The Irishman
-
Photographing Memory: DP Rodrigo Prieto on the “Three-Headed Monster” Used to Shoot Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman
Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, based on hitman Frank Sheeran’s (Robert De Niro) account of the murder of Teamster luminary Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino), talks back to its characters’ memories as much as it does the director’s past films. It’s Sheeran’s perspective told from Scorsese’s, executed by his go-to cinematographer since The Wolf of Wall Street, Rodrigo Prieto. Sheeran confessed to murdering Hoffa, the dear friend he served as bodyguard. But Hoffa’s true cause of death is still subject to speculation, as are details of Sheeran’s recollection. “Some people are mulling over what’s accurate and what’s not accurate, and I don’t […]
by A.E. Hunt on Dec 10, 2019 -
Back to One, Episode 85: Stephanie Kurtzuba
Stephanie Kurtzuba plays Irene, wife of Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro), in The Irishman. It’s her second film with Martin Scorsese. She played stockbroker Kimmie Belzer in The Wolf of Wall Street. She talks about working with the legendary filmmaker and what sets him apart as an actor’s director. She also explains her process of extracting preconceptions made in the audition, and she gushes about her first love–the rehearsal room, but tells us why, despite her heart being on the stage, she wouldn’t give up working for the camera if she could. Plus much more! Back To One can be […]
by Peter Rinaldi on Nov 26, 2019 -
Outta Respect: Remembering the Goodfellas Diner
“We tried to do everything we could.” “What do you mean?” “You know what I mean. He’s gone. And we couldn’t do nothing about it.” So kicks off an iconic sequence in Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas, the emotional summit of a movie that’s basically one iconic sequence after another: the moment on the pay- phone when Jimmy “The Gent” Conway (Robert De Niro) hears his old friend Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci) has just been whacked. Jimmy doesn’t just hang up — he bashes the phone into the receiver, finally stomping the booth into the ground between muffled sobs while the film’s narrator, […]
by Steve Macfarlane on Oct 31, 2019 -
NYFF 2019: Bacurau, Varda by Agnès and The Irishman
A number of cinematic styles, narrative modes, and political agendas collide in Bacurau, one of two South American films on NYFF’s Main Slate this year. Urgent, yet vague enough to feel timeless, the film depicts a form of unhinged white supremacy in the outback of northern Brazil. We’re told up top, quite ominously, that Bacurau takes place “a few years from now,” as if to suggest that the wholly irrational racism herein is just around the corner. An angry movie, at once frightening and funny, it’s bound to rattle viewers aesthetically, politically, or both. Bacurau, a fictional town, is already […]
by Soheil Rezayazdi on Oct 9, 2019 -
NYFF 2019: The Irishman
The opening shot of The Irishman* is a signature Steadicam glide through a nursing home soundtracked by doo-wop (The Five Satins’ 1956 “In The Heat of the Night”), slowly making its reverential way to an close-up of Robert De Niro—a suitably majestic re-introduction of both the actor as persona and his character, hitman Frank Sheeran. Sheeran lived until 2003, and (minus one brief WWII combat service flashback) the film picks him up sometime in the early ’50s. If the opening shot is as close to the present day as possible (2003, I hate to remind you, was already 16 years […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 30, 2019 -
A Sense of Place: The Job of the Location Manager
The following article appeared in Filmmaker’s Spring, 2018 print issue. Like many departments on a film set, the locations department has duties that are a mixture of artistic and practical, a blend of orchestrating creative epiphanies and managing tedious logistics. Location managers might jaunt off to explore tropical beaches or spend the day sharing their favorite secret enclave of New York with an esteemed director, but they also might toil for weeks figuring out where the crew will park, eat and go to the bathroom. And if you’ve ever worked on a low-budget movie without the cash for a fancy […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Jul 17, 2018 -
Outta Respect
“We tried to do everything we could.” “What do you mean?” “You know what I mean. He’s gone. And we couldn’t do nothing about it.” So kicks off an iconic sequence in Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas, the emotional summit of a movie that’s basically one iconic sequence after another: the moment on the pay- phone when Jimmy “The Gent” Conway (Robert De Niro) hears his old friend Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci) has just been whacked. Jimmy doesn’t just hang up — he bashes the phone into the receiver, finally stomping the booth into the ground between muffled sobs while the film’s narrator, […]
by Steve Macfarlane on Dec 14, 2017 -
SCORSESE AND VON TRIER OR SCORSESE, DE NIRO & FELLINI?
We’ve kinda been down this road before. In early 2010, around the time of the Berlin Film Festival, reports rumors hit the blogsphere that Lars von Trier, Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro were planning a remake of Taxi Driver in the vein of The Five Obstructions by making it five times, each with rules created by von Trier. Now out of Cannes, Scorsese and von Trier are bringing up the idea again. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Scorsese project to be dissected has not been decided yet but shooting will begin after Scorsese is done with the Daniel […]
by Jason Guerrasio on May 13, 2011
