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His sister told Ki-jeong's brother
I think that that was the point ......:-)
The "Love" graphic replaces the Coney Island add during the sixties phase of the film. Although the multi-paneled door is the same as the door in Fat Moe's bar that leads to Deborah's rehearsal area.
Yes but we had already gotten a sense of his moral compass from the diamond robbery
Bump
Not sure about Deborah aging - you didn't see her (purposefully) without some makeup covering her face.
Well if it was a dream Noodles would have been dead at the end - shot in the Opium den - and wouldn't have been smiling. We saw him escape from the Den, jolted out of hi haze apparently in real time and so we must assume that the smiling scene was from only the second time we know he went to the opium den; following his dinner with and rape of Deborah (remember the gang ribbed him about being on vacation for a few days) - was the rest a dream from there rather than the first time at the den? I am led to thinking not.
I get that you can dismiss the modern music and cars etc as being there to orient the viewer to the future but there was in the film hippies and the Love graphic where the Coney Island ad had been. So it leads me to think the rest was real. I can't however reconcile the cars outside the mansion filled with revellers - was it New Year's - I don't think so - reminded me of the cars at the end of Blow Up - what did they signify because maybe there is a connection other than an Italian director.
It is definitely the best in my view - I screen it once per year and always see something new. Sometime I come away thinking that everything after the first visit to the opium den is a dream and then I am not so sure - then I see Noodles smile and wonder again. The characters, the script, the cinematography, the soundtrack all stunning.
Bump
And you don't know that it is Max that comes out of the gates either - looks like him - but there's no close up and whoever it was may have got into the passenger cab. What was the significance of the cars driving by with the revellers too?
Max says earlier that the gang need to get into the trucking business after prohibition.
Whatever Chase said there was no good way to end this series - you couldn't have Tony killed, he couldn't go to jail but it had to end - it was done - S6 was too long and lurched. The fade to black was a McGuffin. This was the best way and served to underline the pressure our hero was living under; Carlo had flipped, Tony, Sil and Bobby were all dead and Paulie was about as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike in anything other than an earning role. Tony junior had just tried to off himself and Meadow was looking for half a brick for her wedding - so what's new? No one knew they planned to go to Holsten's and Tony was pretty relaxed with AJ over their menus and planning a steak. Phil was gone but their remained the potential of a double cross but he knew the second in commands couldn't organize a drunk in a beer pub and it all might have been a double-double cross anyway by little Carmine but Tony figured he was too deep into his movies and besides, a wimp. Meadow's parking was just to ramp up the tension. A normal day in T's life.
We just screened all 6 over Christmas and it is as good now as ever - it's just the technology that looks old and no one is staring into their phone all the time. What a great series (we couldn't make it all the way thru the Wire again and I loved that). As a prequel to the Sopranos we screened the Irishman, the GF trilogy, Goodfellas, Casino and the Irishman again. It was a great Christmas!!
There are so many allusions to the Godfather and some Soprano allusions in the Irishman.
When Tony brings over a new pastry chef (Enzo the baker in GF I, ask if the Don can fix his papers and the Don has an out of state senator fix a green card) he has to find him a job with Artie so that he can "apply" for a WP. How time have changed :-)
Whenever there is a shooting they drop the gun at the scene just like Michael in GFI. Even Bobby with no gloves in Montreal?!!?
The father of the bride granting wishes on his daughter's wedding.
Tony and his family are supposedly taken out in a family restaurant just like Joe Gallo in the IM. Frank talks about going to the bathroom first - Tony is clearly anxious about the guy going into the Gents in the finale.
What are you gonna do? = It is what it is.
It reminded me of the communist writers guild in Hail Caesar secretly meeting in the luxurious cliff top mansion essentially under the guise of a greater share for the masses, to elicit more money for them!
