Film Socialism
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Post by Film Socialism on Dec 3, 2019 2:00:17 GMT
gonna see it on free popcorn night, pretty low expectations but im hype for anna paquin
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Post by stephen on Dec 3, 2019 2:10:35 GMT
If people are bothered with some of the technical aspects of The Irishman - ok, I mean hey I don't think the birds in The Birds look convincing but I freakin' love The Birds........and Goodfellas as great as it is I rate lower than The Irishman because to me Goodfellas has small things that bothered me far more (switching narration to Bracco I don't like or Liotta speaking into the camera).Both De Niro and Pesci do this in The Irishman, though. And does the narration switch in Casino bother you, too?
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erickeitel
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The beauty of life is in small details, not in big events.
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Post by erickeitel on Dec 3, 2019 2:15:58 GMT
The article even links Paquin's tweet saying she has no problem with her small role. But let's take offense and spin it into a gender issue!
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Post by pupdurcs on Dec 3, 2019 2:51:13 GMT
I think this is pretty much spillover from the Margot Robbie "controversy" in Cannes regarding Once Upon A Time In Hollywood and her limited dialogue. It might not have been as much of an issue if these were less succesful actresses, but Robbie is an A-list star at this point and Paquin is an Oscar winner. It draws attention to itself in this day and age where a lot people expect movies to pass the Bechdel Test.
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Film Socialism
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Post by Film Socialism on Dec 3, 2019 2:54:54 GMT
The article even links Paquin's tweet saying she has no problem with her small role. But let's take offense and spin it into a gender issue! the criticism ive seen of this is less on paquin being personally harmed and more on using it as a criticism against the narrative, which if you've been following criticism against scorsese, isn't particularly new (which he himself atoned to earlier this year)
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erickeitel
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The beauty of life is in small details, not in big events.
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Post by erickeitel on Dec 3, 2019 3:21:22 GMT
The article even links Paquin's tweet saying she has no problem with her small role. But let's take offense and spin it into a gender issue! the criticism ive seen of this is less on paquin being personally harmed and more on using it as a criticism against the narrative, which if you've been following criticism against scorsese, isn't particularly new (which he himself atoned to earlier this year) Possibly, but none of that is mentioned in the article itself. Read the headline: "Anna Paquin has 7 lines in ‘The Irishman.’ And Robert De Niro is OK with that," as if De Niro should be taken to task for it.
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Film Socialism
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Post by Film Socialism on Dec 3, 2019 3:22:53 GMT
the criticism ive seen of this is less on paquin being personally harmed and more on using it as a criticism against the narrative, which if you've been following criticism against scorsese, isn't particularly new (which he himself atoned to earlier this year) Possibly, but none of that is mentioned in the article itself. Read the headline: "Anna Paquin has 7 lines in ‘The Irishman.’ And Robert De Niro is OK with that," as if De Niro should be taken to task for it. something something mountain molehill
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Post by pacinoyes on Dec 3, 2019 4:46:31 GMT
If people are bothered with some of the technical aspects of The Irishman - ok, I mean hey I don't think the birds in The Birds look convincing but I freakin' love The Birds........and Goodfellas as great as it is I rate lower than The Irishman because to me Goodfellas has small things that bothered me far more (switching narration to Bracco I don't like or Liotta speaking into the camera). Both De Niro and Pesci do this in The Irishman, though. And does the narration switch in Casino bother you, too?Sorry, when does Pesci narrate or either man break the fourth wall - drawing a blank? Everything bothers me in Casino, I don't think Casino is very good at all........
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Post by stephen on Dec 3, 2019 4:52:37 GMT
Both De Niro and Pesci do this in The Irishman, though. And does the narration switch in Casino bother you, too? Sorry, when does Pesci narrate or either man break the fourth wall - drawing a blank? Everything bothers me in Casino, I don't think Casino is very good at all........ There's a brief scene early on where Pesci explains to the audience why he doesn't like go-betweens: he doesn't want two people tracing anything back to him.
