{"id":160502612,"date":"2019-11-01T15:43:00","date_gmt":"2019-11-01T15:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/?p=160502612"},"modified":"2026-08-14T02:42:25","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T02:42:25","slug":"life-death-the-end-of-an-era-in-the-irishman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/?p=160502612","title":{"rendered":"Life, Death & The End of an Era in The Irishman"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What is it like to know that your life is coming to an end, to know that your days are rapidly running out? To see those you spent a majority of your life with go and there you are, faced with the reality that your time is soon coming to an end? What would you want to say, to do, to fix or change? It\u2019s a feeling most people reading this article aren\u2019t familiar with, but one day perhaps could be in that position. Martin Scorsese\u2019s The Irishman<\/em> poses many end of life thoughts and questions, in addition to much more. If you\u2019re looking for a spoiler-free film review this isn\u2019t it. In this article, I\u2019ll be looking at some of the themes behind the film and what I got out of it, and it will be filled with spoilers, so please beware.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Mafia Movie\u2026again?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Scorsese got the band back together for The Irishman<\/em>, including frequent collaborators Robert De Niro and the basically retired Joe Pesci, as well as other genre icons including Al Pacino and Harvey Keitel. At first glance, you may be asking yourself if we really need this mafia film dream team coming together for a three and a half hour production that well, is largely like many other mafia films you\u2019ve seen before. There\u2019s death; there\u2019s betrayal, there are Italian restaurants and plenty of music from the era of these men\u2019s youth. The terrain feels familiar because it is familiar. A mafia film is going to hit many of the same notes as other mafia films and that\u2019s not a bad thing necessarily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What makes The Irishman<\/em> stand out from other mafia films is what the film is telling us. Throughout cinematic history, we\u2019ve always known the mob were \u201cbad guys\u201d yet we rooted for them anyway, much the same as neighborhoods in the northeastern part of the United States did in year\u2019s past in real life. Mafia films, including Scorsese\u2019s, have often focused on the more glamorous and flashy parts of mob life, until the end when the walls come crashing down. Even then, when consequences are being paid, we still feel an attachment to these characters\u2014a sense that they weren\u2019t all that bad despite the acts of violence and betrayal we\u2019ve seen them commit onscreen. We assume that their families forgive them, despite knowing on some level how many horrible acts they\u2019re committing to give them the lifestyle they have. The Irishman <\/em>does none of this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the credits first rolled after the film, I found myself with a flooded mind, trying to gather my thoughts on what I had just witnessed. It\u2019s no secret that Martin Scorsese and the film\u2019s main cast are all men of a certain age and that their careers could realistically be over at any point. Was one of the messages they wanted this \u201cmafia swan song\u201d to portray that while these mafia stories they\u2019ve told are both entertaining and historically important, the consequences were real on numerous levels? The film went to great lengths to show us through captions that most of the characters we saw died through acts of violence. The ones that didn\u2019t died in jail, which we also saw and in the case of Frank, the film ended with him preparing for his own death, completely alone and scared. His children didn\u2019t want a tearful reunion with him. They didn\u2019t want to give their father a chance to make amends. Frank was left to watch the clock on his final days alone, in a self-created prison in a sharp detour from typical mafia film protocol. Was this commentary the last word from Scorsese and the gang on the reality of mob life, that crime does not in fact, pay?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

History & Conspiracy Theories<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Large parts of American history are tied to the mafia, both through fact and widely distributed stories. Once upon a time, people were consumed with trying to figure out who was behind the death of JFK and the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa. These were figures and stories that transcended beyond one generation, but today, how many younger people know much about Jimmy Hoffa at all? As the film pointed out, Hoffa was as big as The Beatles in the 1960s, and by the end of the film, the nurse checking on Frank didn\u2019t even know who he was. Like him or not, Hoffa played a huge role in American history and that impact is still felt today by workers across the country. While JFK is still certainly well known by all age ranges, how many younger people still question his murder the way previous generations obsessed over it? The answer is hardly any.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The film\u2019s choice to not only spotlight JFK\u2019s murder but to also assign the deed to the mafia was huge. Sure, it\u2019s been long-rumored, but with as politically conscious as younger generations are today in the age of Trump, the murder of a United States President potentially at the orders of the mafia and then the cover-up that followed is something that can\u2019t ever be forgotten to the annals of time. History repeats itself, and I\u2019m not implying that anything could happen to a modern-day leader but rather, how it should be studied and remembered that there are always forces behind the curtains working away at things we, the common people don\u2019t know anything about. Once upon a time, the mafia was a part of that. Could something like that ever happen again? I\u2019m not taking a position but just like this film, I agree that history should never be forgotten.