I See You Paint Houses: Through the Eyes of The Irishman
The Irishman doesn't attempt to show Sheeran's life as it happened, but as he remembered it.

Based on the book I Heard You Paint Houses by Charles Brandt—which was based on the late-life confessions of Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran—Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman documents Sheeran (Robert De Niro) rising the ranks in organized crime until he becomes the go-to hitman for Russ Buffalino (Joe Pesci) and ends up on protective assignment of popular union leader Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino), with whom the mob has lucrative ties. It is a movie that spans decades—except that it doesn’t. Theoretically, it spans the ongoing moment that exists in twilight-era Sheeran’s mind as he recounts his life to…? To Brandt? To a priest? Or, simply, to us?
In a November 11th interview with the Film Stage, cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto explained the apparent imperfections behind the opening steadicam shot in The Irishman. It’s a feeble echo of the shot that opens Scorsese’s Goodfellas; what brims with purpose and vivacity in that film here just feels tepid and unsteady. Normally, Scorsese wouldn’t go for that, but Prieto said when they suggested some post-production means to stabilize the shot, Scorsese didn’t want it. He liked the bobbing of the shot—an implied subjectivity to us the viewers as we walk into the nursing home where Sheeran is wasting away. We find him sitting quietly as his voice-over speaks and then abruptly transitions within the shot to Sheeran actually speaking to someone (or no one in particular) off-camera. And then down the rabbit hole we go.
As a title, The Irishman implies a sense of objectivity: This is what the world outside Sheeran called him, designated him as—an Irishman working for a bunch of crime lords, doing horrible things. It is with powerful slyness, then, that Scorsese keeps the title of Brandt’s book as his title cards. Of course this movie on Netflix is called The Irishman, that makes perfect sense. And what also makes sense is that within The Irishman, framed by that opening shot of us walking to meet Frank, we find the other movie, the movie that shows us the twisted insides of a very internal character. We see, in first-person, the lines of a road rushing towards us, towards Sheeran. Intercut with that visual in almost Godardian fashion: I road HEARD road YOU road PAINT road HOUSES. I heard you paint houses: something Sheeran remembers—or at least believes that—Hoffa said to him when they first spoke. This fragment of a memory is titled into a book then into a movie. And this movie tries to show us not Sheeran or these events as they were, but as Sheeran remembered—or at least believed—them to be.
If the story stretches plausibility, so do the tales of many old men struggling at the end of their lives to find meaning and importance in what they’ve done and who they were. Sheeran’s violent acts are far from glorified; they’re cold, blunt, and utilitarian. Sheeran never fancied the violence, but you can see that there is a basic satisfaction from his viewpoint in that he felt like he was just doing what he had to do. He had his orders and followed them, in the army and in the mob; he was a dutiful tool used by powerful men. Sheeran’s mind knows this even as it tries to position him as a central figure in the greater narratives that weave around him. And isn’t it true that we’re all the centers of our own stories?