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Post by pacinoyes on Dec 3, 2019 5:10:12 GMT
Sorry, when does Pesci narrate or either man break the fourth wall - drawing a blank? Everything bothers me in Casino, I don't think Casino is very good at all........ There's a brief scene early on where Pesci explains to the audience why he doesn't like go-betweens: he doesn't want two people tracing anything back to him. I will check it out on Netflix - if someone can list the timestamp I'd appreciate it - obviously it didn't bother me since I don't recall it and I thought he spoke it to DeNiro or it was a clip of him speaking to a character not overtly stopping for "us". De Niro doesn't iirc - you said "both men"? But that hardly seems the same as Liotta getting off the witness stand and talking to the audience which to me amounted to wtf trickery - and in Bracco's left-field narration trickery as well (and unnecessary in both cases)
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Post by Viced on Dec 3, 2019 5:18:03 GMT
There's a brief scene early on where Pesci explains to the audience why he doesn't like go-betweens: he doesn't want two people tracing anything back to him. I will check it out on Netflix - if someone can list the timestamp I'd appreciate it - obviously it didn't bother me since I don't recall it and I thought he spoke it to DeNiro or it was a clip of him speaking to a character not overtly stopping for "us". De Niro doesn't iirc - you said "both men"? 23:10Though it's hard to tell if he's speaking to the camera or to an unseen person to the left or right of the camera (same with De Niro in the nursing home... is he talking to the camera, or the unseen Charles Brandt?)
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Post by pacinoyes on Dec 3, 2019 5:23:14 GMT
I will check it out on Netflix - if someone can list the timestamp I'd appreciate it - obviously it didn't bother me since I don't recall it and I thought he spoke it to DeNiro or it was a clip of him speaking to a character not overtly stopping for "us". De Niro doesn't iirc - you said "both men"? 23:10Though it's hard to tell if he's speaking to the camera or to an unseen person to the left or right of the camera (same with De Niro in the nursing home... is he talking to the camera, or the unseen Charles Brandt?) Thanks - this scene is preceded by "as Russ used to say" so my assumption is that he's saying it to Frank who is remembering the first time he heard it - so to stephen's point I guess that's why it didn't bother me at all - although many people over the years think I'm a weirdo for being bothered by it in Goodfellas anyway
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Good God
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Post by Good God on Dec 3, 2019 5:27:51 GMT
I wasn't (especially) bothered by it in any Scorsese movie, and there is a way to read it as not breaking the 4th wall in The Irishman, but to me it felt like Scorsese broke the 4th wall with both De Niro and Pesci in The Irishman.
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Post by stephen on Dec 3, 2019 5:31:48 GMT
There's a brief scene early on where Pesci explains to the audience why he doesn't like go-betweens: he doesn't want two people tracing anything back to him. I will check it out on Netflix - if someone can list the timestamp I'd appreciate it - obviously it didn't bother me since I don't recall it and I thought he spoke it to DeNiro or it was a clip of him speaking to a character not overtly stopping for "us". De Niro doesn't iirc - you said "both men"? But that hardly seems the same as Liotta getting off the witness stand and talking to the audience which to me amounted to wtf trickery - and in Bracco's left-field narration trickery as well (and unnecessary in both cases) De Niro spends the entire movie narrating from a wheelchair in a nursing home. The camera shows in the initial tracking shot that he is talking to nobody. In essence, he's talking to us. It's exactly the same thing. Just because his eyeline is slightly to the left of center doesn't matter. I also don't really get your logic at certain points. For instance, I just don't understand how you can praise something like Thelma's sudden glitch-cut in the phone call to Jo Hoffa as being inspired (when it definitely took me out of the movie) and then call a scene like Liotta, who's been talking to us the entire time conversationally, actually breaking the fourth wall in the last minute (when the film takes such a personal approach to address us directly, to say nothing of the final shot of Liotta in the doorway of the house, and Pesci Great Train Robbery-ing it right at the end) is "trickery." As for Bracco, even though she's not as equal a perspective as Liotta, she's still incredibly essential in that moment to have to let us understand why she sticks by Henry the way she does. It's a crucial moment that is, in my opinion, the fulcrum of the entire movie. Karen makes an active choice to be with Henry, despite him showing his violence, and she becomes complicit in it right from the start. If you don't understand her decision from her perspective, it doesn't work. I dunno, man. Maybe it's just me, but it seems like you're unnecessarily knocking one film while trying to prop up another, when the latter is just as guilty of those "tricks" as the former.
