wasn’t exciting enough, Scorsese somehow managed to coax funny-guy Joe Pesci out of retirement for a role in the film, after the actor repeatedly turned down the project, with this movie being the 4th time the trio have worked together. In addition to this, in what is being hyped as the best mafia movie ensemble, screen legend Al Pacino has joined the cast in what will be his first and likely only Scorsese movie. Marty has also acquired the talent of his original muse Harvey Keitel, who he hasn’t worked with since 1988. So that’s De Niro, Pesci, Pacino and Keitel all in the same film for the first time as the movie’s leads. It’s an incredible line one, a mouth-watering prospect for gangster movie fans, and it’s garnished with the fact that Ray Romano, Stephen Graham, Kathrine Narducci, Bobby Cannavale, Jesse Plemons and Anna Paquin are also in the movie in supporting roles. Oscar-winning screenwriter Steven Zallain penned the script and Oscar nominated Rodrigo Prieto is the director of photography.
2) The story. As we all know, a great cast does not make a great film. There has to be interesting material to work with. And as I put it in another video, many of the characters in The Irishman led such interesting lives that they could easily have an entire film based on them. This project will follow hitman Frank Sheeran in his old age, as flashbacks delve deep into his past embroiled in murder and corruption. After returning from combat duty in WWII, Sheeran had a chance encounter with a man called Russell Buffalino whom he later befriended, and will be played by Joe Pesci in The Irishman. Sheeran would later come to realise that Buffalino and his good friend Angelo Bruno (to be played by Harvey Keitel) were actually two of the biggest gangsters in New York. He would end up working for the pair, in particular Buffalino, who would eventually put him through to Jimmy Hoffa, leader of the Teamsters Union. Pacino will play Hoffa, who used Sheeran for muscle work including killing members of rival unions. Sheeran and Hoffa would grow close, until the latter started to rub the mob up the wrong way, eventually leading to mafia to sanction a hit on Hoffa. The disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa is one of the great American mysteries, and the real Frank Sheeran on his death bed told author Charles Brandt that the mob told him to carry out the killing. Brandt would go onto write the book I Heard You Paint Houses. Sheeran’s claims are as yet inconclusively proven but this forms the basis for the movie’s plot. The entire story is very expansive, concerning many different characters and many different events, such as the murder of gangster “crazy” Joe Gallo and the weapons supplied for the assassination of JFK. It’s a magnificent story and a really great book to act as the foundation of this mafia movie reunion.
3) The budget. The Irishman is no modestly budgeted crime film like Goodfellas before it. No, instead, this film will cost at least a whopping $150m. The insane costs of the movie are thought to be one of the main reasons that no Hollywood studio would finance the project, despite it being helmed by Martin Scorsese. This is the reason why instead the film is being produced by streaming service Netflix. Netflix picked up the film after it became clear a number of independent financers would not be able to fully fund the picture, and it is set to be their biggest original movie ever. No doubt with the calibre of actors and the sheer amount would mean some heavy paychecks are being dished out, but even still, why would a crime drama cost $150m? The reason brings us to
4) The de-aging CGI. Just before production started on The Irishman last year, Robert De Niro revealed that Benjamin Button style special effects would be used on the senior citizen cast, to make them look younger during the flashbacks scenes. Now as we know CGI is expensive, and CGI is going to be doubly expensive when you need to de-age your cast for most of the runtime and you want to do it properly. This has been the major talking point of the movie, the key creative decision which has split fans. No digital de-aging of actors has ever been done on this scale before, and fans are worried that they might not be able to pull it off and it won’t look right, and Scorsese should have just used different actors. Others are optimistic, happy that these actors will share screen time with each other and confident that there are enough funds for it to be implemented successfully.
5) The release. No doubt cinephines everywhere are jumping at the chance to see Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci and Harvey Keitel on the big screen for the first and only time in history. It’s a landmark in American cinema, the last great gangster movie directed by one of the great gangster movie directors and starring some of the great gangster movie actors. Well, don’t get too excited just yet, because remember the film is being produced by Netflix and, unless you live in China where the film will be distributed by STX Entertainment, you are at the mercy of Netflix’s decision as to whether even release the movie in cinemas in the first place. There’s a very real chance that Netflix will release the film on their streaming service alone. It sounds like a catastrophic sacrilege for a Martin Scorsese movie, one of the greatest directors alive and a forefront activist of cinema restoration, to have one of his biggest movies released on a streaming service and to never make it to the big screen. A producer for The Irishman has said the film will definitely get a theatrical release, but at the moment we don’t know whether that means a standard Netflix 2 week limited cinema run to qualify for the Academy Awards, meaning many of us will never see it in cinemas, or whether that means it will get a full wide release. At the moment, the real answer is, we don’t know.
Here’s hoping though, the film gets the full release it deserves, and Scorsese and the actors knock it out of the park in what is looking to be one of the best films of the decade…if they pull it off.