The Departed (Martin Scorsese, 2006)

[skuhn8]

on the Iwo Jima thread he complains that their wasn't enough cursing in the film and here he claims there's too much.

I'm sure he's really annoyed by all the attention he gets on this forum...negative attention is better than no attention at all. Mommy should have given him more toys; woulda played with hisself less.

[Darth Lavender]

It seems to me that one of the main reasons to do a remake is as a response to the original film.

I'm a bit curious as to why you would think that.

I'm talking, I should clarify, about the main *artistic* reason for a remake, the reason someone like Martin Scorsese (as opposed to, say, Brett Ratner) might choose to remake a film, and I think the main opportinity it provides is to create a variation of the original, even taking some elements in the exact opposite direction (the best example that comes to mind, is Scorsese's own Cape Fear, were he eliminated the simple 'good vs evil' elements of the original in order to focus on the flaws of Nick Nolte's character and on the more admirable ambitions (education, etc.) of DeNiro's character.)

Perhaps 'response' isn't the best word; what I mean is to tweak the remake in new and alternative, often opposite, ways.

[Matt]

I think we should all keep in mind, though, that this is essentially a "work for hire." Scorsese did not originate the project, and though he is listed as a producer on the film, he came onto the project after it had already been developed. In this case, I think Scorsese just took on a project he felt was sympathetic to his sensibilities. He did not assist in its creation from the ground up as he did with, say, most of his other films. The Departed is more After Hours than it is Goodfellas, Casino, or even Cape Fear.

[flyonthewall2983]

I read that Martin himself was still tinkering with it a couple of weeks before release. Even with all that said, I still think it's good. As a crime story, it's not something you see nowadays in a major Hollywood film. Reminded me in alot of ways of Magnum Force, and with an even stronger resemblance to the under-rated State Of Grace. I think as far as the angle with the shrink goes, we should be glad it was cast with an unknown rather than one of today's starlets. Overall, it won't be remembered as his best obviously but it was something worthwhile for him to do after The Aviator & Gangs of New York.

[Abulafia]

Long time member... rare poster. However, I also recently viewed The Departed and have a couple of things to add, particularly as Mr Bordwell has been brought into the discussion.

Bordwell says, "Speaking of editing: It's blasphemy, but I've been long convinced that Scorsese's films aren't particularly well-edited. Look at any conversation scene, particularly the OTS [over-the-shoulder] passages, and you'll see blatant mismatches of position, eyeline, and gesture. Spoons, hands, and cigarettes jump around spasmodically. In "The Departed," Alec Baldwin somehow loses his beer can in a reverse shot, and in the swanky restaurant, it's hard to determine if there are one or two of those towering chocolate desserts on the table."

Surely these are continuity errors rather than errors in the film's editing? Furthermore, the entire film is just about one jump-cut after another. Upon closer inspection virtually none of the continuity matches from shot to shot. I certainly believe this is a deliberate approach to the film's structure. Obviously some of the matching on action from shot to shot is closer than others, but on the whole the film seems to really 'struggle' for continuity, although I believe this is just the point of the editing.

Again Mr Bordwell states, "This may seem picky, but craft competence is not for nothing. Current reliance on tightly framed faces tends to sacrifice any sense of the specifics of a place. In most scenes, actors are so overcloseupped that little space is left for geography, even the mundane layout of a police station. Choppy cutting also subtly jars our sense of a smooth performance. Why can't our directors sustain a fixed two-shot of the principals and let the actors carry the scene -– not just with the lines they say but with the way they hold their bodies and move their hands and employ props? Scorsese, though always a heavy shot/reverse-shot user, held full shots to greater effect in earlier movies."

Fine. But why base a criticism, valid or not, of Hollywood in general on The Departed alone. Moreover, as I said previously, I am convinced that this approach was deliberate with form and content related to one another. Geography is not neccessarily the point of this film, I mean it is not showing that is often just as important as showing. Of course, Mr Bordwell has written several books on Classic Hollywood Cinema and no doubt Mr Scorsese's lack of following classic continuity (to some degree at least) does not sit well with him. Moreover, I've seen plenty of films that hold two-shots, etc, and are no good. The editing has to match the film, not simply adhere to Mr Bordwell's "the rules and guidelines of classic continuity". Different horses for different courses.

"Space on a larger scale matters too. The atmosphere of Hong Kong was conveyed far more vividly in the original "IA" than the landscape of Boston is here. The most concrete locale seems to be a Chinatown porn theatre (filmed at New York's Cinema Village). There's also a gilded State House dome that is distressing in its lumpy symbolism."

