A Scorsese gang crime epic, the whole film is more than three hours, it is the longest film he directed, and the long-lost return of De Niro and Pessi, and Pacino's first appearance in Sri Lanka In the Coses movie, this film was extremely anticipated before it was released, and it turned out to be more exciting than expected after it was released!
The whole story is very complicated, spanning a full half a century, with as many as sixty characters, not to mention the number of scenes. But there is only one main line, and there are only three protagonists, but Scorsese uses flashbacks and interruptions to tell the story. Let us first deal with the characters, the relationship between the characters and the brief plot.
Main characters:
Just like "Good Guys", "Lady from Casino" and "Infinite Walkers", there are only three protagonists in this work-Frank, Russell and Jimmy, played by Robert, Percy and Pacino respectively.
Secondary characters:
Peggy, Renee, Tony Pro (Dwarf), Skinny, Sally, Angelo, Chuck, Tony Jack, William Baverino, Tony Salerno (Fat Tony), Joe, Doffman, Philip Ts.
Then let us sort out the relationship between the characters.
In the three master kilometers, Frank is the central figure, and the whole story also talks about his ups and downs. Frank's family has daughter Peggy and wife Rui Ni. His boss and friend is Russell, and Frank is also Jimmy's bodyguard and friend. Skinny is the gang member who loves to eat steak. It’s him. Frank introduced Russell. Russell is the boss of the Italian gangster family. The bosses of the gang include Angelo and Fatty Tony. If you want to get rid of someone, you must pass their "OK". Just work. Russell’s younger brother is William Baverino. He was the lawyer who helped Frank win the beef-stealing lawsuit. Frank mentioned that he was going to Detroit to attend his wedding at the beginning. He was also the one who helped Jimmy continue to fight the lawsuit. Jimmy is the chairman of the union, his son is Chuck, and his wife is Joe. He has Doffman, Dwarf, and Fitz under his team. Dwarf’s cousin is Tony Jack, a member of the gang, and Sally Worm is a killer of Dwarf’s men. Dwarf later forms an alliance with Fatty Tony and wants to get rid of Jimmy together.
Next is the plot.
At first, the camera shuttled through the nursing home and fell on the elderly Frank. He began to break the fourth wall and tell the audience his youthful story. William’s wedding took place in Detroit, accompanied by Frank, Russell, and their respective wives, all the way from Philadelphia to Detroit, and this wedding was a "peace mission". Later we learned that it was actually a mission to negotiate peace with Jimmy. .
This is the first timeline of the flashback. When Frank and Russell see the gas station in the past, the second timeline of the flashback begins. This timeline tells about Frank's criminal career. Ever since Frank was a meat delivery truck driver. The first thing he did illegally was to smuggle steaks to skinny people. Over time, the boss discovered the steak stealing. Frank was sued in court. He met the lawyer William, who helped dissolve the complaint. Frank met Russell officially. They chatted in Italian and dipped bread and wine. Frank recalled the history of the war. After that, he started to work for Russell and Angelo.
This was the first turning point for Frank. At this time, Frank's illegal behavior was not particularly serious, so he went to steal something; teach and threaten others. The timeline also turned back to the road trip to Detroit.
The second turning point is the first person Frank killed-"Whispering". Since then, Frank has embarked on the road of crime, he has committed an unforgivable crime. He changed from a leather jacket to a suit and leather shoes. The second time he ate bread and wine with Russell, they changed from colleagues to friends. At this time the timeline turned back to Detroit, and their road trip went a little further.
Frank's third turning point: Jimmy's debut. Russell introduced him to Jimmy. Jimmy is the chairman of the truck union and needs a bodyguard. The friendship between Frank and Jimmy is officially established.
Frank's fourth turning point was when Tojimi's Ford became the chairman of the local union, and the timeline naturally turned back to the Detroit Highway. When the timeline turns around again, Jimmy and Russell both have their own problems: Jimmy goes to jail for fraud and becomes a rival with Dwarf; Russell is insulted by the madman Joey. After Frank kills Joey, the camera cuts back to the road, and when he cuts over again, Jimmy is out of prison.
Jimmy is no longer the chairman of the union. Dwarf and Fitz rule the union and share a piece of the gang. This is what Jimmy hates the most. Jimmy and Fitz started a union battle, and he said a lot of offending the fat Tony. if. Just because Jimmy wanted to take back the union wholeheartedly, Fatty Tony and Little Shorty decided to get rid of him.