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Martin Scorsese and the top-billed cast in The Irishman<\/em> lived through JFK, Cuba, and Jimmy Hoffa. These were stories that defined significant periods of their lives and thoughts they\u2019ve carried with them for years. Not only telling these stories but taking a stand on both the death of JFK and Jimmy Hoffa feels somehow fitting for what will likely be their last mafia film together\u2014a cinematic mark they\u2019ve probably wanted to leave for many years now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sopranos Effect<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

While The Godfather <\/em>trilogy and later, the work of Martin Scorsese shaped and defined how most view mafia films, it\u2019s impossible not to look at how David Chase\u2019s The Sopranos<\/em> changed both the culture and conversation around these films and the genre as a whole. David Chase<\/a> stripped away the glitz and glamour of mob life and humanized that world in ways that had never been done before, largely due to the ongoing nature of television stories. While Chase went to great lengths to show the men and women inside this world as three-dimensional beings that face the same trials and tribulations we all do, he went to great lengths to not cast any judgements on whether crime paid or didn\u2019t pay. The ambiguous ending of The Sopranos<\/em> asks us the viewer to make our own determination of the fate of not only Tony but of all those around him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Irishman<\/em> took notice of the genre\u2019s evolution and left its mark. Instead of asking the audience to come to their own conclusions as Chase did, Scorsese and company left no doubts as to what the end of the road looked like. Sure, you could play out a scenario in your head where Frank\u2019s daughters didn\u2019t let him die alone but none of the rest of the film points towards that being a logical conclusion. This was a definitive statement on mafia life, fitting for what will likely be the final chapter in Scorsese\u2019s \u201cmob career\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The film wasn\u2019t as successful as The Sopranos<\/em> in terms of fully humanizing the characters, but that\u2019s mostly due to time restraints in film. (Insert joke here about time restraints in a three and a half-hour film.) That being said, the film did follow on that same path of mafia evolution that Chase started where we got to see more of what made these characters tick, what their motivations were, what friendship looked like to them and most importantly, the consequences of their actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Final Thoughts<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Irishman<\/em> wasn\u2019t without its faults and certainly was ambitious. For me, this film was all about the end of an era and what needs to be said about that era. Making sure that truths were spoken, that realities were acknowledged and that a chapter could be closed as properly as possible. This film gave many talents of a generation we\u2019re slowly losing a chance to ride together again, for one last epic tale. They got to make their final statements on mafia life and family. They got to acknowledge history, how easily it is forgotten, but why it shouldn\u2019t be. The film industry is changing, America is changing, and the world is changing. These all-time greats know that they\u2019re part of a time that is over and while they\u2019re still here, and likely to create more art, the window for all of them together to tell one more story together, their way, is closing. Years from now, I hope that\u2019s what this film is remembered for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a person, The Irishman<\/em> left me thinking about the life I\u2019m living, the example I\u2019m setting for my children and about making sure I\u2019m externally the person I internally feel like I am. Robert De Niro as Frank, alone in his room at the nursing home, afraid to have the door shut due to the finality it represents, is as haunting an ending to any film that I can remember. Nobody wants the ride to end, for this journey to be over, but death is a reality. What are we doing before it comes, whether sudden or sitting in a chair waiting for it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What is it like to know that your life is coming to an end, to know that your days are rapidly running out? To see those you spent a majority of your life with go and there you are, faced with the reality that your time is soon coming to an end? What would you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":160502615,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"saved_in_kubio":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[284],"tags":[32],"class_list":["post-160502612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film-analysis","tag-netflix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160502612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=160502612"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160502612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":160502614,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160502612\/revisions\/160502614"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/160502615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=160502612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=160502612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=160502612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}