The Irishman [CRITERION COLLECTION] (DVD) [2020]

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Featurette: "The Evolution of Digital De-Aging as Seen in The Irishman"(HD, 13 minutes) - This promotional Netflix piece examines the revolutionary and controversial de-aging process that's such a major part of The Irishman. Visual effects supervisor Pablo Helman and a host of technical craftsmen from Industrial Light & Magic outline the development, execution, and philosophy of this fascinating technique. Split-screen shots show the striking transformations of the actors and myriad computer images provide glimpses of the meticulous methodology used to create this latest form of movie magic. Scorsese’s choice, in many of these early scenes, to expensively and time-consumingly de-age his principal cast members with digital technology has the strange effect of making Sheeran’s recollections seem that much more like an idealized fantasy that cannot hold. The technical showboating—softening and erasing wrinkles, making flaccid skin seem taut—is subtle enough to not be mortifying, yet apparent enough that the CGI stitching tends to show, especially in brighter scenes. It also plays rather potently meta, since The Irishman gathers a murderer’s row of American acting elites—not only De Niro and Pacino, but Joe Pesci (as Sheeran’s mentor Russell Bufalino) and Harvey Keitel (as Philadelphia-based don Angelo Bruno)—three of whom Scorsese has worked with multiple times over his very long career. Criterion has thankfully made this a two-disc set, giving the film the entirety of the first disc. All supplemental material can be found on the second disc. The second disc, like the first one, is dual-layer, so this led me to assume there would actually be a lot of content to be found, but it barely runs over a couple of hours in the end. Table for Four: Scorsese, De Niro, Pacino, and Pesci"(HD, 19 minutes) - This 2019 roundtable discussion unites the four legends, who reminisce about how they met and chat about the genesis of The Irishman, the film's length, tone, and characters, the joys of working together, and the movie's unique technical challenges. Terrific rapport and some great anecdotes distinguish this jovial yet substantive dialogue.

The Irishman [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray] [2 Discs] The Irishman [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray] [2 Discs]

The treatment of females in this movie is superficial. Sheeran's and Bufalino's wives are just there to chain smoke. Only Sheeran's daughter Peggy shows unhappiness as to her father's chosen profession. Even then the old Peggy is wasted. At one point I did wonder why the film had a de-aged Holly Hunter playing Peggy. Only to realise she was played by Anna Paquin, who won an Oscar for playing Hunter's daughter in The Piano. This becomes the main story thread in hour three, and it features what should rank among Scorsese’s greatest set pieces as Sheeran comes to terms with and carries out Hoffa’s killing. It’s a sequence that’s austere in tone and approach (with one swaggering segue into goofball, semi-improvisatory humor), yet also unbearably tense and emotionally devastating. De Niro expertly sketches the moral bottoming out of an immoral man (his mumbly, halting call with Hoffa’s wife after the deed is done is a particular highlight), and it’s thrilling to see him so engaged. Pacino is no less impressive as the volatile Hoffa , so stubborn in his need to hold onto the presidency of the union that he built from the ground up that he’ll heed no warnings to the contrary about the degree to which his conduct may court disaster or death.New documentary about the making of the film featuring Scorsese; the lead actors; producers Emma Tillinger Koskoff, Jane Rosenthal, and Irwin Winkler; director of photography Rodrigo Prieto; and others from the cast and crew

