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12 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 8 DECEMBER 2019 FILM FILM Renouncing big-screen exclusivity in favour of the Netflix experience, Martin Scorcese throws himself into the world of streaming and takes advantage of one of its oft-neglected quali- ties: longevity. The Irish- man's running time has now become a meme, but view- ers tend to forget the doz- ens of hours they've glee- fully renounced on Game of Thrones binge-watching sessions, and I can tell you with an arrogant pomposity which I will not apologise for, that the three-and-a- half hour epic offered up by Scorcese contains more substance than the average season of the average hit TV series. (To say nothing of the average superhero franchise that 'Marty' ap- parently loves to hate, but let's not revive that tired controversy here too.) In telling the story of World War II veteran turned Mafia hitman Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro), Scorcese takes a deliberate- ly slow-moving, gradually unpeeling approach that certainly runs counter to contemporary orthodoxies of rapid-fire entertainment. But what's particularly in- triguing is how its tone and pace also runs counter to Scorcese's own previous output. Even recent fare like The Wolf of Wall Street came sleek and fast with the same adrenaline-soaked en- ergy that belied Scorcese's age. Here, however, we get to experience the latter-day output of a director in a re- flective mood. Thankfully, he gets an equally seasoned cast of old friends on board to help him complete what is really a beautiful piece of art that we might not even deserve, as it trickles its way through the Netflix rolodex. Based on 'I Heard You Paint Houses', a narrative non-fiction book by former homicide prosecutor, in- vestigator and defence at- torney Charles Brandt, The Irishman finds an elderly, largely oblivious and unre- pentant Frank recounting his story in flashbacks as he languishes in an elderly home. His expansive rela- tionship with the American criminal underworld be- gins soon after the war, in 1950s Philadelphia. His life of petty crime begins while he's working as a truck driver, but after he comes under the purview of Russel Bufalino (Joe Pesci) their budding friendship leads to more 'serious' work. Frank is soon introduced to famed union boss Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino), which results in something of a strange mafia 'love triangle' between the three, with the Jimmy and Russel vying for Frank's grisly talents and loyalty at every turn. Most of the hype in the run-up to the film was col- oured by the simple fact that The Irishman will be a Netflix production by a dec- orated director like Martin Scorcese, and the de-aging technology applied to both De Niro and Joe Pesci which made the leap into stream- ing necessary. While there's certainly a worthwhile dis- cussion underlying all that – for one, the tragedy of a film landscape in which not even a giant like Scorcese can raise enough money for his film – it overshadows the more important and es- sential meat of the story. The de-aging tech is defi- nitely necessary, for one, and its 'invisibility' is a cru- cial part of why it works so well. Getting younger ac- tors to play younger ver- sions of these characters would have shorn the film of most of its impact, and it's not only because we're dealing with un-replicable talent here. The sinuous flow of time, weaving in and Martin Scorcese's Netf lix epic may take its sweet time, but the patient will be rewarded by a leisurely unspooling character study that lets the greats be themselves, the seasoned director included Teodor Reljic A history of violence