1. I have a few thoughts on The Irishman, the editing of The Godfather II, the Italian communist party, the CIA, method acting, and vocal range.
2. There's been much discussion/criticism of about Anna Paquin lack of dialogue in The Irishman. But that near-silence has to be understood as part of the spectrum of vocality that is crucial to the movie's story.
3. A spectrum of vocality: You have the Hoffa (a loud, expressive public figure, hammed up by Pacino); the mobsters like Bufalino & Sheeran (who speak in hushed tones and elliptical, coded language); and the female family of the gangsters (who are silenced.
4. If we see a spectrum from the loud to the quiet to the silent, then what we see is that the quiet mobsters silence both ends of the spectrum: they silence Hoffa by killing him, they silence their wives/daughters by patriarchy. It's telling 2 gangsters are named Whispers.
5. The spectrum of vocality is tied to acting styles. Paquin acts with her eyes; Pesi/De Niro/Keitel are old style method actors -- immersed, mumbling; Pacino a method actor in James Dean mode: theatrical. It's a movie about a gang of understated actors killing a ham.
6. Also silent (indeed off-screen) but very important to the movie is Fidel Castro. Like the Godfather movies, The Irishman highlights the counter-revolutionary nature of the mafia, which links criminality with the corruption of empire.
7. There's a deleted scene in Godfather II (which Coppola later restored in an extended version) showing Michael Corleone in Sicily watching a famous May Day parade in 1947.
8. The communist parade Corleone witnesses is famous in Italy because it was smashed by the mafia in a massacre. This resonates with the later scenes of the Cuban revolution in Godfather II & with The Irishman's showing the CIA working with the mob.
9. More thoughts about the The Irishman and American history here: thenation.com/article/irishm…
