Guys named Scorsese, De Niro, Pacino help bring 'The Irishman' to life
LOS ANGELES -- "The Irishman," Martin Scorsese's saga about a hard-working union man who befriended Jimmy Hoffa, arrives Friday in northeast Ohio (at the Cedar Lee Theater in Cleveland Heights) before landing Nov. 27 for its long-awaited streaming home on Netflix.
Al Pacino (Jimmy Hoffa): On if he learned anything from working with a director such as Scorsese:
"Well, that’s a really interesting question, and yes I did. I’ve directed films in the sense that I was the director and the filmmaker before. But, I’m not a director and I’m not a filmmaker. He is. I make films, and it’s (still) a learning experience for me. And it’s a sense of doing a home movie. I learned about film by directing film. I learned about editing and what it was by doing my own.
"I was fortunate to have done 'Looking For Richard.' I did that because I had some idea, but really, why did I? What motivated me was that I did 'Richard III' several times. And when I did it in New York on Broadway, the reviewer said, 'Pacino has set back Shakespeare 50 years in America.' Anyway, there’s a scene, since you saw it, in 'The Irishman' where someone is going to his end. He doesn’t know it because it’s this place, this house. And I walked in on the first day on the set of this particular scene. And I see this house. There's nothing you could really overtly recognize. But I knew that this house was deadly. Just the way they had put it together. But you couldn’t find it. They didn’t have things all over it. It was just simple furniture, but in such a way. I mean, you talk about artful! And that’s what I saw. This is what is done by great directors. And you saw it and knew that it was a deadly place."
Martin Scorsese (Director and Producer): On why he thought it was time for him to do another "crime" or "corruption" film:
“Having gone through ‘Mean Streets’ and ‘Goodfellas’ and ‘Casino,’ I had covered the territory in specific ways at those times. The overall issue of corruption is something that I tend to be attracted to as material. And what happened with this and (the character of) Frank Sheeran, when you describe him to me and I read the book, it had this whole backdrop of history. Their history, the history of the United States, the world, all this going on. And I said, I think I know what to do. I think it’s a matter of just like having to cut the whole thing down to its essentials and deal with the emotional impact, ultimately. of the life you lead. Everything else, whether it’s the Cuban Missile Crisis or Joey Gallo being shot, it’s all peripheral, all forgotten about. In a way, it freed me.
“In terms of corruption, that’s part of a human being. In ‘The Asphalt Jungle,’ Louis Calhern, playing a lawyer, has a line that’s great where it goes. His wife says, ‘Why do you always defend the bad guys and gangsters and that sort of thing?’ He goes, ‘Well, I look at crime as sort of a left-handed endeavor of the human condition.’ And yeah, it’s the whole sense of that’s part of who we are. And it’s always there. The dark forces are always there. Do we succumb to them? All the time. Do we get sucked in and pulled back out? I mean, this is the whole thing. It has to do with our pride, too. In the case of Jimmy Hoffa, when he keeps saying it’s my union, it damn well is his union, but he lost it. He lost it! In any event, it’s more than corruption. It’s about what’s in ourselves as human beings.
“For me, it’s always been for different reasons, personal reasons or whatever, I’m aware of the people that I knew around me sometimes who I knew -- genuinely good people -- but wound up doing bad things. And then, ultimately, are they cast out? Are they cast out of a religious institution? Are they cast out of the society around them? In some cases, they are. But in terms of certain religious aspects, if I have made ‘Silence’ and movies like that, you know, the bottom line is the wretched, the ones who couldn’t help it. And the ones who can’t do anything else. They’re the ones that demand the compassion. And it’s very hard. You may hate it, you may get it, I don’t know. But that’s a very important thing to nurture in a human being and not cut people off dead."
Robert De Niro (Frank Sheeran): On working again with Pacino:
"Well, Al and I have known each other over the years, you know. We’ve known each other for decades, since we were in our 20s. And we worked a couple of times together and we’ve had an unusual relationship in some ways and maybe not so unusual where we always felt close because of our situations, and we would commiserate or confide or talk or get advice about things over the years, over the decades. And, of course, we’ve worked together, too. And on this one other project, Al and I were at an opening in Europe. I think it might have been London. It was (either) London, Paris, or Spain. And, the people were so great and the crowds! So (back then) we said, one day we hope that we can be as deserving of this kind of adoration with something that we’re more proud of. And so, ("The Irishman") to us is what that is.
