1058 The Irishman

[ford]

Scorsese has openly talked about his mortality in recent years and how the window for making films is shrinking due to his age. Paired with his previous narrative film Silence, I get the feeling Scorsese is tying up all loose ends. Both The Irishman and Silence feel like the work of someone looking back at their life and legacy, analyzing/criticizing it and saying the things that he probably wants to say or at least emphasize that wasn't as pronounced before. They're almost by design final testament films.

Strongly agree and well-said.

[Drucker]

Drucker, thanks for posting. I’ve been contemplating revisiting this myself. When I first saw it I was nonplussed and felt it was overly long. But every now and then I would think about the film. Besides Scorsese deserves additional chances in changing initial reactions. Scorsese does indeed romanticizes the mobster and that life. I do think Coppola deserves the credit for romanticization of this genre with The Godfather. Scorsese’s first mob movie, Mean Streets, does not have that feel to it. Much more gritty and down and dirty.

My ex's mother is from Little Italy, raised there between 1954-1972ish, and her take on Mean Streets was that "this is what our life was like." There are characters in the film that are based on real people she knew, so in addition to loving the film, it always struck me as attempting to create a very honest look at that world and based on her anecdotes, I have to give it credit for succeeding.

I have to admit, there's a good chance Irishman has stuck with me due to the use of memes on Twitter which have kept it visible since its release. It works!

[FrauBlucher]

Scorsese has openly talked about his mortality in recent years and how the window for making films is shrinking due to his age. Paired with his previous narrative film Silence, I get the feeling Scorsese is tying up all loose ends. Both The Irishman and Silence feel like the work of someone looking back at their life and legacy, analyzing/criticizing it and saying the things that he probably wants to say or at least emphasize that wasn't as pronounced before. They're almost by design final testament films.

Strongly agree and well-said.

Very much agree with this. As I started the new year by revisiting The Irishman. And if there is such thing as a tribute to ones own work this is it. Hearthesilence, your point really strikes me after realizing the scene where Russ and Frankie were in the prison together looking quite aged, but at peace with what lie ahead. And the fact he brought back all his old friends and a new one in Pacino which is striking that this is the first time they worked together, which could be one of those loose ends.

As for the film, I liked and appreciated more this time around. I still feel it's a bit longish. For me, it hits a lull when Jimmy Hoffa is introduced but picks up again after it returns to the mob and introduces the Kennedys plot line. All the performances were spot on, but can Pesci be any better than this. He was incredible. The de-aging didn't bother me as much as it did the first time around. There were still a few moments it didn't look right, but clearly forgivable.

I liked it enough that I'll pick up the blu during the flash sale. Just to watch all the supplements.

[Drucker]

Honestly, the supplements were meh. The roundtable discussion and Making of are nice, but very light pieces, the kind you'd imagine that Netflix probably produced, not as thorough or exhaustive as Criterion can be at its best.

[ford]

Not sure why they didn’t release this on UHD. I adore the film but haven’t purchased the Blu-ray and don’t plan to — can’t imagine it’s up to the quality of an HDR (Dolby Vision?) 4k stream from Netflix.

[Penti Mento]

Not sure why they didn’t release this on UHD. I adore the film but haven’t purchased the Blu-ray and don’t plan to — can’t imagine it’s up to the quality of an HDR (Dolby Vision?) 4k stream from Netflix.

Very few people in the US have access to the kind of internet that would convey genuine and consistent 4K quality. Even in large cities internet connectivity and bandwidth varies from community to community, even neighborhood to neighborhood. And - someone correct me if I'm wrong - there are no evidentiary procedures or regulatory oversight to prove or guarantee any streaming content is actually at the resolution promised.

So the BD is worth releasing. Naturally I'd prefer a UHD as well, as the film is a masterpiece.

[tenia]

Not sure about the regulatory side of things, but a contractual one, yes : if you're paying for the 4k subscription and it's a program stated as being 4k, you should receive a 2160p file. Now, since quality isn't just a matter of resolution, how this 4k looks is a whole different matter (for what it's worth, it could be an older master upscaled to 4k).

[ford]

Not sure why they didn’t release this on UHD. I adore the film but haven’t purchased the Blu-ray and don’t plan to — can’t imagine it’s up to the quality of an HDR (Dolby Vision?) 4k stream from Netflix.

Very few people in the US have access to the kind of internet that would convey genuine and consistent 4K quality. Even in large cities internet connectivity and bandwidth varies from community to community, even neighborhood to neighborhood. And - someone correct me if I'm wrong - there are no evidentiary procedures or regulatory oversight to prove or guarantee any streaming content is actually at the resolution promised.

So the BD is worth releasing. Naturally I'd prefer a UHD as well, as the film is a masterpiece.

But if you have a very high speed internet connection (I do), wouldn't a 4k stream, even if it doesn't hit full resolution, be at least as good as a 1080 bluray, especially adding the HDR?

[dekadetia]

Adding the HDR, I would say yes. Without that this would be harder to say definitively. The Netflix streaming file is approx 10GB smaller than the blu-ray file despite its image being 4x as many pixels; it is using a more efficient codec (h265 vs h264), but expecting this much efficiency would be asking a lot. Like so many things, it comes down to the quality of the encode.

One thing's for sure -- a properly maxed out UHD would best either option and remove any doubt from the equation.