On the 27th of September 2019, Martin Scorsese's highly-anticipated film The Irishman had its world premiere at the New York Film Festival, going onto limited theatrical release on November 1st, before eventual digital streaming from November 27th on the platform of the film's distributor, Netflix. A cinematic event met with widespread acclaim, it was a regular topic of conversation, particularly in relation to it's runtime, in the immediate aftermath of it's release. Further solidifying Scorsese's reputation as one of the all-time greats and, in my opinion, America's greatest filmmaker, at the same time a whole furore was caused when Scorsese made a number of comments regarding the Marvel movie franchise. As such, I got to thinking about the place of an artist such as Scorsese in contemporary Hollywood, and where their work fits into the grand scheme of things.
I had the pleasure of watching The Irishman at the Strand Arts Centre with my mother, formerly The Strand, my favourite cinema, where they had fitted out a new projector. The presentation was immaculate. While obviously designed and marketed around the Netflix digital streaming platform, nothing can beat going to see a great film on the big screen. For all that's been made about the running time which, at two-hundred and nine minutes, is longer than most contemporary theatrical releases, I was enraptured throughout. Though I often give off about movies being too long, never once was I bored. The ensemble cast, among the best ever gathered for a picture, were uniformly solid, but I would like to highlight the work of Bob De Niro, Al Pacino, Stephen Graham, and most especially Joe Pesci. Often associated with fast-talking, volatile and temperamental characters, Pesci gets to display another side to his acting chops as the soft-spoken voice of reason in Russell Bufalino, who often serves as mediator, the go-between for some of the more bombastic individuals in the story. The script by Steven Zaillian is a mighty piece of work. We are thrust, in a great exercise of world-building, into this landscape where the veneer of respectability and the criminal underworld are often intertwined, one and the same, and it doesn't feel anything less than believable. Also, despite the many characters and it being a dialogue-heavy piece, we never once lose our sense of place. A sprawling, authoritative epic which made me think of Herbert Asbury's The Gangs Of New York (the Scorsese adaptation of which Zaillian was one of the principal writers), it feels remarkably balanced, changing and adjusting tones, dialling it up and down if and when necessary. In that vein, Scorsese's longtime editor Thelma Schoonmaker deserves praise. Often in conjunction with the script, she ensures the film, though robust, remains razor-sharp and watertight. It carries none of the excess flab that a lot of pictures of this length do, justifying the weight of it's runtime. We are not really given much in the way of space for our mind to wander or be led astray, so even though it has been described as 'slow' by Scorsese standards, we are consistently challenged and engaged on an emotional and intellectual level. A large part of that is due to the fact that Schoonmaker just gets it, understands the stimulus necessary to make a brain tick, do the work and put the pieces together. Finally, a word or few must be said about Scorsese. Although being marketed as a return to the mob film, a genre more than familiar to the director, I feel The Irishman is a venture into uncharted waters. I remember discussing The Irishman in relation to Goodfellas, the latter being a film I feel to be among the most immaculately paced in film history, but put the two side by side and tonally they are night and day, requiring two different kinds of aesthetic approach. I often describe Scorsese as "a rock and roll filmmaker." This is perhaps most obvious in the case of his documentaries, and fictional features like Mean Streets, Goodfellas, Casino and The Departed. Scorsese loves great music, and designs his films to hit the same kind of beats a great song does. But where Goodfellas is The Rolling Stones, The Irishman is more of a jazz or blues piece. It's moody and contemplative, deconstructing the narrative built up around itself, asking us to question our own existence and mortality in the long run. To see an artist confront himself and ask these universal questions which touch us all is thoroughly refreshing.
