Scorsese’s The Irishman and Fincher’s Zodiac: How genre moulds factional storytelling.
Written by Bhagath Subramanian.
“True crime” films often take license with factual details. But The Irishman goes well beyond these conventions, since the entire story is premised on a confession that is not credible. (Goldsmith 2019)
Factional adaptations come with the unique challenge of having to interweave retellings of factual events with fictional narratives. This essay will compare two factional films adapted from nonfiction books; Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman (2019) and David Fincher’s Zodiac (2007). The essay will look at how the two films use invented story elements to dramatize the lives of real people and to fill in the gaps of the factual narrative. Both films include unsolved real-life mysteries as part of their narrative; the disappearance of union leader Jimmy Hoffa and the identity of the Zodiac killer. This essay will examine the genre conventions of both films and show how those genre conventions are responsible for the levels of fidelity retained when the narratives deal with adapting these mysteries into faction.
The Irishman is a gangster film – a mobster epic. Films of this genre include Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather (1972) and Martin Scorsese’s The Departed (2006). Many gangster narratives are tragedies, and many of their protagonists can be classified as tragic, almost Shakespearean, heroes (Schwanebeck 2010). They go through a rise to power within a criminal organisation and then a descent – “a fall from … grace” – often due to disillusionment or misuse of that very power. The Irishman is an adaptation of Charles Brandt’s narrative nonfiction book I Heard You Paint Houses (2004), based entirely off of confessions from Teamster union member and supposed mob hitman Frank Sheeran.
Zodiac is a true crime film. The true crime genre is mostly comprised of narrative films, television shows and documentaries regarding real life crimes, criminals and the authorities involved in the cases. Films of the genre are almost entirely factional, as is the case with David Fincher’s Mindhunter (2017) and Marc Meyers’ My Friend Dahmer (2017). Zodiac is based off of Robert Graysmith’s nonfiction book of the same name, Zodiac (1986).
Both films maintain a high degree of fidelity when it comes to adapting their source materials. The events depicted in the books are recreated faithfully, with homage, in their film adaptations. The Irishman is even titled on screen as I Heard You Paint Houses (like the book) and utilizes its three-and-a-half-hour runtime to show every event of its protagonist’s – Frank Sheeran, played on screen by Robert De Niro – mob life as depicted in the book. The film uses a frame narrative to tell its story; the story is narrated by Sheeran, talking to the audience in a nursing home. This is presumably Sheeran confessing to the writer of the book, Brandt, during an interview. One of Zodiac’s central characters is Robert Graysmith, played by Jake Gyllenhaal. The final act of the film revolves around Gyllenhaal’s character researching for the book that he would eventually write. The final scene of the film even includes two glimpses of the 1991 version of the book. While the events are recreated with complete faithfulness to the books, both films use intertextual references to their source materials to present themselves as factual retellings of the truth. Zodiac might be a dramatized retelling of the truth, but the same cannot be said about The Irishman.
Like Zodiac, The Irishman is also an adaptation of real-life event. Many experts have been quick to point out that the events that Brandt’s book and the film depicts probably never happened or were impossible (Tonelli 2019) (Goldsmith 2019) (Goldsmith 2020). Scorsese’s awareness of this fact, and his subsequent choice to move ahead with faithfully adapting the events of the book, shows us that the choice to maintain fidelity when adapting the book was for the sake of narrative. This is in stark contrast to Zodiac. Graysmith’s book was written after amassing volumes of evidence in relation to the zodiac killer case. This makes Graysmith’s book a reliable source for a faithful retelling of real-life events, unlike Brandt’s book which uses an unreliable source and invented elements. Fincher’s choice to remain completely faithful to the source material is a choice made in cognizance of its high level of accuracy to real events.
