Irishman: More Perversion.
This is what I was talking about in my other thread.
It's a 3.5 hour film about perverts made to look sympathetic, nice, average guys, etc.
What? I really disagree and I don't think the movie is trying to show what you're seeing.
SPOILERS below
The movie never shows Frank achieve a really opulent lifestyle. He's well-off, but he's not buy-anybody, buy-anything rich. He's got it good, head of his local union chapter and so forth.
But for what?
Did you see the scenes at the end where he's lost everything? His wife dies, he's alone. His daughter won't speak to him because she knows he was a monster. His other daughter talks to him, but just long enough to roll her eyes in disbelief because he needs to be told why the other daughter won't talk.
His doctor doesn't even know who Jimmy Hoffa was. What's his legacy? Dust.
He killed his best friend and lost his family. For what? A few bucks?
He went to prison for his last good years before his health was gone. All the other mobsters are portrayed as sad and pathetic, dying in that place. They're monsters.
The movie makes the point that these are terrifying monsters, selling their souls and their families - everything worth having - for a few bucks and a little worldly power.
As for being "average guys", yeah. These guys were average. That's scary, too. Monsters come from everywhere, even friends and neighbours.
Look, I'm willing to listen to arguments against, but I have no idea where you're getting this notion that the film glorifies, accepts, normalizes, or even looks the other way on this bad behaviour.
He falls under the "average" guy nonsense that these films portray.
The film makes him look like a "guy taking care of his family" that was part of a social time period where things like this just happened. However, I had many relatives in WWII who were in serious combat and they weren't psycho killers who came back and killed more people. This character/person was like a serial killer killing people in the same way and for the same reasons, including his friends.
He was a pervert made to look like an average and likable guy.
In these films, murder, is shown to be "okay under the circumstances" and where some homosexual with eyebrows is a "wow what a humorous weirdo". A movie about pedophiles would honestly be less gross if you step back for a second and think.
I'm still not seeing it.
The movie roundly condemns his actions by showing the effects on his life. It doesn't show it as normal or average. It shows his average appearance as being a thin tarp covering a garbage scow. His life's decisions cost him everything of true importance or value.
How does the movie uphold those values?
It shows that he's like this humble average Joe caught up in something.
He, and everyone in the film, are basically serial killers and high level sociopaths. There is no attempt in the film to make him or anyone creepy. They all seem like guys you could have a beer with.
In reality, these guys have the same thought process as serial killers. They sit around and plot, fantasize, dream about murdering people, pointlessly gaining power over people, and just imagine what a real conversation was like or internal monologue. If you watch a film about some "creepy serial killer" you would get that. These guys were creepy and horrible. They are shown as "okay guys", funny, reluctant---to blow your brains out, etc.
These films are perverted propaganda, but I don't know for what.
Having it confirmed that Hollywood is filled with sexual predators, druggies, and so forth makes me think these kind of films are justifications.
Mafia: There are three types, Jews, Italians, and blacks.
Who are the most frequently seen actors, Jews, Italians, and blacks.
Recently, I read Snoop Dog used his gang members to threaten people to produce his records when he first started. So, do you think maybe the director of this films knows a bunch of murderers, rapists, and druggies that got him where he is today, and that explains the tone of his films?
I think I'm seeing where you're coming from a bit more. Your premise is that every mobster are sociopaths.
I'm not sure that's true. There are lots of records of mobsters who are swept up, dragged in, or join for other reasons. A lot of gangs, for instance, recruit out of impoverished young men who feel disenfranchised and hopeless. From an early age, they're groomed, the neighbourhoods they live in leave them an impression that gang life is one of the only ways out. It's not all sociopaths.
In The Irishman, yes, Scorsese portrays a lot of these guys as friendly enough to be likeable. But Pesci's character struck me as chilling and not really a "likeable guy". High functioning sociopath? Yeah, I'd buy that for his character.
I still think that the movie condemns this life, condemns these actions, and roundly condemns the violence, crime, abuse, and hurt that these people inflict.
I also disagree that this is a pattern with Scorsese.
Mean Streets: Harvey Keitel is likeable, yes, but Robert De Niro is shown as having psychological problems galore.
Taxi Driver: Travis Bickle is a poster child for derangement. Scorsese isn't glorifying this behaviour.
Raging Bull: De Niro again plays a character who isn't "guy next door"; he's brutal and uncomfortable and this is a condemnation of his actions.
On and on. I've never left a Scorsese picture feeling like I wanted to go be like those guys. I feel like he's critical.
Now, again, I give you this: he portrays the empathy of his characters, but I think that's true to life. These guys can be likeable (even the sociopaths), and many or most of them are not sociopaths. Are they? Is there a study?
You need to look the definition or symptoms of a sociopath, which is now called Antisocial Personality Disorder. You can decide for yourself.
Also, I'm not mad at you, lol, but what you wrote is your opinion, your feelings, not facts from the film or impressions from the acting. You don't like what see but that is not what is shown in his films.
These films always show, a guy with supposedly humble beginnings, humorous guys, guys who are good to their families and live in nice houses, guys making delicious dinners, enjoying food, they are respectful, they usually have a plan that will work but "idiots" mess it up, they are loyal, and so on. There's usually the message that "I don't know how I got into this, but here I am" which sounds like it could happen to you. The main character here learned to be a brutal murderer in WWII, so not his fault.
The acting for these characters is never creepy. I have worked in psych for 30 years and a lot of that time in prisons. Many criminals are like talking to aliens in that they think totally different that us about everything. They might see an "apple" and that apple is the gateway to fucking someone in the ass later. That's how these guys think.
