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Tuesday, December 3, 2019

What Did they do to Robert Diniro in the Irishman?

Love the gangster flicks. The Untouchables. Once upon a time in America. So I settled in for the Irishman, Scorsese new epic on the Hoffa era of gangsterism. So there is Deniro looking old in a nursing home telling his story. Well, he is old so it fits. Maybe not nursing home old but seventies old. And so he flashes back to his twenties and there is Deniro again. Only he is no longer old. He is digitally young now. He looks like someone inflated his forehead and nailed his eyes down into two slits. But they left his body intact after some padding around the soldiers.

So now Pacino and Deniro can play any role in the world. No longer will actors have to act their age. Just watch Helen Mirren in Catherine the Great. They worked hard on those camera angles there. But back to Deniro who is now driving a truck as a twenty something man and he bumps in Joe Pesci who looks old but that is his real age. So the digital Deniro and flesh and blood Pesci talk and then Joe delivers the line well young fella or young man. How about well, digital man. None of it really works. The suspension of disbelief gets tied up into the android that is digital Deniro

Forget the retread of every Deniro face and action. It is like watching a lot of old Deniro movies played by the new digital Deniro. But he is done in when he has to climb some rocks to toss away a gun and the digital Deniro moves like an old man. He is slow, stiff, and you can almost see him reaching for his back. But you know what, that moment was at least real. 

Books by William Hazelgrove