Purpose of showing repeated scene of extortion by Russell in "The Irishman"

Purpose of showing repeated scene of extortion by Russell in "The Irishman" - Goal Lettering Text on Black Background

In mid way around the movie, we see Russell collecting money from various shop stores. If it would have been from one or two that have been okay but the scene extends to around 4-5 shops. What repetition of same events does signify here? If you want to show that Rusell is powerful then showing him on one shop is more than enough, we will get the idea. But, what extra information does repeatition provide here? It was also not like that those scenes are cut shorter, it felt long and boring, so why such decision make sense?

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Best Answer

Adding information is not the only reason to include a scene. Rhythm, pacing, and atmosphere are also important. Part of the conceit of The Irishman is that it is in contrast with Scorcese's high-energy earlier gangster films like Goodfellas (see the second paragraph of this review: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-irishman-movie-review-2019).




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Answer 2

I think a very important thing about Russ is that despite his benign appearance, his liking of little kids (but they don't like him and I think that signifies) is that he is a very bad man who we but once see come home from what was probably a murder or at least a severe beating (of someone else) with bloodied clothing that his "Mafia royalty" wife unquestioningly offers to get rid of. So the repeated scenes (not all of which are necessarily extortion -- Russ may own part of the business etc.) are reminding us just how extensive his reach is, how powerful this small and in general physically unthreatening-looking man is. It is very interesting to speculate what in Russ' world allowed him to wield such power although the implication is that his judgement along with the rules that protect men at the top from having to worry about threats continually although of course the threats exist.

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