"Now I remember the last day of Al’s shooting on this and I asked him: 'Remember when we said that to each other that other time? Well, if nothing else, we did this with this movie and we will be proud of it and we are proud of it.'
"Really, I’m very happy that we worked so hard to get it to where it is today, because we did work to become part of something really special, Also, I'm so grateful that it seems to be getting such a great reception. That's a good feeling for me and everybody in my life, and I really feel terrific about that."
A few weeks ago, though, an assortment of movie journos (including yours truly) were invited to attend the film's Hollywood premiere and a next-day press conference with Scorsese and two of his favorite actors. Excerpts from some of what the trio discussed follow.
Al Pacino (Jimmy Hoffa): On if he learned anything from working with a director such as Scorsese:
"Well, that’s a really interesting question, and yes I did. I’ve directed films in the sense that I was the director and the filmmaker before. But, I’m not a director and I’m not a filmmaker. He is. I make films, and it’s (still) a learning experience for me. And it’s a sense of doing a home movie. I learned about film by directing film. I learned about editing and what it was by doing my own.
"I was fortunate to have done 'Looking For Richard.' I did that because I had some idea, but really, why did I? What motivated me was that I did 'Richard III' several times. And when I did it in New York on Broadway, the reviewer said, 'Pacino has set back Shakespeare 50 years in America.' Anyway, there’s a scene, since you saw it, in 'The Irishman' where someone is going to his end. He doesn’t know it because it’s this place, this house. And I walked in on the first day on the set of this particular scene. And I see this house. There's nothing you could really overtly recognize. But I knew that this house was deadly. Just the way they had put it together. But you couldn’t find it. They didn’t have things all over it. It was just simple furniture, but in such a way. I mean, you talk about artful! And that’s what I saw. This is what is done by great directors. And you saw it and knew that it was a deadly place."
Martin Scorsese (Director and Producer): On why he thought it was time for him to do another "crime" or "corruption" film:
“In terms of corruption, that’s part of a human being. In ‘The Asphalt Jungle,’ Louis Calhern, playing a lawyer, has a line that’s great where it goes. His wife says, ‘Why do you always defend the bad guys and gangsters and that sort of thing?’ He goes, ‘Well, I look at crime as sort of a left-handed endeavor of the human condition.’ And yeah, it’s the whole sense of that’s part of who we are. And it’s always there. The dark forces are always there. Do we succumb to them? All the time. Do we get sucked in and pulled back out? I mean, this is the whole thing. It has to do with our pride, too. In the case of Jimmy Hoffa, when he keeps saying it’s my union, it damn well is his union, but he lost it. He lost it! In any event, it’s more than corruption. It’s about what’s in ourselves as human beings.
“For me, it’s always been for different reasons, personal reasons or whatever, I’m aware of the people that I knew around me sometimes who I knew -- genuinely good people -- but wound up doing bad things. And then, ultimately, are they cast out? Are they cast out of a religious institution? Are they cast out of the society around them? In some cases, they are. But in terms of certain religious aspects, if I have made ‘Silence’ and movies like that, you know, the bottom line is the wretched, the ones who couldn’t help it. And the ones who can’t do anything else. They’re the ones that demand the compassion. And it’s very hard. You may hate it, you may get it, I don’t know. But that’s a very important thing to nurture in a human being and not cut people off dead."
Robert De Niro (Frank Sheeran): On working again with Pacino:
"Well, Al and I have known each other over the years, you know. We’ve known each other for decades, since we were in our 20s. And we worked a couple of times together and we’ve had an unusual relationship in some ways and maybe not so unusual where we always felt close because of our situations, and we would commiserate or confide or talk or get advice about things over the years, over the decades. And, of course, we’ve worked together, too. And on this one other project, Al and I were at an opening in Europe. I think it might have been London. It was (either) London, Paris, or Spain. And, the people were so great and the crowds! So (back then) we said, one day we hope that we can be as deserving of this kind of adoration with something that we’re more proud of. And so, ("The Irishman") to us is what that is.
"Now I remember the last day of Al’s shooting on this and I asked him: 'Remember when we said that to each other that other time? Well, if nothing else, we did this with this movie and we will be proud of it and we are proud of it.'
"Really, I’m very happy that we worked so hard to get it to where it is today, because we did work to become part of something really special, Also, I'm so grateful that it seems to be getting such a great reception. That's a good feeling for me and everybody in my life, and I really feel terrific about that."