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Post by The_Cake_of_Roth on Dec 3, 2019 5:34:29 GMT
The prospect of Pacino winning for this is so exciting not just because it's been so long since his last Oscar, but it would also give us the neat situation where he and De Niro (assuming he's also nominated) co-star with each other in another 3.5-hour crime epic 45 years later and basically flip places in terms of awards recognition... the supporting actor wins while the leading actor (presumably) doesn't, in which case Pacino and De Niro would become tied for number of Oscar wins per category. I know people are probably sick of GF II comparisons, but I remember someone pointing out that Pacino doesn't appear in The Irishman until about 45 minutes in, so I checked to see when De Niro enters in GF II and he appears pretty much around the same time (43 minutes in to be exact, and 46 minutes for Pacino in The Irishman). Just a useless bit of trivia that I thought was interesting.
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Pasquale
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Post by Pasquale on Dec 3, 2019 5:47:31 GMT
I'm glad that the de-aging (which was never a distraction during my viewing experience, I must say) didn't make De Niro look entirely like his younger self - instead it made me see a younger version of this particular character with his hulking physicality and his obedient-dog agreeability. dude, if Scorsese shot this ala boyhood - no deaging. you'd search him and when found him, you'd c*m in his face. i am serious.
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Post by DeepArcher on Dec 3, 2019 5:48:25 GMT
Some observations from my first (of probably many) rewatches, with some spoilers below but I'm not sure for how much longer spoiler tags will be necessary in this thread if they even still are:
*In my initial review I discussed a bit how the color palette is used throughout the film to create contrast between its different environments, i.e. harsher colors in the mob's home turf, softer lighting in courtrooms and such, etc., including how blue and especially green are often used in home settings. Connect this with Frank's decision to later buy a green casket -- which is loaded with symbolism, namely a tongue-in-cheek reference to his Irish heritage (probably the most obvious way to see it, and really the only way I saw it on first viewing). But it also relates further to the idea that green represents home, a state of normalcy; when Frank is introduced as a young truck driver, he's dressed in green, driving a green truck. These colors slowly slide out of his life as he is immersed deeper into his life of crime, and in the face of death, he wants desperately to return to the simple life that he gave up. You could extend that even further to the point that green is the color of life, and Frank choosing the green casket comes from his fear of the finality of death. (And, yes, it's also the color of money!)
*Though already (unnecessarily) controversial in how the character is depicted, Peggy is in a lot of ways the most essential piece to the entire film. And there are a plethora of interesting (and great) decisions made in regards to the depiction of Peggy, one of the key ones that I didn't really notice the first time being how the same young actress is used to play her to cover a span of time that would amount to roughly ten years. She shows absolutely no natural signs of aging because Frank only remembers this one image of her as a little girl. It's also worth noting that, at least until Hoffa enters the film, in all of her scenes Peggy is shown wearing the same costume (or at least I think it's the same one every time) -- and, yes, it's green. It's another neat trick of showing Frank's true lack of specific memories of her; and yet, the torment of her silence means that he remembers her more than any of his three other daughters, whom we hardly see it all. He's struggling to remember Peggy, perhaps still unready to face the fact that she was never a significant part of his life at all.
*The development of the dynamic between Russ and Jimmy over their respective relationships with Peggy also mostly slipped by on a first viewing as well, and it's another subtle yet crucial element to understanding all of these characters. A key contrast is Peggy's overwhelming, enthusiastic "Thank you!" to Jimmy giving her ice cream with her very awkward "Thank you" to Russ when she gets ice skates for Christmas, which she then won't repeat at also receiving a $100 bill. Russ thinks he can simply buy her affection by putting as much money into it as he can, but Jimmy understands the simple things and the intimacy that truly build relationships. There's a subtle jealousy that fuels Russ all the way to the day when he decides to have Jimmy killed; note the awards banquet sequence and the glorious swish-pan from Jimmy and Peggy dancing to Russ silently watching them from his table, Tony Pro and Fat Tony whispering in his ears at either side of him. It's a less subtle moment, but one of the most haunting images of the entire film.
