As a co-founder of the group The Band (who featured in Martin Scorsese’s The Last Waltz in 1976) and the director’s official musical collaborator since the early eighties, Robbie Robertson is, unsurprisingly, the musical backbone of The Irishman. The 3h30min Netflix-produced epic is a brilliant adaptation of a biography on the American trade unionist and mafia leader Frank Sheeran, played here by Robert de Niro. The film features an almost omnipresent soundtrack, offering a glimpse into the popular music from the 40s, 50s and 60s. Weaving between romantic songs (like In the Still of the Night which opens the film), “light music” (with Delicado by the Percy Faith Orchestra, one of the highlights of the film) and mambo (Qué Rico el Mambo, which introduces the character Tony Pro), the soundtrack of The Irishman is as rich and colourful as Scorsese’s shots are inventive, funny and (with regards to the film’s final part) moving.
There are also a few surprises, such as the music from a classic French gangster film: Jacques Becker’s Touchez pas au grisbi (written by Jean Wiener with harmonica by Jean Wetzel). The choice not only exemplifies Scorsese’s love for cinema, but also his constant desire to bridge the gap between American and European film. The Irishman is punctuated by a timeless leitmotif, composed by Robbie Robertson for his solo album Sinematic (released in 2019, the same year as Scorsese’s film). The idea was to avoid systematically pairing periodic music with images that correspond with that period. Theme of The Irishman is a piece that recalls the westerns of yesteryear (featuring a very Morricone-esque harmonica) while revealing a contemporary melancholy-drenched sound, reflected in the cello part which is at once composed, solid and “scowly” – a perfect personification of Robert De Niro’s character. © Nicolas Magenham/Qobuz