The Irishman: A Crushing Disappointment

[David Andrews]

Jim, you understand that The Seven Pillars of Wisdom is looked on with a great deal of suspicion in several book-length studies of Lawrence.  Lawrence's rape story, his relationship with the mysterious Arab, S.A. (to whom the book is dedicated), and his depiction of other Arab characters have all been called into question. 

Further, the David Lean film greatly aggrandizes Lawrence's relations with the Sherif Ali character (Omar Sherif), and essentially invents the two boy servants Farraj and Da'ud.  Multiple scenes, including all with the British high command, are written for drama and not historical accuracy.  The fictional diplomat Dryden (Claude Rains) and all his dialogue and interactions with historical characters such as General Allenby, are spun from whole cloth by the screenwriter.  The British officer who unknowingly slaps Lawrence in the desert may be based on a real character, but his appearance to hypocritically defend Lawrence at his funeral is invented.

Lawrence, for all his achievements and stature, was an inveterate mythologizer, particularly about the origins and development of his sexuality.  It's the kind of psychology that occurs when one has to hide one's family background in a repressive age.  In an extension of that, he similarly mythologizes personages in the Arab Revolt.

Should we hate Lawrence's writing for this, and hate Lean's film?  Oh, hell, no.  But you can take both those artifacts apart and repack them like you can The Irishman and the Brandt book.  I can refer you to the books on Lawrence that have a go at this job.

Edited December 5, 2019 by David Andrews

[Ron Ecker]

I remember a passage in Lawrence's book where he says something to the effect that he took his name and wrote it across the sky in stars. I think he did tend to exaggerate.

 

 

 

[James DiEugenio]

I am aware of the debate about Seven Pillars.

But to me there is a difference between the use of dramatic license,  and taking the word of a guy who is a con artist.  And a con artist on some really important historical subjects.

Bonnie and Clyde, another fine picture, also used that kind of dramatic license. For example in the climactic ambush scene, one of the most memorable endings in American film history. 

The triumph of Lean's film, at least to me, is that in spite of its grand scale, and its wonderful set pieces, it never loses sight of being a beautifully written study of a truly complex character.  To me, that is what the film is about, and its something over which there can be no debate at all.  T E Lawrence was one of the most utterly fascinating human interest stories in all of literature.  And the film did justice to him, while not losing site of the grand scale upon and in which he operated.

The ending of that film, that is the two last sequences--in the headquarters, and in the army jeep after--form what for me is almost a textbook study of what film art can be.  And beyond that, a study in art concealing art. Beginning with Lawrence's reflection on the table, going through the promotion to which he replies, "What for?", walking out of the room with the white linen curtains draped around him (symbolizing that he has become a walking ghost), and Quayle being the only guy in the room who understands what they have done to him: they have used him and are now glad to be rid of him.  And that magnificent conclusion, with O'toole's face behind that dirty jeep windshield, and the driver asking him "Going home sir?" with no reply as the motorcycle passes them, presaging how he will die.  The whole concept being that his experience there has soured him on life at a young age. 

If he lives a hundred years, Scorsese could never equal that kind of exquisite subtelty

Edited December 4, 2019 by James DiEugenio

[Joe Bauer]

Real life and IHYPH movie Frank Sheeran is not a sympathetic character.

Especially because even until his dying day apparently, he never expresses remorse for all the nefarious mob related activities he chose to be a part of. 

No other character in this film is either.

Sheeran's career as big beefy Jimmy Hoffa's body guard is also not something that garners inspiration in story re-telling.

Nothing I saw in The Irishman gave my anything worth praising or reconsidering as more informatively worthy regards the main characters. I suppose that Sheeran's confessing to murdering Jimmy Hoffa has some historical truth value. Thank him for that.

The JFK assassination part of this script is so limited it is hard to say if it has any truth revealing value.

Now, a film about Dorothy Killgallen would have a bonafide, even super star famous sympathetic hero as it's main subject. Kilgallen was killed in the middle of her brave yet most extremely dangerous quest to find out the truth regards JFK in Dallas on 11,22,1963.

How we get a film about Frank Sheeran and not one of Dorothy Kilgallen is beyond illogical.

Obviously major movie producers feel violent Mafia films with plenty of funny named and accent speaking tough guys, explosions, brutal hits and Sicilian/Italian food eating scenes is a guaranteed money maker. And with De Niro, Pacino and Pesci in these even more guaranteed as such.

