I hate this movie. And I hate that it lasts over three and a half hours.
I hate the pretense that made this movie. I hate that you can't even talk about it without referencing others in the genre, which is to say the genre of Scorsese crime films. I hate that this film by definition can only exist in context of other lengthy, expansive, self-indulgent movies about organized crime. I hate the woeful predictability of the whole affair, which starts with the titular protagonist in a nursing home describing his career as a Mafia hitman. I hate that, as he jokes about what must be the film's alternate title ("I heard you paint houses," the only on-screen text) and how it refers to blowing brains out, he also makes a meta-commentary on needing to relieve your bladder before the story really gets underway. I hate that the film lasts over three and a half hours.
I hate the digital de-aging of the actors, which made this one of Scorsese's most ludicrously expensive movies. I hate the way De Niro plays Frank Sheeran, a WWII veteran-turned-hitman and absolute sociopath, who is supposed to be a thirtysomething killer for most of the movie; his face might look young, but the 76-year-old actor can't make his body look like anything but a stiff board and his voice has the gravelly edge of age he can't disguise as gruff testosterone anymore. I hate the way the CGI faces mold into the actors' real faces in an artificially bright way, making them look like corpses fresh from the mortician or like watery reflections that haven't quite settled yet. I hate that the film lasts over three and a half hours.
I hate the Botox-infused false faces of old men playing young men, which feels like a distinctly unspoken problem in the wake of so many vitriolic discussions of accurate Hollywood representation of subjects. I hate the way the de-aging technology stole roles from younger actors like Leo DiCaprio, when De Niro himself played a younger Marlon Brando in the second Godfather. I hate that it unforgivably distracted from an amazing performance by Al Pacino. I hate that the film so abuses Anna Paquin as Sheeran's daughter, utilizing her for probably half a dozen scenes and giving her half as many lines as that. I hate that the wives are discarded and Paquin's role is solely to judge her father for his failures. I hate that these criticisms remind me that I criticized Tarantino for sidelining Margot Robbie in his big feature this year and that Scorsese has publicly called for another similar artist's freedom (a character in that Tarantino flick) to return to the USA despite that man's convictions for rape. And I hate that the film lasts over three and a half hours.
I hate that the film uses Sheeran -- who is by essence unreliable as a narrator -- to craft a sort of bizarre Tarantino-esque, Forrest Gumpian revision of history that suggests the Mafia elected Kennedy and then killed him, to say nothing of the other attempts at bizarre fictional historicity the film hints at. I hate that the film seems to call back to, or even bookend, earlier movies like Goodfellas, Mean Streets, and Casino, but fails to set itself up as a unique work or even one that matters in comparison. I hate that this film at once leans into its lament for ageing and tries so hard to erase its aged stars; near the end, Sheeran makes friends with a visiting priest who prays with him, "Help us see ourselves as you see us," in a cruel critique in which Scorsese himself must have missed the irony. And I hate that this film lasts over three and a half hours.
I hate that the movie is such a step backward for Scorsese, who chose not to continue his streak of amazing, fresh, unique movies (Hugo, Silence, The Aviator) and chose instead to retread old ground long left, rightly, to rot. I hate that the film's themes of human mortality and moral decay in age are undercut by the sad performative reality of his presentation that age is inevitable and even attempts to stop or rewind can only make things worse. I hate that Scorsese seems to think he can perform the magic to this effect when the whole story seems hell-bent on delivering a profoundly human story; then why not give us real humans instead of these CGI Frankenstein creatures? I hate that this film turns Scorsese's disdain for Marvel movies back onto himself, arguably helping to justify claims that he's the Hollywood Old Guard, passing into the sunset with irrelevance and, more horrifying, desperation to not become obsolete. And I hate that this movie lasted over three and a half hours.
No comments:
Post a Comment