This brings me to my next point. When Scorsese made the comments in Empire magazine, suggesting, as regards Marvel, that "that's not cinema," making a comparison between them and "theme parks," there was an uproar from fans and industry figures alike, challenging the great director on his comments. But, as he elaborated in his op-ed post for the New York Times on the 4th of November, it was not so much the films themselves he was railing against but what it has done to the industry as a whole. Sure, one's definition of what is or isn't cinema, art, is an entirely subjective matter. If you're asking whether I agree or disagree with Scorsese, I'd say both; I agree because, one, I sway towards Scorsese's aesthetic, and two, he's allowed to have that opinion if he so pleases; and I disagree, because to generalise and lump everything together is take away a work's merit as it stands on it's own two feet. I, like Scorsese, have seen a number of Marvel movies, some of which I really like, others not so much. I don't object to them with any real fervour, but they're not exactly my cup of tea and I don't go out of my way to make time to watch them all. What I don't like, and in this sense I understand where Scorsese is coming from, is that Marvel, somewhat unfortunately, is representative, indicative of the American film industry, and by proxy the film industry as a whole, moving in a direction where the only films you can see on the big screen are these loud and bombastic pictures that spend the whole time bashing you over the head with a mallet, or in this case, Mjölnir. Franchises, more often than not based upon existing properties, are the done thing, and unfortunately for those of us who favour a different aesthetic, there isn't much choice when out of x-number of screens, the majority are occupied by Marvel, Star Wars et al. Variety is the spice of life, as they say, and although each of these individual franchises have their own stories, their approach is usually the same, and rarely do they deviate from the format. Even if you do get the odd opportunity to see something different in a multiplex or independent cinema, chances are you'll hear explosions emerging from the sound system of one of the adjoining auditoriums. I too like a spectacle (the recent trio of Planet Of The Apes films spring to mind), but it becomes part of the law of diminishing returns if you see slight variations of the same thing over and over again: eventually, they lose impact, and you find yourself bored to tears, despite the fact that you know about half a billion dollars that could have went towards helping an impoverished country has been thrown up on the screen. Which leaves me with the question,
where do the artists go?
The answer, these days, seems to be into different formats. Netflix and streaming platforms have been changing the nature of cinema. Akin to the television experience, they have taken viewers from the collective viewing experience into that of the individual, and that is somewhat understandable given some of the foolish, raucous behaviour of patrons in cinemas. I recently went to see Little Women and had a middle-aged woman spend most of the film hitting her knees off the back of my seat, and who wants that?. Also, as many of the great artists have been chased out of the theatres in the 21st century, they have begun to ply their crafts in different mediums. In a May 2016 interview at the Cannes Film Festival, Viggo Mortensen revealed that David Cronenberg, whose last picture was 2014's Map To The Stars, was considering retiring from filmmaking because of the difficulties in attaining funding for his film projects, and also that he was deriving a lot of joy in writing books. I've often said that television is where the really bold and daring projects go these days. We've seen the rise of shows like The Sopranos, The Shield, Breaking Bad, Hannibal and more make way for the likes of David Lynch, unable to obtain support for feature-length film projects, who went to the Showtime network to produce Twin Peaks: The Return, a work that, in this landscape, could not have been done elsewhere. Also, although cinema purists rail against the proliferation of Netflix originals (in 2018 at the Cannes Film Festival, the ban on Netflix films from competition led to the streaming giant pulling all of their films from that year's festival, including Alfonso Cuarón's Academy Award-winning Roma), a lot of these streaming platforms, with their rise in success, are leading to projects being greenlit that otherwise would have been left in the dark. It took the clout of the now-deposed industry mogul Harvey Weinstein and his Miramax to give Scorsese's Gangs Of New York the GO, but that was twenty years ago and the industry is very different now. Although trying to pursue it for years, The Irishman lingered in development hell before financing came from Mexican production company Fábrica de Cine in May 2016. When they dropped out of the project in February 2017, so too did distributor Paramount. At this point, Netflix stepped in to buy the rights for a reported $105 million, and to finance entirely the escalating budget, then set at $125 million. They picked up the ball where others had left off, and the rest, as they say, is history. For all that the industry rails against some of these changes, and to an extent, so do I, these streaming platforms and television networks are doing breathtaking, groundbreaking things often far ahead of their cinematic counterparts. It is up to the film industry to catch up, because it is clear to me that the artists such as Scorsese, even if begrudgingly so, are copping on.