But I am done with that genre. I don't get moved by the formula anymore.

The introduction of foreign organized criminal culture in our country since the early 1900's was a true cancer that spread throughout every aspect of our society all the way up to our presidential level, and this corruption cancer damaged us even more than we have ever acknowledged officially and unofficially.

When I see these major production Mafia films ( The Godfather series was the Apex)

I am actually upset that the perpetrators of all this massive century long criminal corruption are looked upon in any sympathetic light. The damage to our democratic system has been far too great for anything but a realistic acceptance that these people have been and still are serious enemies of our democracy.

Could anyone imagine the fair, just and good virtue value common man defending heroes/ framers of our constitution being able to see the future times of this democracy and see how much this corruption in the 20th century corrupted even our highest governmental offices and weakened the mortar holding the the entire foundation together?

Here Mr Jay, Adams, Hamilton, Madison, Franklin, Jefferson, Washington. Let us take you into the future to 1963 and through the 1970's. See how even our Presidents are effected by the mob. And other corrupt power groups such as the super wealthy ( Texas oil? ) See Hoover in his manic surveillance state period and his Mafia protection through denial period.

Wonder what our "Magnificent Seven" forefathers would have thought about about all that, Al Capone, Mafia in every large city and corrupting police forces, judges, elective office holders,.

Wonder what they would have made of Dwight Eisenhower's end of term "Military,Industrial Congressional conglomerate of power warning speech?

And how about the CIA and other multiple major power branches of our government that operate in secret?

 

[David Andrews]

If he lives a hundred years, Scorsese could never equal that kind of exquisite subtelty

I would argue that, earlier than The Irishman, Scorsese defined a different sort of subltety about viewing the realities of life, low or otherwise.

I'm going to write something here about the cold ending of The Irishman, and also some things about the film's flaws.  But I need to watch it again, and also suck up my own intimations of mortality so I can do it objectively.

Joe, I believe there's a great deal of condemnation of gangster life in the Scorsese and Coppola films, and also of the straight world that it resides within, symbiotically.

Edited December 5, 2019 by David Andrews

[Joe Bauer]

The film "The Godfather" was a great film.

In every film production context.

My feeling is also that in it's telling the genesis story of a Sicilian born man and his family's rise to unfathomable wealth and highest office influence power through brutal corruption after arriving in this better opportunity country as poor immigrants is so important in it's historical context.

How did Sicilian organized crime become as powerful as almost a "co-equal" branch of our own federal and state government structure?

The film "The Godfather" definitely shed some meaningful and honest light on this historical reality.

There had never been a Mafia film that so many Americans paid money to see.

And I believe that for most of the audience that viewed the film ( and many times after) it educated them as American citizens at how powerful and influencing this particular organized crime group truly was in their lifetimes.

Being able to tell major film studios who they should place in starring roles in major films, owning stars such as Sinatra, Monroe and others.

Same with our massive music production industry and our professional sports world.

What Al Pacino's Michael Corleone character tells his film wife Kay ( Diane Keaton ) in the Godfather was very telling of this massive power corruption truth.

When Kay says she can't believe a sitting U.S. senator could be corrupted by the Mafia ... Pacino tells her..."Now whose being naive Kay?"

If anyone believed that line in the Godfather script, they finally had to acknowledge how wealthy, powerful and influencing organized crime and specifically the Mafia had become in the middle to later part of our 20th century America.

Yes, they owned senators, congress persons, governors, mayors, judges, police departments and chiefs, probably even one or more Presidents and Hoover too.

The "Godfather" ( more than any other single film by far ) awakened a society wide awareness of the reality of just how powerful organized crime had become in this country and for most of the 20th century.

The fact that the film was so superbly put together made it's influence as great as it was and still is.

We as a nation and society no longer live in a bubble of downplaying ignorance about U.S. organized crime and how much this has effected us and negatively so.

Edited December 4, 2019 by Joe Bauer

[Kirk Gallaway]

2 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

KG: I don't why Jim writes these reviews . Nobody goes to these movies expecting pinpoint historical accuracy or expects to be taught something valuable. It's a movie.

Maybe because people read them?  And refer to them.  And they thank me for writing them?  

As for it being only a movie:  well maybe KIrk missed it, but I was the only reviewer who did a double review: that is I reviewed the book and the film.  The book is non fiction, therefore its supposed to be true.  After a long and detailed analysis, referring to several other sources, I came to conclude that it was probably not accurate in its major tenets.  In fact, I came to conclude the contrary. Sheeran was most likely a con artist.

