For a while now, we’ve known that Martin Scorsese’s upcoming Netflix film “The Irishman” was going to be a big endeavor. With a reported budget of $140 million, the team-up of Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci is turning into one of the largest productions the legendary director has ever worked on. Even still, the details that Scorsese shared during his Masterclass at the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes makes us wonder just how the filmmaker will be able to pull it off.
Over the course of his almost one-hour-and-a-half discussion, Scorsese talked about his career, but mentioned some interesting things about “The Irishman,” including that the film has a mind-boggling 300 scenes.
“In [‘The Irishman’], there are so many scenes – almost 300 scenes – and it was hard to get to location, but when I got there I’d work out the angles. But it was primarily bringing out the actors and making the shoot comfortable. That became the mise-en-scène, for me,” explained Scorsese.
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Not that there’s a rule on how many scenes a film could (or should) have, but 300 is a huge number. It’s said that an average movie has about 60 individual scenes in it. So you can understand that having five times as many would make for quite an epic tale. Even though the plot and the cast are enough to make us clamor to see the film, knowing the scale of the film (with hundreds of scenes) makes us even more interested in the final product.
In the discussion, the director also opened up about his first trip to Cannes, back in 1974, when he was premiering “Mean Streets:”
Cannes was the international platform for ‘Mean Streets,’ a film I didn’t think would even get distributed. My visit was almost the best time, in terms of anonymity. And trying very hard to change that! I was able to go from table to table on the Croisette and meet actors, directors, and so many others. It was still a period of discovery, not just for new filmmakers but older, neglected filmmakers.
If you’re interested in viewing the entire Directors’ Fortnight masterclass with Scorsese, you can watch it below. It’s an incredibly interesting discussion, where the filmmaker goes over his technique and how each film has influenced his shooting style.
But “The Irishman” isn’t the only Netflix project that Scorsese is attached to. Recently, we learned that the director would helm a reunion special featuring the original cast members of the sketch comedy show “SCTV.” While many of the cast members were already attached, there was one that was a big question — Rick Moranis. The actor has been fairly quiet in recent years, but according to an announcement by Netflix, he’ll also appear in the reunion special that is to air in the future on Netflix.