Ah huh. So, now we are comparing two films and, of course, the HK version is deemed by Mr Bordwell to be superior. We all know that Mr Bordwell also has a strong proclivity for cinema of the HK variety. Yes, the films share the same or at least a similar script, but they are different films. In fact I should think for someone like Mr Bordwell that this would be an interesting phenomenon. I mean rarely are we afforded the opportunity to explore two filmmakers using the one script to make separate films. Note also the cheap shot at The Departed's use of a Chinatown porn theatre. So what is the suggestion here, the Mr Scorsese is a cheap perv?

"The Departed has calmed Scorsese's urge to track a bit, but that's balanced by its over 3200 cuts. The result is an average shot length (ASL) of about 2.7 seconds. Not unusual for an action picture nowadays, but consider where Scorsese started by conning these ASLs:
"Mean Streets" 7.7 seconds
"Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" 8.0 seconds
"Taxi Driver" 7.3 seconds
"King of Comedy" 7.7 seconds
"Gangs of New York" 6.7 seconds
"The Aviator" 3.6 seconds

Like his contemporaries, Scorsese has succumbed to the fast-cut, hyper-close style that has made our movies so pictorially routine, however well-suited they may be for display on TV monitors and computer screens and iPods. In 1990 he seems to have realized that he needed to pick up the pace. Of "GoodFellas" (ASL 6.7 seconds) he remarked: “I guess the main thing that's happened in the past ten years is that the scenes [shots] have to be quicker and shorter. ["GoodFellas"] is sort of my version of MTV. . . but even that's old-fashionedâ€

[Anonymous]

SpoilerShow

Do we know what was in the envelope Leo gave to the therapist? It seems like it was superfluous since she heard the evidence from the CD. My wife seems to think it was a message to Dignam, but it seems like there is to big a jump in logic for that without more onscreen evidence.

[Abulafia]

SpoilerShow

"Do we know what was in the envelope Leo gave to the therapist? It seems like it was superfluous since she heard the evidence from the CD. My wife seems to think it was a message to Dignam, but it seems like there is to big a jump in logic for that without more onscreen evidence."

My wife came to the same conclusion. To some extent I agree that this is a big jump, but again I think that is largely how the film's narrative operates and it seems like the only logical explination. Yes, the therapist heard the tape, but she has no idea who Dignam was or his relationship to the other key characters without the message from Leo, which one assumes leads her to contact Dignam. What I will say is imagine this was actually in the film - that we viewed the therapist opening the letter, reading it, calling Dignam, etc. This in fact would prove redundant and unnecessary, not to mention would somewhat ruin the closure Dignman's "surprise" appearence affords us.

[GringoTex]

I think we should all keep in mind, though, that this is essentially a "work for hire." Scorsese did not originate the project, and though he is listed as a producer on the film, he came onto the project after it had already been developed.

I think this is important to emphasize. Scoreses claimed great fatigue after his birth-to-death shepherding of Gangs of NY and Aviator, and I think he was looking for a pure excercise in mise-en-scene. That's why he didn't want to see the original or was bothered with the logic of the story. Really, this obsession with logical versimilitude confounds me. Departed isn't about logic- it's about emotion via power relations. I think he pulled it off brilliantly.

Fine. But why base a criticism, valid or not, of Hollywood in general on The Departed alone. Moreover, as I said previously, I am convinced that this approach was deliberate with form and content related to one another. Geography is not neccessarily the point of this film, I mean it is not showing that is often just as important as showing. Of course, Mr Bordwell has written several books on Classic Hollywood Cinema and no doubt Mr Scorsese's lack of following classic continuity (to some degree at least) does not sit well with him. Moreover, I've seen plenty of films that hold two-shots, etc, and are no good. The editing has to match the film, not simply adhere to Mr Bordwell's "the rules and guidelines of classic continuity". Different horses for different courses.

I think you're being a little too hard on Bordwell. He is, of course, a theorist rather than a reviewer, and I'm surprised he offered such a quickshot judgement of a film, but his observations are dead-on. Although, like you, I love the film, it DOES represent a complete departure for Scorsese in terms of style. I think Bordwell deserves credit for being the first to realize this, even if I disagree with his evaluative assesment of it.

[marty]

I feel that people are unnecessarily picking on The Departed for reasons of logic when, let's face it, all films are illogical to some degree. I am sure if we are picky enough and have enough time, we can identify many areas of every film that defies logic or commonsense.

[Anonymous]

Abulafia: Thanks for the reply.

Marty: I don't know about other people, but suspension of disbelief can only go so far. It will go as far as you set it up with the characters you have created. For me, it was hard to believe Billy would risk being shot just to bring Colin in himself. He has the evidence and he said he didn't care if he was convicted or not. So why not put the gun down? I really liked the film other than that little bit.

