Why The Irishman is perfect cinema for the age of Joe Biden
Martin Scorsese's swansong masterpiece holds up a mirror to American decline.
The Irishman was showered with countless accolades and nominations last year. In a move that perhaps foreshadowed the pandemic-induced death of the movie theatre, it was released straight-to-streaming. It unsurprisingly drew its share of critics, ranging from those who found it too long, too slow paced, too male-centric and too self-indulgent on Scorsese’s part. But one unforeseen way in which the film turned out to be salient is the way in which it speaks to the political moment right now, with polls suggesting that the Democratic former Obama VP Joe Biden is on track to defeat Donald Trump by double digits – the first candidate to win by such a margin since Ronald Reagan in 1984. The political project represented by Biden, as well as the world-historical trajectories that his administration would find itself in, are surprisingly congruent with the moment in cinema and Scorsese’s career that The Irishman embodies.
Admittedly, this isn’t the first time the comparison has been made. A number of pieces last year drew connections between the two, but in somewhat more superficial manners. The most shallow amounted to little more than “Old white men, amirite???” There were of course other, more meaningful connections to be drawn as well. Firstly, there’s the fact that Joe Biden and Frank Sheeran inhabited the same universe. Biden was born to a family of Irish immigrants in Scranton, Pennsylvania and launched his political career in Wilmington, Delaware. Sheeran was the president of the Teamsters Local 326 in Delaware, and the movie revolves around the eponymous protagonist Sheeran’s life under the wing of the Bufalino family that lay at the heart of the Scranton mafia. Both Sheeran and Biden grew up belonging to one of the last generations where “old world” ethnic identities were politically and socially salient in American life – and where trade unions were genuinely powerful institutions. Secondly, when Joe Biden ran an underdog campaign to unseat incumbent Republican senator Caleb Boggs in 1972, Sheeran wrote about being approached by a Democratic operative to instigate a strike against a newspaper running his opponent’s election ads the week before voting, which he dutifully did – Joe Biden went on to win the race by less than a percentage point.
But geographical, cultural and historical bonds aside, what is it that makes The Irishman truly the film of our moment? Above all else, it is that Scorsese sets out to do with his final movie what Biden will do with his presidency (whether he is consciously aware of it or not). The Irishman is defined, more than anything else, by its intense self-reflection and contemplation. It’s a graceful bowing out from Scorsese, an acknowledgement that it’s the end of the road for him creatively, and in some sense the genre he helped give birth to. Likewise, Joe Biden’s presidency exists to preside over the decline of the political consensus and US hegemony that he spent his life enthusiastically propping up.
Yes, the centre ground has regained its sure footing across the western and developed world in a way that seemed unfeasible even three years ago. But it would be a fundamental category error to view Biden’s triumph as a “restoration” of any kind, no matter how much he may profess otherwise. This is old guard centrism’s last hurrah. The long-term process of deglobalisation and acute crisis of capitalism engendered by the Coronavirus pandemic has forced establishment liberalism to acknowledge the role of the state in economic life and in some cases, class politics itself. With the once-ascendant global right lurching to extremes and colliding with its own structural limitations, and younger millennials and Gen-Zers tacking sharply left thanks to their calamitous material conditions (despite the world-historic weakness of the contemporary left), the centre is being forced to aggressively recalibrate itself and ditch political commitments and economic orthodoxy it once held dear.
Unlike other mob films’ protagonists who are deliberately drawn to the life of crime by a lust for power and wealth, Frank Sheeran is pulled in almost by accident - a small side hustle that then rolls into something much bigger. This rhymes with Biden’s own political life as a man who eschewed the flashy meritocratic self-image and undisguised naked ambition of Clinton-era Democrats for a much more mundane middle class trajectory that saw him stumble to the top by happenstance more than anything else. Neither Sheeran nor Biden have much material gain to show for their lifelong careers in service of power. And even if they did, you don’t come away with the impression that either would enjoy it. Frank is never driven by much else other than loyalty to the family. Biden’s career has similarly been driven by loyalty to the American institutions - the Senate, bipartisanship, war, corporate interests - that he entered politics to serve. But as the film shows, at some point the party always has to end.
The Irishman starts and ends with an understanding that its protagonist is nearing the end of his life. America’s empire and its global economic hegemony are sick and dying. So are hundreds of thousands of Americans themselves, thanks to the unique devastation visited upon the US’ crumbling social infrastructure by COVID-19, in addition to other pre-existing crises like Opioids addiction, lack of healthcare, gun violence and mass incarceration. Every presidential campaign this election has offered a different vision of what happens when the old, sick man of empire croaks. Trump’s response is refusal to go gently into the night; to be dragged kicking and screaming in denial. Bernie Sanders offered the path of negotiated retreat. Biden’s offer is in some ways the most compelling – to be eulogist-in-chief. After all, if there’s one thing that Biden has repeatedly demonstrated, it’s his unmatched ability to empathise sincerely with loss and mourning. Most fitting for a country and society on its deathbed in more ways than one.
Lots of viewers felt viscerally uncomfortable at the sight of the “de-aging” technology employed by Scorsese to make De Niro and Pesci resemble their younger selves in flashback scenes throughout the movie. There’s something deeply discomfiting about seeing these men push to exert themselves like 20 and 30-somethings in their visibly straining 77 year-old bodies e.g. curb-stomping their enemies into bloody pulp. Watching the first Trump-Biden debate live felt almost exactly like that - two septuagenarians humiliating themselves in front of millions, hopelessly out of their depth. In a lot of ways, Scorsese’s final film exists to pull away the shroud of masculine virtue and sense of honour that surrounded former mob film characters. The Irishman makes no attempt to hide how cowardly, duplicitous and devoid of substance the people in the business of organised crime are. Biden’s campaign and impending presidency will inevitably do the same, pulling the curtain back from the aura of American exceptionalism, revealing deep vulnerabilities and irreparable structural rot as former US allies drift away, and once-weak adversaries becoming serious challengers.
Scorsese’s undisputed magnum opus, Goodfellas, came out just before Bill Clinton went on to become president, in 1990. Both represented their traditions at their ultimate zenith – Clinton politically conquered all that lay before him, oversaw the largest period of unbroken GDP growth in history, the longest “peacetime” (NATO bombings notwithstanding) and redefined centrism and liberalism as political creeds in his image for every future leader, much as Goodfellas did with the mob genre. The Irishman and Biden, however, both exist as capstones for a genre and political consensus that have run their courses. Like Sheeran at the very end of the movie, Biden has shown some degree of regret at the things he’s enabled, such as the Iraq war, NAFTA, opposition to busing, crime bill and financial deregulation – but like Sheeran he is similarly incapable of finding true repentance, even if he wanted to. It likely doesn’t matter anymore - the world which once richly rewarded him for his faithful service to power no longer exists.