The Irishman | Netflix Official Site Watch The Irishman | Netflix Official Site

Archival interview excerpts with Frank "the Irishman" Sheeran and International Brotherhood of Teamsters trade union leader Jimmy Hoffa Continuing their deal with Netflix, The Criterion Collection presents Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman on Blu-ray, delivering the film in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 on the first dual-layer disc of this two-disc set. The 1080p/24hz digital encode comes from a 4K master sourced from a mix of the original 35mm negative and digital files. And then there are the de-aging effects. Much has been written about the controversial choice to use the digital technique to allow De Niro, Pacino, and Pesci to portray younger versions of their characters and thus appear continually throughout the film. Though the technology seamlessly shaves years off the actors, its implementation occasionally takes us out of the story as we marvel at the results and look for betraying chinks in the armor. (I couldn't final any.) Pacino and Pesci fare the best because Hoffa and Bufalino are well into middle age when we meet them. Sheeran, though, is supposed to be just 35 in his earliest scenes (although the film never gets that specific), and De Niro doesn't look anywhere near that young. Scorsese has called The Irishman a chamber piece. It is mainly about its three main characters and only De Niro, Pesci and Pacino go through the digital de-aging process. They are made to look in their late 30s/40s for the early part of the film. The footage of Hoffa comes from 17-minutes’ worth of material from an episode of NBC’s David Brinkley’s Journal that focused on Hoffa. The footage of Hoffa was clearly replicated for a few sequences in the film (his office is recreated exactly as it is in this footage) and we get to see him give part of a speech and woo his way through the crowds. The episode gets into his popularity amongst workers as well as his legal issues, and also talks a little bit about his relationship with Tony “Pro.” Brinkley even interviews Hoffa about his time in front of the Senate Committee and asks him about what he does with his wealth. This is an especially solid inclusion for the release.

Frank Sheeran and Jimmy Hoffa(SD, 23 minutes) - Individual archival interviews with Sheeran (interviewed by author Charles Brandt in 1999) and Hoffa (interviewed by legendary journalist David Brinkley for the documentary Inside Jimmy Hoffa) provide an intimate look at these two colorful figures. Sheeran shares details about the life of a hitman and the profession's dos and don'ts, while Hoffa describes himself as an "average, ordinary human being," classifies life as "a jungle," states his definition of ethics, and airs his beefs with U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. No one depicts the violent, vicious, and labyrinthian world of organized crime with more precision and gusto than Martin Scorsese. Operatic in scope and brimming with beauty despite the grisly subject matter, his gritty portraits of gangsters and their various milieus remain undisputed masterworks that continually dazzle the senses no matter how many times we've seen them. Though only four of Scorsese's 60-odd films deal specifically with the Italian mafia, the legendary director forever will be known as the genre's most passionate and lyrical chronicler. Make no mistake, The Irishman is a true work of art, but its languorous pacing and talky script produce some draggy stretches and its excessive length ultimately dulls the story's power. (The last 30 minutes could have been significantly condensed without harming the narrative or disrupting the mood.) Much like running a marathon, watching the film is an endurance test, but if you can make it to the finish line, The Irishmanbreeds not only immense satisfaction, but also a deep appreciation for the artistry on display and boundless admiration for the man who so brilliantly conceived and executed this ambitious and frequently fascinating movie. Video Essay: "Gangsters' Requiem"(HD, 21 minutes) - Film critic Farran Smith Nehme connects The Irishman to Scorsese's personal experience and his other legendary gangster pictures while examining the director's style, the relationships between the characters, and the movie's underlying themes. Smith dissects several scenes and examines many of the subtle touches that make The Irishman such a textured, nuanced film.

The Irishman [CRITERION COLLECTION] (Blu-ray) [2020]

