Around 160 million dollars of budget, 117 different filming locations, 309 distinct scenes, an exceptional cast ... Martin Scorsese's latest film, "The Irishman", released Wednesday, November 27 on Netflix, is one of most ambitious productions of the career of the New York director.
After "Mean Streets", "The Affranchised" and "Casino", Martin Scorsese was looking for a material strong enough to plunge into the mysteries of the Italian-American mafia.
After eight collaborations, from "Mean Streets" to "Casino" with Robert De Niro, "I did not want to make a film with him if we could not go deeper," said Martin Scorsese at an event organized by the American Film Institute in Los Angeles.
After the refusal of several studios, it took the financial power of Netflix to give birth to "The Irishman", the nickname of the mafia Frank Sheeran, whose testimony is the frame of the book and film.
The feature film was released in a limited number of theaters November 1 in the United States and the rest of the world, but not in France, before being posted on Netflix Wednesday.
A former henchman, Frank Sheeran reports that he has killed more than 25 people on the orders of mafia boss Russell Bufalino and boss of the truck driver union, Jimmy Hoffa.
The time of regrets
In terms of specifications, the production has added a new technical process developed by Industrial Light & Magic (ILM, a company created by George Lucas), the "de-aging", which rejuvenates an actor or actress on screen. Robert De Niro, 76, was supposed to play Frank Sheeran from 1955, at the age of 34, until his death in 2003 (aged 83).
They "had to find a solution of rejuvenation that does not interfere with (the game) of Bob (De Niro), Joe (Pesci) and Al (Pacino)", explained Martin Scorsese, "that they do not have to talk to each other wearing helmets or tennis balls on their faces, they would not have done it. "
ILM finally achieved its ends thanks to the cameras and without pairing the actors.
With "The Irishman", Martin Scorsese returns to the vein of the gangster movies that made his legend, but with a frame closer to facts and real characters. The dangerous links between politics, trade unionism and organized crime, pillars of American society in the 1960s, serve as a common thread.
The film leaves a little of the tension that animated these works to take a step back, that of Frank Sheeran, old man who, with flashbacks, takes stock of his life and passes all the sieve of morality. For Martin Scorsese, 77, this reflection on time is also his and that of De Niro, Pacino, Joe Pesci or Harvey Keitel.
"We're 75, 76. We look in the rearview mirror," he said at an event organized by the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. "You think back to the things you did in your life, or the things you wanted to do" and "the consequences".
With AFP