*Speaking of the awards banquet sequence, something that I also didn't quite put together on a first viewing is how the gesture of Russ bestowing the ring to Frank is his way of one-upping Frank having just received his award from Jimmy. While it's a nice scene that gives us the heartwarming moment where Russ refers to Frank as his "son," it's also a more subtly manipulative gesture that suggests at just how conniving and ruthless Russ really is. The extent to which Russ really cared about Frank in contrast to how much he just sought to use him is one of the many enigmas at the center of the narrative, that haunts the entire film. It makes Russ's final sentiment ring with all the more poignance: "I chose us over him. Fuck 'em... Fuck 'em... Fuck 'em."
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Pasquale
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Post by Pasquale on Dec 3, 2019 5:51:07 GMT
solved it. Scorsese is a human robot.
ps: soundtrack kills me.
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Post by pacinoyes on Dec 3, 2019 5:58:21 GMT
De Niro spends the entire movie narrating from a wheelchair in a nursing home. The camera shows in the initial tracking shot that he is talking to nobody. In essence, he's talking to us. It's exactly the same thing. Just because his eyeline is slightly to the left of center doesn't matter.
I also don't really get your logic at certain points. For instance, I just don't understand how you can praise something like Thelma's sudden glitch-cut in the phone call to Jo Hoffa as being inspired (when it definitely took me out of the movie) and then call a scene like Liotta, who's been talking to us the entire time conversationally, actually breaking the fourth wall in the last minute (when the film takes such a personal approach to address us directly, to say nothing of the final shot of Liotta in the doorway of the house, and Pesci Great Train Robbery-ing it right at the end) is "trickery." As for Bracco, even though she's not as equal a perspective as Liotta, she's still incredibly essential in that moment to have to let us understand why she sticks by Henry the way she does. It's a crucial moment that is, in my opinion, the fulcrum of the entire movie. Karen makes an active choice to be with Henry, despite him showing his violence, and she becomes complicit in it right from the start. If you don't understand her decision from her perspective, it doesn't work. I dunno, man. Maybe it's just me, but it seems like you're unnecessarily knocking one film while trying to prop up another, when the latter is just as guilty of those "tricks" as the former. What can I say - movies play on different people differently, I have no way of knowing whether he's speaking to Brandt or not - I would say his eyeline matters and it certainly doesn't matter that you arbitrarily just say it doesn't (?) and when it didn't bother me anyway - why would I retroactively try to find things that bothered me - even if he's talking to the audience he's doing it at the start consistently - it's not the same thing at all - it's not jarring.
Breaking the fourth wall doesn't take me out of plenty of films - Annie Hall for one - but it did in Goodfellas - with Bracco (who never narrates again) and doesn't need to - show her being complicit then don't narrate it, and him getting off that stand and the doorway scene. Again, the Thelma edit I compared to Travis' "Listen you F*ckers, you screwheads" scene .......those edit choices not only work for me they are the very reason she's the GOAT........but I'm not "unnecessarily" knocking Goodfellas vs. The Irishman just telling you what did and didn't work for me. I made that argument against Goodfellas before The Irishman existed many times - maybe on this board but certainly on IMDB years back. It's no different than when I said the shopkeeper scene for example took me out of the film for a brief bit (like Sonny missing the punch beating up Carlo in The Godfather) after all. Just calling them the way I see 'em, sort of bristling at your notion that it's "illogical" in any way like disparate scenes and events need to be assessed as equal .......it's rather just my POV that's all.