[flyonthewall2983]

Somewhat unrelated to the discussion at hand, but I thought it was cool to see Mark Rolston cast in the role that he played. I loved his work in The Shawshank Redemption and Aliens, and think he's underrated as far as a supporting actor goes.

[Abulafia]

I take your point GringoTex, although Mr Bordwell is a proponent of post-theory, which more or less proffers middle-level research over and above theory. Moreover, he has himself claimed that it is ridiculous to assert an argument based around one film text, yet, to some degree at least, this is exactly what he seems to be doing here. True, he is probably just venting an opinion like we all do. I think the thing is here that he is a researcher, not a filmmaker, although he seems to feel that he knows how to make a Scorsese film better than Mr Scorsese himself.

What is more, I am not convinced that this is a stylistic departure for Mr Scorsese. While I must confess that the first twenty or so minutes threw me a little, I do not believe that Mr Scorsese's mise-en-scene is simply reducable to his use of longer takes (than the average Hollywood filmmaker (whoever that is)) and tracking shots (nor gangsters and violence for that matter).

Finally, I just want to reiterate a point GringoTex makes which is that Scorsese "was[n't] bothered with the logic of the story." I think this is an important point. While it is too extreme a statement on its own (indeed I think Mr Scorsese was certainly concerned with ensuring the logical flow and form of the narrative), how often do we watch a Godard, a Fellini or, hell, a Michael Bay and something just doesn't seem to make total logical sense. Does every one jump up and down. No. It seems that Mr Scorsese is caught somewhere in the middle of not "entertaining" enough to be purely commercial fun, nor "serious" or "foreign" enough to be art-house.

I guess he's an easy target. Many people, it seems, know how to make a better Scorsese film that Mr Scorsese himself. While I'm not suggesting that he is infallable, personally I think I'd rather stick with his. Ironically, no doubt in fifty years or so everyone will be proclaiming the late stage (assuming that this is it) of Mr Scorsese's career as a high point in his oeuvre. Those who formally derided the films will revisit them and complain that they just don't make films like The Departed anymore like they did in golden days past.

[marty]

The Departed will be seen as part of a late and great surge in Scorsese's career but that is not as appreciated now by modern folk. Similarly, Alfred Hitchcock was derided for his later films like Rear Window, North By Northwest, The Birds at the time of their release as opposed to his earlier films but, 20-30 years later, those later films have been hailed as classic masterpieces and amongst Hitchcock's and cinema's best films ever.

If it was any other director other than Scorsese, people would be calling it a masterpiece. Bordwell is criticising Scorsese for his "bad editing". Is he serious? Why does he have to edit according to the rigid confines of Film Editing 101? Are people so clueless and dumb that they have to be spoonfed?

[marty]

If it was any other director other than Scorsese, people would be calling it a masterpiece. Bordwell is criticising Scorsese for his "bad editing". Is he serious? Why does he have to edit according to the rigid confines of Film Editing 101? Are people so clueless and dumb that they have to be spoonfed?

[Len]

somewhat offtopic, but I laughed a couple of times: Martin Scorsese's Next Film To Be Three Hours Of Begging For Oscar

Scorsese has lost to almost every major American filmmaker in his career, including actor–director Kevin Costner, who went on to create Waterworld and The Postman.

[montgomery]

Ironically, no doubt in fifty years or so everyone will be proclaiming the late stage (assuming that this is it) of Mr Scorsese's career as a high point in his oeuvre. Those who formally derided the films will revisit them and complain that they just don't make films like The Departed anymore like they did in golden days past.

The Departed will be seen as part of a late and great surge in Scorsese's career but that is not as appreciated now by modern folk. Similarly, Alfred Hitchcock was derided for his later films like Rear Window, North By Northwest, The Birds at the time of their release as opposed to his earlier films but, 20-30 years later, those later films have been hailed as classic masterpieces and amongst Hitchcock's and cinema's best films ever.