These movies are like porn. You can watch porn and end up thinking women like the get slapped around, choked, etc because the girl in the video seems to like it. However, if you went behind the scenes you would find some very creepy people and a crazy woman. Same here.
Mean streets: Harvey, move out of the area and stop talking to these people!
Taxi: Weirdo ends up like Batman saving a hooker and taking out the bad guys.
Raging: Never saw it as I hate boxing and idiots.
I think you need to look at these gangster movies as artistic constructions. They construct the stories to present something. Imagine you work for the Chinese government and you are supposed to judge if a film is perverted or not for public viewing. Do you let these movies show or not?
I'm pretty familiar with the psychology of sociopathy. I know that they seem strange (often), but I also understand that they can often be quite difficult to spot, depending on the individual.
You're right: this is my opinion. And my opinion, based on an aggregate of information present in any given film Scorsese has shot is that he is condemning and not endorsing this lifestyle. He is not encouraging it. He is showing the desolation it will bring and these are cautionary tales.
To that end, it is necessary (as a storytelling device) to show the normalcy of (some) of the participants in crime. Most criminals get sucked in, and sometimes mental health is involved or becomes involved, but often it's desperation or cultural climate or something.
Scorsese's use of relatable people shows how seductive evil can be as well as showing the audience that if evil is pursued, evil flows into your life, even if you think you're a normal, "nice" guy.
The films don't always show normal, nice, funny guys. Sometimes, yes, but he also shows Travis Bickle (for one example). Many of the performances are creepy, too. Again: Bickle, but also Pesci's various characters. In Goodfellas, Casino, or the Irishman, he has a real eerie menace to him, if not outright animalistic behaviour.
Just because Bickle kills some worse people doesn't mean the movie supports him. I still think Taxi Driver does not condone Bickle's behviour.
I think as artistic constructions the total picture of these movies shines a spotlight on the ugliness that these people welcome into their lives. It also shows the humanity of these people, which prevents the films from becoming a bunch of PSAs, but also shows the real horror: evil can look normal, be friendly, and shake your hand with a smile. It's still evil.
(continued below)
I'm not sure that the Chinese censor thought experiment is a good one.
First, because I think I would pass most Scorsese films and allow the public to view them
Second, because I don't think that the invocation of a totalitarian regime which censors art and restricts freedom of speech is the best bastion or barometer for the antidote to evil or perversion.
The Chinese don't see themselves that way.
Marxism is very detailed on all the weirdness, mental illness, obsessions, etc that a capitalist society generates. In this society, we don't see that stuff, but it can be hard to argue with once you read Marxism.
Also, it's obvious that media influences psychology and there's been lots of psych studies on that regarding everything from eating disorder to violent sexual behavior relating back to role models in the media.
In our society, you can watch all the porn you want where women are beaten, put in cages, pretend to be raped and murdered, and there is nearly and endless supply. Our approach is that you can watch this and go crazy or not and all of us will sort it out as it happens. Meanwhile, the Chinese want to avoid people going crazy and not have to sort it out. That's one reason they censor stuff.
So, if I was a Chinese censor, I would ban these films but all something like a serial killer movie to go forward. They tend not to portray murderers as glamorous and show them captured, etc.
Okay, so we'd differ as censors, but that's not my central point.
My main point on the Chinese censors was that saying that totalitarian censoring of art is maybe not the best place to gauge morality.
As for the rest of it, my main argument remains the same: I believe this film, and others by Scorsese, are critical of these actions and do not glamorize the murderers at all because he shows the consequences of the violence. I do not leave The Irishman, Taxi Driver, or Gangs of New York thinking that violence is good or a solution. I think of it as abhorrent, repugnant behaviour that cripples the lives of those it touches.
I agree that pornography is damaging to the psyche. Study after study confirms this. But studies do not agree that the consumption of art does this. Study after study, in fact, confirms that an exposure to art makes people well-rounded and provides many mental and emotional benefits to people.
The comparison does not hold water. Scorsese is not making pornography and these films will not affect psyches the way a Chinese censor might think.
I disagree.
Scarface is great example.
He was an ugly dude with a weird haircut and he became a giant role model for black gangsters I knew in Philly. I couldn't believe it. He is ugly, appears to be in love with his sister, and gets killed in the end. By, that movie was a giant trend in Philly.
I would ask criminals, "Why do you like him? He gets killed in the end and who wants that" I wondered. Young black gangsters do!
They don't care if they live or die and want to go out with a pile of coke and a gun.
Also, another test is the amount of imitation people do of these characters. I have never seen anyone repeat lines from a serial killer movie. However, the crazy people from these films have iconic lines nearly everyone, but me lol, loves.
Departed: This film is also pro murder. In the end, a COP sneaks into the house of another cop and murders him. The audience is like "GOOD!" because that guy was a "Snitch" an deserves to die.
These films are propaganda for murderers.
My point on Scarface was in juxtaposition to this film because of the difference in climax and the differences between the final scenes.
In The Irishman, Scorsese delivers a final sequence as a series of coffin nails: a sad, lonely, broken old man with no family and no friends because he has destroyed his life. He is shown as weak, needy, pathetic, and beyond help because he poisoned himself and his life.
In Scarface, as repugnant as he is, the final scene is an epic showdown, a world-class action sequence that depicts Tony Montana as a badass. It undercuts the final message of the film (the satirically ironic "The World is Yours" shot) by showing how "cool" Tony was.
But The Irishman doesn't do that. It shows us the opposite of Tony Montana. It shows us the consequences of the violence and the lifestyle.
The rise of movies like this has corresponded with the fall of American culture.
shareI like reading most of your perceptions on this movie.
When I watched this movie, and when I finished I thought ...
why did they make this movie. Out of all the stories to be
told that might actually mean something ... why this POS?