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Post by pacinoyes on Dec 3, 2019 7:24:12 GMT
*Though already (unnecessarily) controversial in how the character is depicted, Peggy is in a lot of ways the most essential piece to the entire film. And there are a plethora of interesting (and great) decisions made in regards to the depiction of Peggy, one of the key ones that I didn't really notice the first time being how the same young actress is used to play her to cover a span of time that would amount to roughly ten years. She shows absolutely no natural signs of aging because Frank only remembers this one image of her as a little girl. It's also worth noting that, at least until Hoffa enters the film, in all of her scenes Peggy is shown wearing the same costume (or at least I think it's the same one every time) -- and, yes, it's green. It's another neat trick of showing Frank's true lack of specific memories of her; and yet, the torment of her silence means that he remembers her more than any of his three other daughters, whom we hardly see it all. He's struggling to remember Peggy, perhaps still unready to face the fact that she was never a significant part of his life at all. I have posted this guy before in the Arrow Video thread - he is an insanely intelligent and insightful gentlemen and I recently came across his Nov 29th video review - it's long, an hour but I really recommend everyone who loves the film or thinks it is overrated give it a listen in small doses - it's not all positive either. He sees it very similar to DeepArcher in how he "reads" the film and some aspects of this video dealing with purposeful artificiality and unreliable narration are the best film analysis I've heard all year - even on this board.
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Post by TerryMontana on Dec 3, 2019 7:29:52 GMT
For what it's worth, I was more distracted by Kurt Russell's narration in OUATIH: Just one line in the beginning of the film, then two hours later he narrates for about 5-10 minutes in the film's climax...
Having said that, I believe De Niro is talking to us for the whole film but Pesci in that particular scene is talking to some other guy not seen in the camera.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 3, 2019 7:47:12 GMT
*Though already (unnecessarily) controversial in how the character is depicted, Peggy is in a lot of ways the most essential piece to the entire film. And there are a plethora of interesting (and great) decisions made in regards to the depiction of Peggy, one of the key ones that I didn't really notice the first time being how the same young actress is used to play her to cover a span of time that would amount to roughly ten years. She shows absolutely no natural signs of aging because Frank only remembers this one image of her as a little girl. It's also worth noting that, at least until Hoffa enters the film, in all of her scenes Peggy is shown wearing the same costume (or at least I think it's the same one every time) -- and, yes, it's green. It's another neat trick of showing Frank's true lack of specific memories of her; and yet, the torment of her silence means that he remembers her more than any of his three other daughters, whom we hardly see it all. He's struggling to remember Peggy, perhaps still unready to face the fact that she was never a significant part of his life at all. I have posted this guy before in the Arrow Video thread - he is an insanely intelligent and insightful gentlemen and I recently came across his Nov 29th video review - it's long, an hour but I really recommend everyone who loves the film or thinks it is overrated give it a listen in small doses - it's not all positive either. The point he makes about how the de-aging interacts with the idea that the story we're seeing play out is all given to us through Frank's memories is spot on, and something I felt after my first watch but didn't articulate properly. I moved to a new town in the middle of first grade, and the guy I was assigned to sit across from ended up becoming a long term friend, and we still talk to this day. On my first day at the new school, I vividly remember how he gave me a big grin when I sat down at the desk in front of him, but thinking back to it now, though I can see the grin clear as day, I really struggle to picture him as a six year old, and instead see a funny sort of blend of the 22 year old he is now and a half-modified, shorter, more compact version of him that is there to "make up" for the knowledge that I know he looked different in SOME way as a little kid. I think if most people reminisced and tried to do it through visual memory only, they'd run into the same thing. This is probably a big part of why, subconsciously anyway, the CGI hardly bothered me. I'll watch more of that video later, he seems like a cool guy.
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Post by theycallmemrfish on Dec 3, 2019 16:29:07 GMT
Anyone else notice how many HBO regulars were in this?
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Post by TerryMontana on Dec 3, 2019 16:55:59 GMT
Anyone else notice how many HBO regulars were in this? Almost half of the cast of Boardwalk Empire, to begin with...
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Good God
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Post by Good God on Dec 3, 2019 17:55:36 GMT
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