The problem with that is that Brandt was dealing with quite serious subjects:  the Bay of Pigs, the murder of JFK, the murder of Hoffa etc.   When you base a film on what is supposedly a book of non fiction, then you owe it to yourself, and your viewers, to do your homework.  Robert De Niro was warned in advance that Sheeran was not kosher.  And there are indications in Brandt's book this was the case. To ignore all of that and then to say that somehow Jimmy Hoffa and the Mob killed Kennedy, and Sheeran killed Hoffa, and to discount the truly key matters in the book that I noted he did, to me that is not leveling with the viewer.  When I do my reviews, I try and also do my homework.  I don't insult the reader's intelligence or waste his time by giving him ignorant pablum.  Which is what much of American film criticism has come to these days. I try and inform the reader about  facts he was likely not aware of in order to judge what the film he saw was really about.  I also try and elevate his taste by evaluating the aesthetic quality of the work in front of him. Which is why I compared Pacino's bloviating performance with the riveting one Jack Nicholson gave in that role.

See Kirk, some people do want to be challenged and educated by reviews.  They don't consider films an opportunity to eat popcorn and drink soda.  As many people believed e.g. Dwight Masdonald for example, films can be an extraordinary artistic medium, incorporating acting, music, sound, editing, visuals, motion, mise en scene etc into one unique experience.  When its done the right way, with people who know what they are doing, on a worthy subject, you can get pictures as memorable and as rewarding as Lawrence of Arabia. A pretty accurate rendition of Seven Pillars of Wisdom.  To me that film is even better than the book, since the near flawless form its presented in elevates the source material into an original aesthetic and dramatic experience.  The function of good criticism, like that practiced by Macdonald, was to explain why something like David Lean's film was a classic.  And why The Irishman is pretty much a piece of inflated and expensive junk.

Jim, now that i got you on the horn. There's  a lot of confusion here about your project with Stone, that you could clarify to us.1)Are you currently writing it? Someone suggested it was done. 2. I assume, this is a writing  collaboration with Stone ? Of course you understand  most  of us are  very concerned at Stone's long meeting and seeming alliance with JVB.  Understandably I won't ask you to characterize your thoughts on that. But you've said you haven't included her. Thank God!  Do you think Stone will try to add any characters or is he giving you full discretion about who goes in and who doesn't? 3) So this is  for premium cable, is this going to be on Showtime  like his Putin Interviews and The Untold History of the U.S?.

Edited December 4, 2019 by Kirk Gallaway

[James DiEugenio]

I disagree on this too.

I think The Godfather is a film for suckers.  Pauline Kael being the biggest of them all who fell for it.

What Coppola did it that film was really a clever trick.  And in fact the whole concept was so.

What most people, and critics thought was that he took a middlebrow novel and turned it into a highbrow work of art.

In reality, he took a lowbrow piece of vulgar kitsch and turned it into Middlebrow Pretention.  If you make it long and lush n order to mask its emptiness, then people will feel you have done Something Good.

Edited December 4, 2019 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

The final draft was  written months ago.  Before we started shooting in September.

Once a script is finalized, the alterations are only minor and are submitted in different color pages.

But the script is already fashioned and is being edited now, since we did about 25 interviews and in some ways they are better than what I wrote.

We only shot and edited what I wrote.  Oliver is very big on staying on script.

The company distributing it is AGC and they will  try for what they call a first tier premiere, that is Showtime or HBO.

[Kirk Gallaway]

I feel somewhat relieved. Thanks, Good Luck!

[Ron Ecker]

Showtime, please! I don't have HBO. One can only afford so much. (I'm paying now for 300 channels, most of which I never watch. It's the only way to get the ones that I do watch.)

 

 

 

 

 

[Ron Ecker]

29 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

I think The Godfather is a film for suckers.

At least two scenes bear that out. One is when Sonny beats up his brother-in-law. He slugs him with a roundhouse to the jaw, the only problem being that the punch hits nothing but air by almost a foot. (Coppola: Well, maybe no one will notice.)

The other is when Brando slaps Al Martino. According to what I've read, it caught Martino completely by surprise, which gave them exactly the reaction they wanted. What a sucker!

 

[David Andrews]

On 12/4/2019 at 2:34 PM, James DiEugenio said:

I disagree on this too.

I think The Godfather is a film for suckers.  Pauline Kael being the biggest of them all who fell for it.

