Scorsese is stupid

C

catalog

Well-known member
Corpsey said:
I mean look at the "story" in 2001. If you can make sense of it, that is. (Without reading the cheat sheet.)
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2001 definitely does have a very clear story, to me anyway, after having watched it twice now. but i have also read the cheat sheet in between.
 
Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
There is a blankness to Goodfellas and The Irishman in that the protagonists are generally so amoral that there's no inner conflict, there's no real moral choice being made, it's more about strategising to come out on top in a mob-eats-mob game. What conflict there is is between the professed "honour" of thieves vs. the nihilistic reality of their actions.

I've realised that Goodfellas/The Irishman are about (in one sense) "winners" who all ultimately lose, while Taxi Driver/King of Comedy are about losers who ultimately (sort of) win.
 
Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
The Irishman is really good. The last forty minutes, which I imagine would be torturous if you had already sat through nearly three hours in the cinema, is actually maybe the best bit. Very bleak. Goodfellas the later years.
 
C

catalog

Well-known member
Yeah, pretty much. He's the key stand in. De niro made joker worse I think. He needs to call it a day, he's played the same character far too many times.
 
Leo

Leo

Well-known member
Corpsey said:
The Irishman is really good. The last forty minutes, which I imagine would be torturous if you had already sat through nearly three hours in the cinema, is actually maybe the best bit. Very bleak. Goodfellas the later years.
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a friend saw it and said it was like "Cocoon", but for murderers.
 
Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
catalog said:
Yeah, pretty much. He's the key stand in. De niro made joker worse I think. He needs to call it a day, he's played the same character far too many times.
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He was badly miscast in Joker. Precisely because he WASN'T playing a character he'd played far too many times. (Late night TV hosts are supposed to be funny, after all.)

He does a fair bit of the crumpled skin gurning in the Irishman but on the whole it's a good performance I think.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
I've only just realised that this thread was jump-started by the Irishman, and that in turn made me realise how little I care about that film. So possibly deep down I do think he's a bit stupid or unimportant or something.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
Goodfellas was on telly when I started it but gpodgellas was on telly cos of the irishman
 
padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Corpsey said:
The problem with mob movies that don't idealise the mob (such as the Godfather) is that mobsters are mostly quite boring people. They're crafty but stupid. You have to be a bit dim, as a general rule, to be so good at intimidating and killing people. That's also the issue with Wolf of Wall Street, I suppose. He's showing the emptiness of these people's lives but that makes those movies a bit empty, too.

The Sopranos got around this by making Tony Soprano a bit implausibly deep and conflicted, and going to a therapist. The more goonish mafiosi in that are side characters, walk-on parts.

And of course they're very seductive, too. They make crime seem cool in spite of themselves. Although what I like about Goodfellas is the slow but sure unpeeling of that glamour. Everyone dies. (Ditto The Irishman.)

I watched that 'Legend' the other night, about the Krays. It's a good exercise to watch that b2b with Goodfellas because Legend is a sort of wannabe Scorcese flick that is piddling away in the Championship division mid-table while Goodfellas is eyeing the European cup. (The Godfather 1/2 are probably lifting it though.)
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solid post all the way thru

tho it should be noted that mobsters themselves notoriously loved The Godfather

everyone dies but first it portrays them as classy, honor-bound, neo-Roman Empire (as Pentangeli literally says in II)

when in reality they were generally, yes, vicious goons exploiting their own people

the Sopranos meta-comments on this in one of the later seasons when Meadow tries to link the Mafia's roots to some kind of social banditry contra corruption in the Mezzogiornio and her WASP boyfriend calls bullshit on her
 
padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
as far as Scorsese, Taxi Driver is an undisputed masterpiece. Raging Bull is a very great film. King of Comedy I've never seen.

Mean Streets is more important as a historical document than an excellent film but it's still pretty great.

He lost his fastball in the late 90s, or at the very least shifted into (somewhat elevated) blockbuster filmmaking

it's hard for me think how anyone would watch Goodfellas all the way thru and think it glamorizes the mob

the teenage boy glamor is literally a teenage boy's view of why mobsters seems cool; the voiceover explicitly says this

it's a coming of age story in which the protagonist is completely disillusioned - as he was IRL if you've ever seen a Henry Hill interview - by the mundane brutality etc

in the end the supposed code of honor is bullshit - or at best, selective self-preservation - and everyone frantically turns on each other as quick as possible

unlike the Godfather saga wherein Michael remains glamorous and aloof til the end, albeit alone and melancholic
 
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padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
contrast that with the Wolf of Wall Street, which is 100% empty glamor and no one learns or is disillusioned by anything
 
Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
IdleRich said:
I've only just realised that this thread was jump-started by the Irishman, and that in turn made me realise how little I care about that film. So possibly deep down I do think he's a bit stupid or unimportant or something.
Click to expand...

Watch it if you've got 3 hours 30 to spare.
 
Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Wolf of Wall Street I don't rate because I think it indulges in the supposed comic genius of Jonah Hill et al. Also I just don't think DiCaprio is that good an actor.

Watching that movie made me want to do drugs, which is a tribute to it's strengths and weaknesses I suppose.

The key to scorcese might be that glamorising of crime and immoral behaviour. Which I rate him for, in a wauz because it IS glamorous. Otherwise nobody would do it.

But he's always treading that tightrope as a result.
 
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