I make no secret of my love for the work of Martin Scorsese. Gearing up for his latest film, Killers Of The Flower Moon, starring regulars Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro, the maestro heads into his seventh decade as a feature filmmaker, having made over forty fictional and documentary feature films since 1967's Boxcar Bertha. Already I've mentioned Goodfellas and others, but Scorsese has a score of great films to his name, such as The King Of Comedy, Shutter Island (a highly underrated work), Hugo and The Wolf Of Wall Street. However, two films stand out to me in Scorsese's oeuvre as being important. When I was a teenager, I saw Taxi Driver and was flabbergasted. Stylistically, it's a hybrid between the genre-film sensibilities of a Hitchcockian thriller, and the moody contemplation of European art-house cinema. The drive of De Niro's performance as ticking timebomb Travis Bickle, the brooding duality of Bernard Hermann's score, the note-perfect script by Paul Schrader (one of my all-time favourite screenplays), aurally, visually, texturally, every part of that film just tickled my fancy. Taxi Driver always was the one I would say was my favourite, but as I got older and grew into young adulthood, my sensibilities starting leaning another way. It must have been around 2012, 2013, but I was attending a counselling session, and was posed what, on the surface, seems a fairly basic question: "What movie do you think best represents you?" I was stumped, and couldn't answer. Around the same time, I re-watched Raging Bull for the first time in quite a while. I saw it originally when I was about eleven or twelve, and if I'm honest I didn't really get it. It's one of the few times I'll definitely attribute it to being too young to enjoy or appreciate a given film. However, as I saw Raging Bull again, the proverbial lightbulb went off and I said "that's it." Notwithstanding my admiration for how beautifully put together it is, the expertise of the craftsmanship, the art of filmmaking, I empathised a lot with the character of Jake La Motta as portrayed by De Niro: the pent-up anger, the pride, the social awkwardness, the masochistic attitude towards pain, both physical and mental, sexual repression, the antagonistic streak, the self-destructiveness, the obsession, emotional frustrations and pure animalism of his nature. De Niro's Jake is not necessarily a sympathetic character: indeed, he's a churl and a brute, putting it lightly, but I most definitely identify with the character. The flawed aspects in his person make him relatable and, ultimately, human. While I can judge the piece on it's own merit, the picture also means a lot to me in terms of my own residual feelings on a personal level, so, in that sense Raging Bull emerges as the cream of the crop. The greatest pieces of art have to touch and engage us in some way on that personal level in order to elevate themselves from the status of mere entertainment, however admirable and pleasing that may be. Raging Bull is one such piece.
Having entered that rare echelon of filmmakers with over half a century in the business, the only others in the United States I can think of still kicking with that kind of longevity are regular activity are David Lynch and Clint Eastwood. Otherwise, you'd have to go abroad and find the likes of Alejandro Jodorowsky or Jean-Luc Godard, and in the UK Ken Loach and Mike Leigh. While I'm name-dropping here there is something I should mention. My good friend and comrade-at-arms Daniel Kelly always brings up a great point in our discussions on the movie business, in that there are probably only about four or five filmmakers in Hollywood who have the clout to get an original project off the ground. Scorsese, along with Christopher Nolan and Steven Spielberg, is usually among the names we mention. Interestingly, in the course of my research, neither of the former two feature in The Hollywood Reporter's annual Most Powerful People in Entertainment list, so maybe I'm wrong. You could take your pick of any number of others to fill the other spots, but I'd probably hazard a guess to say that James Cameron and Quentin Tarantino would be comfortable picks as to those with relative artistic autonomy in Hollywood.