Filling in the academic angle is a new 21-minute video essay by Farran Smith Nehme called Gangster’s Requiem, which looks at how Scorsese’s style has developed through the years and how all of it ends up applying to this film, usually through referencing some of his other films and deconstructing a handful of sequences. Criterion also includes a 5-minute episode from a New York Times online series, Anatomy of a Scene, which features Scorsese talking over the Frank Sheeran appreciation night sequence, explaining the decisions behind the framing and general flow of the sequence (he also went out of his way to get Harvey Keitel and Pacino in a shot together just because they had never been in a scene together before). The ultimate tragedy of The Irishman is that Sheeran is incapable of singing his song of self with the kind of unblinking honesty that might lead him through regret and toward redemption. Near the end of the film, Sheeran asks that his door be left slightly ajar, a mirror of something that occurs in an earlier scene between him and Hoffa. The way Scorsese photographs Sheeran through the opening reveals a man drained of all his perceived power, and distressingly content with the unholy mess he’s left behind. Image/Sound It is also a teaming up of his old pals for one last ride. Robert De Niro has not appeared in a Scorsese film since Casino. Neither has Joe Pesci who basically retired from the movies in 1998. Harvey Keitel last worked with Scorsese in The Last Temptation of Christ. Al Pacino is the new boy, his first time working with Scorsese. A nice touch, though, is the addition of archival footage featuring Frank Sheeran and Jimmy Hoffa and apparently used as references for the film. Sheeran’s footage (running 6-minutes) comes from recordings author Charles Brandt made for his novel, “I Heard You Paint Houses.” The excerpts showcase Sheeran talking about his alleged involvement in the Hoffa disappearance along with his general methodology behind hits (or “painting houses”). He also shows off his watch (from Hoffa) and his ring (from Russell Bufalino).The presentation may not offer the clear upgrade over streaming one would hope and the special features leave room for improvement, but it’s still a handsome looking edition that Scorsese fans will be happy to snatch up.

The Irishman - The Criterion Collection DVD - Zavvi UK

Newly edited roundtable conversation among Scorsese and actors Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci, originally recorded in 2019 In reality, Sheeran told his life story to author and former investigator Charles Brandt for the 2004 memoir I Heard You Paint Houses, which is the basis for the film’s screenplay by Steven Zaillian. (The book’s title is mob code for blood splattering the walls during a contract killing.) In The Irishman, which spans the mid-1940s to the early aughts, Sheeran is effectively chatting with the audience about his rise from a low-level hood to the right-hand man to labor union leader Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino), who he also claims to have killed in 1975. Yet the degree to which Sheeran is an unreliable narrator, perhaps even to himself, is always debatable in the film, and not just because the Hoffa case has never been officially closed. On the flip side, Pesci plays a diminutive man who tries to remain invisible, and he easily steals the film with an understated, wonderfully nuanced, utterly revelatory performance that's the antithesis of his loudmouth, fast-talking, over-the-top work in both GoodFellas and Casino. Reportedly, Pesci turned down the part of Russell Bufalino more than 50 times before Scorsese and De Niro finally coaxed him out of retirement. He never raises his voice, recites his lines with uncharacteristic deliberation, and proves silence is golden with an array of vivid reaction shots that speak volumes about Bufalino's ruthless nature and grasping, manipulative personality. It's a riveting turn that engenders renewed respect for the venerable Pesci and justly earned him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. (Pacino got one, too, by the way.) Expanding on that latter topic is The Evolution of Digital De-Aging, a short 13-minute featurette created by Netflix. Though not all that long I will say it does a decent job getting into how the technology works (starting with these special cameras that also get mentioned a lot in the previous two supplements) and then how they had to properly capture a variety of expressions from the actors to make sure they could replicate their performances as exact as they could. Though I could look past a lot of them there are issues around the effects in the end product, yet despite that I still found it a fascinating look into not only the technology but the art that went behind it.Criterion also includes a 19-minute discussion between Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci, the four sitting around a table (used in the film I believe) to discuss the film. At first I thought this would be the same as the In Conversation featurette that is available on Netflix, and while this uses a lot of the same material, it’s a different edit with some alternate material as well (and it runs a few minutes shorter). Nothing mind-blowing is said but it is a bit of blast to see the four just talk about the film and the experience of them all working together for what is probably one last time. It’s also fun listening to them recall what they were expecting from one another, like how Pesci was expecting Pacino to really go off the rails, as he can do, in a few scenes (“blowup” as Pesci puts it) and planning how he was going to work around that. There’s also some discussion around working with the de-aging technology.