Composer Robbie Robertson has worked with Martin Scorsese for more than 40 years (they were even roommates in the ’70s when Robertson moved into Scorsese’s house on Mulholland Drive). But for The Irishman, Scorsese’s three-and-a-half-hour gangster epic, the filmmaker gave Robertson a new, unique request: “Marty wasn’t interested in a traditional movie score. Big bum-dah-ba-dum-brrrring, you know — when they’re driving fast, it’s going bum-bum-bum, shit like that,” Robertson, 76, tells THR.
Instead, Scorsese wanted Robertson to create music that fit the tone — the movie is probably best described as a character drama more than a traditional mobster movie. “It’s a very strong mood, and I’ve never seen a gangster movie with this kind of tonality before,” says Robertson. “It was tricky.”
It was made trickier by the fact…