At this moment, timeline one and timeline two finally converge. They were going to Detroit to negotiate a peace, but in the end the senior management decided to kill Jimmy, during which Russell begged him a lot. Because Frank and Jimmy are a group of people, if the top management decides to get rid of Jimmy, Frank will not escape the doom of death, but Russell made it through to the top, as long as Frank kills Jimmy himself, he can avoid death. Jimmy’s death is impossible to change. Now is the question of whether Frank will be with him or not. If Frank insists on being with Jimmy, he and his family will be killed. This is Frank's motive for killing Jimmy.
Since Jimmy's death, the film has also come to an end. For Frank and Russell, they began to go downhill. The two went to prison together. They ate bread and wine for the last time, and Russell could not bite the bread. In the end Russell died in prison, Frank was released, his wife Rui Ni also died, and his daughters would not be with him. Eventually he entered a nursing home. In the lonely ward, Frank sat in a chair. The film ended.
Characters:
Although the plot is not simple, for Scorsese's films, the most complicated thing is the characterization. Like "Good Guys," "From Casino," and "Infinite Walker," the protagonist is flawed and there is no absolute The good guys and the absolute bad guys, they are all in a gray area.
When Frank met Russell for the first time, he saw Russell in a suit and leather shoes, and he began to yearn for more money, and thus embarked on the path of crime. Since he worked for Jimmy, money is no longer a problem, and friendship has become more important. At Frank’s commendation ceremony, Jimmy and Russell each gave Frank something to witness the friendship-a watch and a ring. When Frank finally entered the nursing home, even though Jimmy and Russell had already passed away, he still had the watch in his hand. And that ring. Frank's journey is very similar to Henry in "The Good Guy", divided into uphill and downhill. The uphill road is the first half of the film, the rise of power and money, and the downhill road is the second half of the film, the loss of family and friends.
Like "Goodfellas" and "Infernal Walkers", this "Irishman" also adopts a three-male and one-woman approach, which means three male protagonists and one supporting female actor. In this film, the supporting female actor is Frank's daughter. Peggy. Peggy has witnessed his father's violence since he was a child. Because of a trivial incident, Frank beat the shop owner all the way from the shop to the street in front of his daughter. Later Frank collected the money; the news broadcast on TV; the family's embarrassing dinner; Peggy was watching silently. When Peggy asked his father where he was going at night, Frank replied indifferently "Go to work". Peggy avoided both his father and Russell, and was even a little scared. When the family bowled with Russell, Peggy's attitude towards Russell was shy, cold, and scared. Peggy's attitude towards Jimmy was completely different. They happily played mini golf and ate ice cream together. Peggy said "thank you" to Jimmy and Russell in a completely different tone. The enthusiasm for Jimmy and the indifference to Russell are in sharp contrast. When Peggy grew up, he danced happily with Jimmy at his father's commendation meeting, and looked at Russell with hatred. After Jimmy was killed by Frank, news of Jimmy's disappearance was broadcast on TV. Peggy asked Frank "why? Why?". At this time Peggy seemed to have seen through all the viciousness of her father, and her accumulation of hatred for her father had reached its peak, and Peggy never spoke to Frank again. Later, when Old Frank went to Peggy with a cane, Peggy still did not forgive him. For Peggy, who had been missing her father’s love since she was a child, she regarded Jimmy as a father. Jimmy also liked Peggy very much. They had a father-daughter relationship. After Jimmy’s disappearance, Peggy knew that this matter must be inseparable from his father. , This is also Peggy's final bottom line, so that at the end of the end, she could not forgive her father's crimes.
Russell and Jimmy don't have a deep relationship. The only time they met was at Frank's commendation meeting. So does Russell care about Jimmy? Answer: Russell really doesn't want Jimmy to die. There are a few small details. One is that when he saw Jimmy openly fight the gang on TV with Fat Tony, Fat Tony was furious, Russell stood on Jimmy’s side to calm Tony; Russell told Frank to give Jimmy makes a phone call, hoping that he can agree to a peace meeting. It's just that Tony Fatty, Shorty, and Tony Jack all wanted to kill Jimmy. Russell accepted it in desperation. Finally, when the old Russell and Frank were in prison, they ate bread and wine for the last time, and Russell lamented Jimmy's death again. He gave up Jimmy for Frank. All things the Italian gangs headed by Russell do are for more benefits and greater rights. In the end, when everyone went into the prison and all the money and rights were reduced to ashes, Russell said to Frank: "fuck them" may end up, and the only real thing is the friendship between Russell and Frank.
Jimmy is the most noble of the three. He is not a gang or a killer. It is the chairman of a truck union serving the people. He is colluding with the gang and doing illegal business. But Jimmy has a bottom line. He insists on serving the public and insisting that he is the owner of the trade union. He absolutely refuses to hand over the power of managing the trade union to the gang. Jimmy is stubborn, irritable, loves family and career, and has a sense of justice. It can be said that Jimmy is a complete anti-hero. His trust in Frank remained unchanged until the end. Jimmy has arrogantly said to fight the gang to the end on TV and in private. For Jimmy, the mastery of the union is a matter of principle rather than money. It was this "righteous" spirit that killed Jimmy.
