I saw it in Omaha this weekend. Three comments.
1. There is lots of narration by De Niro's character and I think it is necessary and effective. The screenwriter had to give some historical background that younger audiences don't have. Supposedly scripts aren't supposed to do that but the exception is "Goodfellas." To my mind, this rule can be broken if the situation calls for it.
2. The story is very much about the De Niro character and his relationship with his oldest daughter, but I haven't seen comments about that in the reviews I've seen.
3. The de-aging thing was a non-factor for me. I don't know why some people got so cranked up about it. I thought it was good movie magic and I liked it.
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Hi Dave,
I haven't seen The Irishman yet, and look forward to seeing it.
Regarding narration...I think some folks are of the belief that narration detracts from the "show, don't tell" belief about film. I think I've even read more than once how some consider narration to be "lazy writing" for film. Those beliefs may have some validity in some film outcomes, and don't in others .
There are so many great films that utilize narration effectively, though - from Citizen Kane to Sunset Boulevard to The Big Lebowski to Amelie to the Scorsese films to The Big Short My favorite TV show of last season, Euphoria, uses it effectively, too.
I think the main stumbling blocks to avoid with narration pertain to unimportant thoughts that don't really add anything important to the story (it's like, "who cares...this film is boring me...bye!"), and with narration potentially impinging upon action. I've never really seen a great film with narration do either, at least for me.
Best fortunes in your creative endeavors, Dave!
saw Irishman 3x already. Opening night at NYFF and twice on Netflix on Ipad/50" tv screen. The movie as a whole didn't get any better or worse. "It is what it is."
But the fight scene w/ DeNiro and the Store Clerk looks worse and worse every time. Hard to imagine nobody said anything to Scorsese during the edit because Post-people look at every frame of every camera shot. That's the only camera take the De-Aging Effects looked crappy/the camera coverage didn't look right.
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dan max - I thought the same thing! I knew something was off. Part of me thought DeNiro is older and just can't sell his kicks the way he used to. I couldn't put my finger on it but it didn't come off as believable. I liked it overall though.
I think watching the movie and reading the script could teach a lot about narration actually. I only watched once, and I haven't read the script in its entirety, but I can already see there were a lot of changes. A lot of narration was dropped, probably because it was over-explanatory or redundant. You can see where Scorcese chose to show, not tell.
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MaxXxy:
I thought it was funny that they kept referring to the supposedly younger version of Frank Sheeran as "The Kid". With the computer generated effects, Bobby D doesn't look a day over 67. I'm watching the movie on installments and I'm less than halfway through. It's a very ambitious movie and so far I think there's too many characters. IMDb says there's 467 cast members. But even with the computer faces, De Niro, Pesci and Pacino still deliver excellent performances.
Dave B:
Scorsese has done several films with first person narrative including Taxi Driver, The Departed and Goodfellas". If it's done well it's an effective tool. However, I just watched *The Art of Racing in the Rain * over the weekend and the Dog was the first person narrator, which didn't work that well for me. *Forrest Gump is another film with heavy first person narrative. I've used it in several scripts.
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I thought it was an hour too long. A lot of the b-story stuff added more flavor than substance. And the tension between Frank and Penny was palpable, but it didn’t feel like the core of the movie. I walked away thinking it was a vanity piece by a great director.
Agreed Stephen Floyd An hour too long. Glacial pace and a crashing bore. Scenes with content that could be effectively handled in a minute or two beating the idea to death for ten. Forty-five minutes following Hoffa being hit.
A best of Scorsese compilation of water from the same well he's been dipping into for decades minus trademark music usage and camera movement.
Besides being generally distracting, there was a sore thumb stand out grain mismatch on the CGI faces.