Nice job Bill. We have a large screen home theatre with immersive surround but we also watch a ton of new releases on the big screen too. We are beginning to avoid new releases from Netflix, Amazon etc at festivals if we are going to be able to screen them later at home. This is the nature of movie watching today; people want choice and flexibility in how they watch, when they watch, stop to catch up on their social media, grab a snack or go for a pee. It's why movie going will become a special event, like going to the opera with the same price tab as attendance dwindles - same as has happened with sports. When we are desperate we'll watch on an Ipad usually while travelling although for the life of me I can't see why you would ever want to screen a movie on a phone. As more of our movies come from these sources be interesting to see whether movie makers take into account viewing on smaller screens and movies get longer as they accommodate home viewing but don't have the content to be a series.
We viewed it all the way thru at home and knew we were watching something special but I couldn't get beyond the younger faces and movement that mimicked old bodies. We then immediately screened Goodfellas and Casino back to back ('cos you can at home :-) and then screened The Irishman again. This time I could get beyond the technology and into the messaging behind the film.
If Scorsese was making this then the actors chose themselves - yes this was the great reunion movie - but I also suspect was essential to the trilogy. I don't know of course that he consciously had that front of mind but there is certainly a way to view these as a collection. I agree that it is about redemption and looking back on a life in the business because that is what it was to these guys - whether it is amped up with the glitzy life of Vegas or ends in remorse as an informer. All detours in the same funnel.
Awe is the right word. It is a masterpiece. Frank was clearly a sociopath, loyal to the bone to his mentors and devoted to the system despite not being a part of it (i.e he was not a made man). The study of how this manifested in everyday life was amazing in its detail. This is what enabled Frank albeit troubled, to take care of Jimmy. This wasn't the glitzy end of the mob, this was the business end. Pesci's charachter refers to the old timers in a mythical sense "taking out a President" and Keitel's "as not giving a shit about Frank". Frank was a working stiff who got to see a better life.
This rekindled in us an interest in the Soprano's who despite Tony's excesses were also troubled schmoes just trying to get by and envious of the super luxurious lives of Wall Street execs and rap stars (Series 1). (BTW the first series is now 20 years old and pre High Def. We screened it on HBO and the props and sound stage shots really don't stand up to 4K screening :-).
We needed a couple screenings Bill but hey we consume movies now in the way that best suits us - we have choices right? Thnx for sharing.
I wonder whether the notion of devotion is something that has driven a number of Scorsese's projects e.g. Silence, Gangs, Bring Out Your Dead, Kundun, The last temptation. Its a theme that gets explored in the Two Popes also excellent.
:-)
I couldn't agree more. This is a magnificent fim. Thespians rather than screen actors exaggerating, overacting and stilting their performances I think for effect; to enhance the creepiness. It helps to understand this movie if you knew the UK at this time. Such a film would have shocked and frankly, could only have been even contemplated by someone as established as Powell.
The depiction of middle aged repressed men in brown raincoats visiting backstreet newsagents for racy photos is spot on. Anti-social crime would have been under reported. Conformity was promoted by an establishment that had yet to experience the sixties. This was the expeditionary force! There had been no significant movies at least that I can recall made from the villain's POV before this. None that were in any way sympathetic or attempted to provide a rationale for their behavior.
By today's standard the shock value is tame (as underscored by the lack of blood) but then, every significant critic then was an aging member of the postwar establishment, it was a huge risk that such a film was ever going to achieve critical acclaim. Mary Whitehouse; the crusader for christian values would have no doubt campaigned to have this removed from cinemas.
Those days however were coming to an end propelled by a youth movement, born after the start of the war and this would have been at the tip of the Kitchen Sink movement in British Theatre and cinema which heralded the change about to come and embodies the boldness and gritty reality that it would introduce.
Powell was in a position and could afford to be radical and a harbinger of change. We should be grateful that he did. While it is said that the film damaged his career I would disagree and say that it enhanced his legacy. The price he paid for not just Tom but his growing body of work steering away from box office popularity, was harder to find financing for future projects.
Of particular interest is the detailed focus on London life at that time; paper stren streets, tobacconists on opposite corners, The Times and the Telegraph the two leading newspapers of the day amd on.
Thank you - hadn't considered it from that perspective
The Wolf of Wall Street
Goodfellas
King of Comedy
Silence
The Departed
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