Audiences of the true crime genre expect a high degree of faithfulness in retelling the actual events, making high fidelity a convention of true crime fiction (Durham III 1995). Zodiac, being a true crime film, refrains from inventing its own solutions to the zodiac mystery. The narrative of the film prioritises historical accuracy first and succeeds in doing so (Tunzelmann 2012). The closest the film gets to personally exploring a character as a person is Gyllenhaal’s Graysmith’s deep rooted obsession with the zodiac case, and how that costs him his job and results in his wife and children leaving him. The film ends with the suggestion that one of the prime suspects in the case, Arthur Leigh Allen – played by John Carroll Lynch – is probably the killer. The film also ends by claiming that at the time of release, the FBI have refused to rule out Allen as a suspect even after his death. Since the identity of the zodiac killer was never uncovered in real life, both Graysmith’s book and Fincher’s film leave the case unsolved. The identity of the killer is never revealed and is more historically accurate for doing so. Apart from dramatizations of personal life and conflict between protagonists, only what real-life information was known prior to the film’s production is included.
Gangster stories and mobster epics do not necessarily require fidelity when being adapted. The focus of this genre is to explore powerful criminals and their all too human flaws. Fidelity may be bent in order to better serve the narrative. While Brandt was steadfast in his belief that Frank Sheeran was responsible for the disappearance and murder of Jimmy Hoffa, many experts claim that this could not have happened. There is no proof that it happened. The film depicts De Niro’s Sheeran shooting Jimmy Hoffa – played by Al Pacino – in the back of the head in an empty house in Michigan. This same event is depicted in Brandt’s book. Prior to this, De Niro’s character develops a trustworthy and brotherly relationship with Pacino’s Hoffa over the course of the film. Sheeran’s murder of Hoffa is then a betrayal. It is an event that Sheeran regrets for the rest of the film, and weighs on his conscience. His daughters’ unspoken realization of her father’s betrayal is the final straw that leads her to cutting him off from her life. At the end of the film, Sheeran is an old man alone in a nursing home, with only a nurse and a pastor to look after him. It is the story of a tragic hero and the final mistake he commits that becomes his undoing. Following Sheeran’s rise and fall in the story would be thematically incomplete without using the invented premise of him having been Hoffa’s killer. It is a tragedy that sits well within the conventions of the gangster film, and the genre’s most explored themes (family, violence, power) (Schwanebeck 2010). An interesting thing to consider would be alternate approaches to adapting I Heard You Paint Houses and the real-life events. Had The Irishman withheld the many disputed parts of its story, (like Zodiac) such as Sheeran killing Hoffa and Joe Gallo, the narrative could be considered more close to true crime than gangster fiction.
This would not be to The Irishman’s benefit, however. The film is helped by an intertextuality brought to it by its being a part of gangster cinema. It’s narrative and themes are more readily understood and accepted when occupying this genre, especially when dealing with subject matter involving Italian mobsters in 50s to 70s America. The same is true for Zodiac; it is helped by choice to adapt the story as a true crime film. It is helped by intertextuality through the conventions of the genre (serial killers, police investigations, unsolved cases). The filmmaker’s choice of fidelity – to either invent story elements or remain faithful – help the films occupy valuable spaces in their genres.
The two films approach dramatizing well known mysteries in ways that best serve the genres that they belong to. In order to tell the story of a man that rises to great power, and then falls from that height, Scorsese’s film chooses to adapt the invented brotherhood shared by Hoffa and Sheeran, and the eventual invented betrayal. Zodiac, however, is able to stay more complete a story by withholding solutions to its mystery. True or not, the invented aspects of The Irishman help to tell a very human story of violence, loss and regret. Zodiac’s high fidelity maintains its historical accuracy while also helping to tell a story of obsession and violence. This carefully considered adaptation of factual events makes for factional films that comfortably occupy spaces in their genres, making them able to tell their stories with maximum effectiveness.
Cover photograph by Bhagath Subramanian.
© Bhagath Subramanian. All rights reserved.
REFERENCES:
Brandt, C., 2004. I Heard You Paint Houses: Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran and Closing the Case on Jimmy Hoffa. New Hampshire: Steerforth Press.
Durham III, A. M., 1995. IMAGES OF CRIME AND JUSTICE: MURDER AND THE “TRUE CRIME” GENRE. Pergamon [online], 23(2), 143 – 152.
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Tunzelmann, A. v., 2012. Zodiac shows all the vital signs of historical accuracy [online]. The Guardian: Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/feb/23/zodiac-signs-historical-accuracy [January 23rd 2019]
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