DarkImbecile wrote: ↑Wed Nov 27, 2019 5:23 pm
Anyway, this is a film that is so dependent on its dialogue with Scorsese's own work and American history that I can't imagine coming to it with insufficient knowledge of either and having a positive reaction to it. Of all the mournful notes in the movie, perhaps the most unexpectedly emotional for me was Scorsese's treatment of the erosion of history and meaning over time, on both a global and personal level. He portrays the momentous, world-changing events that dominated these characters' lifetimes and much of his own work as the ephemeral, half-understood abstractions they are to the vast majority of people alive today; the murder of a president and a near miss with nuclear holocaust are roughly as meaningful to the young adults around Sheeran at the end of the film as the various now-obscure murders and disappearances that are more foregrounded in the narrative. It's not just the choices and actions that made up Sheeran's own immoral, wasted life that have lost any color and meaning they might have once had, but nearly all the once-shared experiences, values, fears, and concerns that are rapidly disappearing from living memory.
To the point that Scorsese's presentation of the gangsters in this film denies them even the vitality and mythology that comes with every other film in the genre's depiction of 'the glory days', I loved that he introduces nearly every side character with a description of their ultimate murder or life-ending prison sentence, undercutting them before they can even attempt to assert any larger significance or value beyond ending up bleeding out in a driveway or blown to pieces in front of a Philly rowhome.
Having revisited the film last night, and this thread today, this comment really resonates with what I think is so successful about the film. I'd been meaning to revisit this film for some time, as there have been moments since initially seeing it in theaters where I have been reminded of moments from it...but I finally got around to it last night.
Rather than being bored by the fact that Scorsese already has a film similar to this in
Goodfellas, which covers some of the same territory, I found that familiarity with that film made this one so much more enjoyable. Scorsese is taking a similar world and telling it from a different perspective. Not just that of a "Good fella" vs. an enforcer, however, but also with the perspective of time, age, and distance. There is a beautiful minimalism to the film, in the character such as Salerno, having such a gigantic influence over the plot of the film despite being in 2-3 scenes at most. Sheeran never gets close to any of the characters except Russel, and the distance he retains with everyone over the course of the film is incredibly effective. Whereas Henry Hill can riff off the names and mistresses of everyone in his crew, never gets more than one or two conversation with any critical figure in the mob. These mob relationships are stripped of all of their humanity and reduced to the bare minimum, and Scorsese visiting that world again with this different perspective is very effective.
The other thing that really stuck out to me, and I concede this is probably mostly my own bias showing, is the way Scorsese romanticizes the mob in contrast to big business. In one of the final episodes of the
Sopranos, there is a plot where the mobsters are trying to force a chain coffee store to start paying them for protection, and the manager insists he can't even access the safe money. Big business has neutered a way for mobsters to collect their money. Similarly, the last time I saw
Casino, that was my read as De Niro eulogizes Las Vegas under mob rule at the end of the film. Sure, the things the mobsters are doing is awful, but isn't it a bit more romantic with them in charge than faceless corporations? I have a friend that thinks this is intentionally ironic on Scorsese's part, and he doesn't mean to valorize the mob lifestyle, but I'm personally not so sure it can't be both.
There's a similar tone that is consistent in
The Irishman. Hoffa screams that "big business and the government are out to get these unions." As long as the mob can benefit from union power, unions seem pretty safe. And while it's certainly just statement of facts, note how many of these gangsters died in 1979-1981, the years of Ronald Regan (and therefore, the current state of big business') ascent. Throughout the film, Hoffa and the mob are able to use each other effectively. But the death of one ultimately signals the death of the other. The glory days of mob rule went hand in hand with the dominance of the Teamsters' union. From a contemporary perspective, the mob feels less present than it used to, and so are unions which are there to confer benefits and power to the working people against faceless corporations. And the rise of the mega-corporation has occurred during the downfall of both of these.
I know this isn't the primary plot of the film. Scorsese is quite explicit that this film is about the passage of time and how one evaluates their own life while able to look back on it with full hindsight. But between
The King Of Comedy,
Wolf of Wall Street and
The Irishman, we have some very beautiful critiques of the way our current society handles celebrity, fame, money, and big business. The people in his films are very effective representations of those critiques, and that's what's lingered in me the most since revisiting the film last night.