The Irishman

Samir Mehta: “It ruled.”

Wow. As billed, it’s a masterpiece. Scorsese will always be one of my very favorite directors, and this scratched an itch that I needed scratched - it brought his two greatest threads together beautifully - the films principally about faith and morality and those principally aboht violence.

For whatever reason, the media portrayal is that Scorsese is a maker of crime and mafia films, but that’s a small slice of what he did. Here, we have a portrait of his greatest collaborator dealing with the legacy of a violent, unthinking life. It is touching, tragic, and all too real.

I will add that my favorite actor from the Scorsese guild will always be Harvey Keitel. It was wonderful to see him again, if too briefly.

Best film of the year.

− December 14, 2019 • more by Samir • log in or create an account to reply

Scott Hardie: I look forward to seeing this too. There's a lot of controversy around Anna Paquin barely speaking any lines (which sounds appropriate in context to me), but I've heard that Harvey Keitel has barely any lines either. I've had trouble watching him since reading Lorraine Bracco's memoir about how violent of a partner he was. But this and Scorsese's other crime movies are about awful people; you have to have a stomach for it in the first place.

(Speaking of the Paquin controversy, I keep seeing articles like Scorsese defending it, De Niro defending it, Pacino defending it, but there's barely any media outlet quoting Paquin on the subject, which strikes me as a little pot-calling-the-kettle-black.) − December 16, 2019 • more by Scott

Samir Mehta: Keitel's role is frustratingly small given that this is a sort of final lap for Scorsese and his group. (In my view, Keitel is a more essential Scorsese player than Pesci, but I realize I'm in a minority. Pesci was excellent twice with Scorsese, and okay in Casino. But, he did not have the nuance, and was generally in a narrow class of films. Although, his best work was in Raging Bull, I think.)

Sad to hear that Keitel might be a lousy person. I suppose I should read more about that. − December 16, 2019 • more by Samir

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