That being said, from what I have emphasised earlier, the key word to take away from that previous sentence is relative. However grand, incredible, or ground-breaking each of these artists' visions may be, no matter the audience numbers, how much they move, enlighten and entertain us, it still remains that they, to quote the Godfather of Soul James Brown, "paid the cost to be the boss." Without the lucrative monetary backing of financiers, the sad fact is that many of the greatest pictures ever made would have been left unrealised. From D.W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille onwards, it has always been this way in Hollywood. It is only over time that the stakes have changed. Up until the 1970s, the primary big-budget movies were the prestige picture, which largely consisted of costume epics and period dramas. Perhaps the greatest example of this in the early days was Gone With The Wind, which had the bulk of executive giant David O. Selznick behind it. In the late 1960s, though, in line with the precedent set by European arthouse cinema, there was a proliferation of more modestly-budgeted American films, some funded independently, of which Martin Scorsese was a key player. It was during this time in the 1970s, for me the peak of American cinema to date, when the template was changed and there was a temporary blending, a melding, a meeting of the minds. Blurring the lines, the sensibilities merged and gelled, giving birth to the likes of The Godfather, The French Connection, The Exorcist, Deliverance, Five Easy Pieces, Nashville, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, the aforementioned Taxi Driver, Rocky, The Deer Hunter, and countless others. However, things began to move in another direction once Steven Spielberg's Jaws came out in 1975. Though Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate is often attributed as the nail in the coffin of this golden age known as New Hollywood, really it was the release of George Lucas' Stars Wars in 1977. Since then, there has been an ideological clash between franchising and original art. It's safe to say that from the money side of things the franchises are winning out. The financiers, for the largest part, are putting their lot in with and cashing their chips on hot properties such as the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The audience demand is there, but equally by throwing it all in with these blockbuster franchises and their merchandising and resplendent frippery they are blocking out and denying artists a voice to tell new stories. But with the arrival of streaming platforms, which first began producing original content in an episodic format akin to television, these new formats have extended their already long reach into the realm of cinema. In one sense it can be seen as negative, and the apocalyptic naysayers will bemoan, as ever, 'the death of cinema,' but with the likes of Netflix now being major players, between these new outlets and the old guard in Hollywood, competition is heating up. As it has fast become more acceptable, pictures like The Irishman make a more than legitimate stake in claiming that although the release pattern and format may break a few rules, the fact is is that, while I am myself somewhat of a traditionalist, it remains art nevertheless. As such, with Hollywood's focus largely on franchising at present, the increase of platforms through which we can experience a given work is to the benefit of artists and audiences alike.
I don't see much changing in the Hollywood studio system. What they are doing right now, especially as regards Disney, is working well, and this ongoing obsession with franchises, for better or worse, is raking in the cash, bringing audiences to the cinema in record numbers. However, as streaming and alternative platforms to the traditional templates of the vanguards are being challenged by the increasing prestige of pictures that great artists are making for them, it may be that they will, at some stage, have to exhibit some degree of flexibility, deviate from the format. Heading into the third decade of the 21st century, it'll be interesting to see what way this particular awards season plays out. Alongside Scorsese's The Irishman, Noah Baumbach's Marriage Story is another of the nine nominees for Best Picture at the upcoming Academy Awards, and Fernando Meirelles The Two Popes also features heavily. All three films were funded and distributed exclusively by Netflix. Although at this stage I'd say the safe bet is perhaps Sam Mendes' 1917 for the win, the real wild card is Todd Phillips' Joker. On the one hand, it would confirm Hollywood's ongoing investment in comic-book/superhero franchise properties, but on the other, the film is an outre example, and would be akin to acknowledging that they have to go a bit left-of-field in order to attain the kind of recognition they are looking for.
Although I am occasionally stubborn and grouchy when it comes to contemporary Hollywood, I have been witness to a great many wonders in recent years thanks to these alternative platforms (I'm looking at you, Twin Peaks!). It's amazing, when you think about it, that The Irishman ever got made. Regardless of what you think of the finished film itself, even the idea from a conceptual standpoint is something that sounds like a fantasy that could only exist in a dream world. The combination of all the elements is something that has never been done before, and never will be again. For this alone, I am grateful. Fate and circumstance lay the groundwork, the foundations, for this picture to be made. As long as artists such as Martin Scorsese have a place they can call home, wherever they may decide to ply their craft, then that's okay.