Movie language:
The camera in Scorsese's hands is flexible and changeable, as it has always been. "The Irishman" is of course no exception. At first the camera entered from the darkness, and the long lens passed through the nursing home and finally fell on Frank. This not only introduces the background of the lonely life of old Frank, but the slow motion scenes also seem to tell the audience from the beginning: the next story to be told is a man's long and legendary life.
The violence of the film came quickly. In the panoramic lens, Frank took out the revolver and killed a person instantly. The only close-up was probably when the old Frank said that when he was cleaning the house before, the scene was shot with a gun in the back of a person's head, and then blood splashed. Go to the wall and observe carefully, you will find that the one killed was the later Jimmy. All Frank's killings use panoramic or mid-range shots. This only close-up also shows that Frank doesn't care who he killed before, but the shadow of killing Jimmy has always been in his heart. Scorsese's most commonly used technique in "Goodfellas" and "From Vegas to Macau" is the protagonist's large number of inner monologues and montage editing in the screen. Editing will slow down during stressful moments, but will be faster in normal times. For example, the montage of Frank throwing into the river at 39min; Frank used a lot of jump scissors when he helped Russell collect money during his trip to Detroit: the car went to the destination-Frank took the money-out of the shop-Russell picked up the money in the car-put it in the car, the picture is just These few shots are shown, and all the other unimportant ones are omitted. Scorsese likes to use red to represent danger, the color Jimmy wore when he was killed-red; the color of the vehicle they rode in-red. There are two longer violent scenes in the film. One is when Frank beat the shopkeeper who bullied his daughter, from the shop in the back scene to the street in the foreground, stepping on the shopkeeper’s finger; the other is Frank holding the shopkeeper. The double-gun revolver shoots lunatic Joey in a trick, or from the shop to the outside, but the camera in the shop is sporty and very flexible.
The film introduces the prototype character is very interesting: stop the frame first, then zoom in, the text introduces the name of the character, the way of death, and the time of death, and then zoom out. Jimmy's wife, Joe, was worried that the car would explode when starting the car. Scorsese used: close-up turning the key-distant view of other vehicles exploding-close-up starting the car, this way reflects Joe's nervous and uneasy mood. In short, like all Scorsese's previous works, the film language of this film is rich, with expressionist shooting techniques in the realistic story. This "The Irishman" is definitely one of Scorsese's best works, and perhaps one of the greatest movies of the century.
Finally, I will talk about a few small details and interesting Easter eggs that I personally found:
① In the beginning, Frank recalled that the person killed in the screen when he was cleaning the house was Jimmy.
②In a scene in the car before killing Jimmy, Jimmy's son Chuck said that the back seat was wet by a fish. Frank insisted on sitting on the wet seat in order to sit with Jimmy later. In "The Godfather", the dead fish symbolizes the dead.
③It was also a car ride. Frank and Jimmy hugged in the back seat of the car when they met. Frank refused to let go. He knew this was a farewell to Jimmy.
④It was also a ride in a car scene. Sally asked where Chuck fish came from. Later, Jimmy scolded Sally that he had never fished. This was regarded as the father's revenge for his son, and it was the last time Jimmy's domineering personality was shown.
⑤The three protagonists never smoked a cigarette in the film.
⑥ Jimmy has eaten ice cream four times. (True love for ice cream~)
⑦ Frank chooses guns in the apartment when he is preparing to kill the lunatic Joey. Similar scenes are also found in "Taxi Driver", where the actors are all De Niro. Interestingly, "Taxi Driver" Rid Niro picked a large-caliber Magnum revolver. This one picked .32. Small caliber revolver. It also explained the sound of the pistol. (De Niro's evolution from a young amateur assassin to an older professional assassin~)
⑧ The role played by Russell’s actor Pessi in "The Good Guy" has always wanted to be the top of the Italian gangster family, but was killed. In this film, Pessi’s wish has finally come true~
⑨ Russell made a joke about God to Peggy when he was bowling, and finally Russell started to go to church when he was critically ill. Similarly, Frank started to pray to God after living in a nursing home.
⑩When Frank swore to tell the truth in court, the words on the screen read "murder, attempted murder, intimidation, graft, arson"
The scene of Frank sitting alone in the nursing home at the end is similar to the ending of Michael in "The Godfather Two".
(Finally, to the audience who felt a little boring to watch the first time: Please be patient, this is not the same as those commercial fast-paced films, please give "The Irishman" a second chance, calm down and savor it. There will definitely be a different feeling, thank you!)
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