Our filmmakers have raised two great author films, North American and recently produced by Netflix. Nothing to say about the, so often demonized, platform, as long as it leaves us the privilege of enjoying these movies on the big screen, as it has been. More considering that without Netflix financing, a film like The Irish, whose budget officially amounts to 143 million euros, would not have been possible, after Paramount threw in the towel in 2011. Baumbach had already put himself in the hands of Netflix with the remarkable The Meyerowitz Stories (2017), and Scorsese has followed suit. It is the sign of the times. Be that as it may, the one that is preparing to leave us has been another year of great cinema, an art that does not decay, and there is no doubt that these two films represent a climax in the career of their directors.
Seen as a chronicle of the mafia, the Irishman is the tailcart of a train that starts in the Little Italy of Malas streets (1973), and extends into One of ours (1990) and Casino (1995). A corpus that has nothing to envy the sacrosanct trilogy of The Godfather . Someone might even wonder if the late incorporation of Al Corleone Pacino into the world of Scorsese's underworld would not have had to do with an undeniable longing to round the set to beat Coppola. As for Baumbach, History of a marriage is the film that will be worth more recognition in a filmography that goes back to the 90s. And if The Irish is the mirror, deformed by the bitter old age, of One of us - the two are based on the real testimonies of mobsters more or less regretful-, History of a marriage, which by the way recovers a Ray Liotta fallen into disuse, is seen in A story of Brooklyn (2005), the film, inspired by the divorce of their own parents, who put Baumbach in the arena. For this new chronicle of a divorce, Baumbach has revived his own separation from Jennifer Jason Leigh, whom he met when he was participating in Proof , a Broadway play. The break came after the blonde Greta Gerwig, Baumbach's current partner, participated in the undervalued Greenberg (2010). Irreconcilable differences was the classic legal euphemism.
Scorsese's cinema is not so autobiographical, although it is clear that, from the perspective of his 77 years, he tells us about his cinematographic family , the so-called old times and a type of cinema, that of the blockbusters for adults , to which He was already dead and buried. He tells us about his eternal alliance with De Niro, and with immense Joe Pesci, who got into the car with Wild Bull (1980). And yet it is less a movie of actors than ghosts, ghosts of the past. The very expensive effects of rejuvenation, added to the makeup of aging, make that, at no time, we know what face the actors really have , something that can be disturbing, and even live as a threat throughout the viewing. The threat of being expelled from the set is understood. But, despite the strangeness of contemplating De Niro, with an octogenarian body and a thirties face, kicking a shopkeeper as he can, the image, which is already meme meat, is not so grotesque framed in the set of a Clairvoyant historical fresco, where JFK's murder is solved in a parakeet. The trip, in search of lost time, that Scorsese proposes is too important. It is, as has been said, history of cinema.
Faced with a proposal as maximalist as The Irish , History of a marriage is minimal, reduced to an acting duel, clothed, yes, by great secondary, with Laura Dern in the lead as a roundup of Laura Wasser, the famous lawyer of end Made in Hollywood But if there is such a duel, it is uneven. If Adam Driver embroider without a doubt the best interpretation of his career, Scarlett can produce a certain confusion. The one who was the best actress of her generation provides a performance that, at times, may seem hieratic, imposted, indistinguishable from those plays that she stars for her husband in the film. And that is something that breaks our hearts, because in that detachment perhaps the bitter experience of his recent divorce intervenes, battle for custody included, as if, forgetting his character, we saw the injured woman transparent. It is a personal appreciation, it is already known that no two spectators are the same, but in any case there is a palpable imbalance in a game that aims to end in tables . And that can also be disturbing, even threatening.
All this to say that even masterpieces have their fissures, real or subjective. It is not about aspiring to a perfectly perfected advertisement. It is about transmitting an emotion, whether cinephile or merely human, but deep and enduring.
The votes of the directors
DANIEL SÁNCHEZ ARÉVALO
1. Story of a marriage , by Noah Baumbach.
2. The peanut butter falcon , by Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz.
3. Super nerds , by Olivia Wilde.
4. Border by Ali Abbasi.
5. Diego Maradona , of Asif Kapadia.
ISABEL COIXET
1. Parasites , from Bong Joon-ho.
2. For Sama , from Waad al-Kateab and Edward Watts.
3. Portrait of a woman on fire , by Céline Sciamma.
4. Story of a marriage , by Noah Baumbach.
5. Where is my body? by Jérémy Clapin.
PACO PLAZA
1. Midsommar , by Ari Aster.
2. Border , by Ali Abbasi.
3. Parasites , from Bong Joon-ho.
4. The wild goose lake , by Diao Yinan.
5. The Irish , by Martin Scorsese.
RODRIGO SOROGOYEN
1. The Irish , by Martin Scorsese.
2. Story of a marriage , by Noah Baumbach.
3. Portrait of a woman on fire , by Céline Sciamma.
4. The wretched , of Ladj Ly.
5. Ema , by Pablo Larraín.
JAIME ROSALES
1. Joker , by Todd Phillips.
2. Les miserables , by Ladj Ly.
3. Portrait of a woman on fire , by Céline Sciamma.
4. Parasites , from Bong Joon-ho.
5. Once upon a time in ... Hollywood , by Quentin Tarantino.
JOSÉ LUIS GARCI
1. The Irish , by Martin Scorsese.
2. Joker , by Todd Phillips.
3. Mula , from Clint Eastwood.
4. The two popes , by Fernando Meirelles.
5. Daggers in the back , by Rian Johnson.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
Know more- culture
- movie theater
Cinema 'Flowers in the trash', the film of the crisis that continues between us
Cinema 'Pain and Glory' and 'Perfect Life', favorite films of the Feroz Awards
CineGreta Fernández: "The reaction against the feminism of the extreme right is the pus of a wound that heals"