What Coppola did it that film was really a clever trick.  And in fact the whole concept was so.

What most people, and critics thought was that he took a middlebrow novel and turned it into a highbrow work of art.

In reality, he took a lowbrow pice of vulgar kitsch and turned it into Middlebrow Pretention.  If you make it long and lush n order to mask its emptiness, then people will feel you have done Something Good.

The Godfather and Godfather Part II took a lowbrow novel and totally eradicated it.  People kept buying it after the films came out, but they were essentially buying a merchandising souvenir.

The book wouldn't have existed without a film deal.  Mario Puzo took the film treatment to Robert Evans because he needed to pay gambling debts.  Evans gave him c. $12,000 and told him to pay the shylocks and come back with a novelized version.  Puzo banged it out, threw in a personal-experience subplot about a celebrity plastic surgeon because he ran out of Mafia anecdotes to pilfer, and brought it back to Evans.  On the strength of Evans' agreement to make the picture, Puzo got a book deal for the novel.  (Similar deals were made with the novelized versions of Dances with Wolves and Forrest Gump, but those books weren't pimped as hard in the press, because The Godfather was a harder sell to the studio.  I'm betting Paramount's money was behind the book's newspaper ad campaign, which splashed critics' praise over double pages in NY and LA.)

The whole production history of The Godfather is as slapdash as Bonnie & Clyde's.  You think it's crap now?  You should have seen the studio's fantasy version with Robert Redford as Michael, directed by Sidney Pollack.  Coppola, Pacino and Brando were unwanted in their roles.  Evans got Coppola genius talent in the cinematography, art direction, and wardrobe departments to make the film hang together and produce convincing rushes (daily footage) for the suits.  All the while, Mob money was coming into Paramount to make the film through president Charlie Bluhdorn , which is why they had so much say over disuse of the words Mafia, Mob, and Cosa Nostra.  (Bluhdorn's connections lead to Paramount's involvement with the Vatican in the Credit Immobiliare finance scandal - the subject of Godfather Part III.  That no one found Coppola and Puzo's bite-the-hand-that feeds rendition of this true-life evil compelling is a subject for further analysis.  Perhaps people are suckers for old-school mythmaking after all.)

The point is, the Godfather films became a social and cultural phenomenon.  It was the Mafia's JFK!  People who didn't know bupkis about the Mob learned plenty by seeing other films and documentaries, and reading other books.  If you want to slag the director and the co-writers, you can't deny the acting and production talent that made these films great, and filled the History Channel with docs about goons the likes of Roy DeMeo stabbing Mob rats to death in saloon basements.

Myself, I didn't much care for Pulp Fiction after I drove 40 miles to see it in a theater - I thought it was impossibly over the top, showy for showyness' sake, and idiosynchratic to the point of solipsism.  After the low-budget restraint of Reservoir Dogs, it was like watching a football player run the ball through the end zone, out the tunnel, across the parking lot, and spike it in the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant across from the stadium.  But so many people loved it - my own mother included - that I had to watch again and reevaluate.  That's the power of a social and cultural phenomenon, and often they come from making ignoble crap noble.  Plus attitude.  And that was already an old Hollywood story by the time of The Godfather.

Edited December 6, 2019 by David Andrews

[Ron Ecker]

There is a scene in The Godfather that's relevant to the JFK assassination. When Sterling Hayden is shot from in front at a restaurant table, he falls forward instead of backward.

I wonder if he was directed to that, or did it on his own, to get more people thinking about the Z film. 

I wonder too if they had in mind Jack Ruby's motive for killing Oswald when they have this Mafia boss say, "I'm going to make him an offer that he can't refuse."

Come to think of it, the sad news that "They got Sonny on the causeway" could be a subliminal reference to "They got Jack in Dealey Plaza."  

I almost wish I was back in college so I could write a thesis on The Godfather and the JFK assassination.

 

[David Andrews]

7 minutes ago, Ron Ecker said:

There is a scene in The Godfather that's relevant to the JFK assassination. When Sterling Hayden is shot from in front at a restaurant table, he falls forward instead of backward.

 

Also shot in the throat, first.

I shouldn't give Jim ammunition, but if you watch the scene closely, in the long shot where Sterling Hayden's clutching his throat, he's already got the head wound blood on his forehead before Michael shoots him there in the following close shot.  Because the original intention was to reverse those shots.  Let's puff this up into a Z-film analog.

Edited December 4, 2019 by David Andrews