This is a kind of criticism of people's opinions that I cannot stand. "History will judge all you people wrong!" Here you self-righteously proclaim something that hasn't been proven but in such a way that it's impossible to disagree (I could just as easily claim, with as much authority, that this period of Scorsese's work will be judged as his weakest; or that people will eventually decide Guy Ritchie is 10x the filmmaker that Scorsese was [p.s. No, I do not believe that]) . More importantly, so what if future generations appreciate different things than we do? That doesn't prove anyone right. Not only do different generations (much less different people within a generation) like different things, but as time passes, people like to discover and uncover new things, so things that were previously lauded become overrated, and things that were underrated become the new masterpieces. The people who didn't like Van Gogh during his lifetime weren't necessarily idiots, and neither are the people who don't like him now. Just because Hitchcock's later films "have been hailed as classic masterpieces," that doesn't mean that they'll still be hailed as classic masterpieces in 50 years (or that they won't be), and it also doesn't mean that all people today think they're great (also, Hitchcock's last films, i.e. post-Birds, weren't much appreciated then and still aren't much appreciated. It's very likely that at some point those films will be considered his greatest, most mature work, thereby making us the idiot philistines who failed to see the obvious: that Family Plot is 50 times the masterpiece that Strangers On A Train is). The canon changes. People's opinions change for any number of reasons. And most importantly, art is subjective. It seems rather sad that you don't think other people's opinions are valid; and it's rather narcissistic, not to mention misguided, to think that history will eventually validate your own opinion, when you have absolutely no evidence to back you up, other than the fact that other things in the past that have been underappreciated finally got the last laugh (though history's not over yet, so there is no defintiive opinion. Also, The Departed is being hailed as a masterpiece by a majority of people, so I would hardly say that it's "not appreciated now by modern folk." Poor, ignorant modern folk, I just hope that the enlightened people of the future can forgive us our many flaws).

P.S. I like The Departed.

[jcelwin]

Rear Window, North By Northwest, The Birds

Of course everyone loves these movies now, they're all are in colour!!!

[Abulafia]

Ironically, no doubt in fifty years or so everyone will be proclaiming the late stage (assuming that this is it) of Mr Scorsese's career as a high point in his oeuvre. Those who formally derided the films will revisit them and complain that they just don't make films like The Departed anymore like they did in golden days past.

This is a kind of criticism of people's opinions that I cannot stand

This wasn't a criticism, merely a shallow remark. Derrrrr.

[jon]

The last act kicked ass, unlike Casino's. The extended opening and delayed title was really cool. Everyone was awesome, Leo most notably. Some may think that the characters are a little bit too over the top, but for me, that's what will make them memorable.

The opera scene looked ridiculously cool.

I've run out of terribly juvenile adjectives at least once in this post.

[Andre Jurieu]

... a tonne of stuff that I completely agree with.

[Darth Lavender]

I like Casino's last act (an 'act' in this case refers to the "House of the Rising Sun" sequence)
It was an usual type of plotting/pacing; basically the whole second act was one long climax and then at the end it just completely falls apart (the situation of the characters, not the film itself) skipping the traditional climax entirely and moving straight to something like an epilogue)

Of course, frankly, in the vast majority of traditional films; the climax is the most boring part. Perhaps because I just don't have much interest in action-scenes (I always seem to tune off) or maybe because once the big finale starts; one is so very conscious of the approaching end and just waiting for that ending to arrive (watch kettle never boils kind of mentality)

Certainly, for me, basically all the greatest films (certainly the ones I most enjoy) are those which exist very much in the moment. The films which create a setting, characters, themes, etc. and simply allow us to spend time in that headspace. (Perhaps the best example is The Big Sleep, which has no particularly strong direction or narrative thread, the characters and settings just sort of exist for us to enjoy.)

Back to Casino; aside from being a wonderful scene in and of itself, I just love the way it ties in with the rest of the film's themes and intensity. The characters are in a situation with is *so* out of control that it doesn't even 'explode' in the traditional way, it just stops because the situation can't continue anymore (candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long, kind of thing.)

[Alonzo the Armless]

I assumed that the envelope to Madolyn contained information that she could use to inform Mark Wahlberg's character about Matt Damon's character.

[Matt]

I didn't think that the ending was all that twisty. It's not like anything was revealed at the end that was previously hidden (or that couldn't have been assumed throughout the course of the film, like the recording of conversations).

[jon]

Its not that the ending was twisty, at least for me. It was moreover shocking in that it caught me by surprise about a half-second before I knew what was going to happen... for the most part.

SpoilerShow

The envelopewas obviously insurance for DiCaprio's character in case he died before he could take down Damon.

DiCaprio was suspicous, but they tested him with the information and none of it was filtered back to Damon. Really, i thought they should have been able to see through some of Damon's behavior more than DiCaprio's. It was stupid how much power they gave him while he was so conspiuously trying to get classified information and talking on the cell phone in the briefing.

I mean, they were suspicous of DiCaprio throughout the film, but Damon's actions were never questionable by anyone, except by Marky Mark.

[Jun-Dai]

I'm talking, I should clarify, about the main *artistic* reason for a remake, the reason someone like Martin Scorsese (as opposed to, say, Brett Ratner) might choose to remake a film, and I think the main opportinity it provides is to create a variation of the original, even taking some elements in the exact opposite direction (the best example that comes to mind, is Scorsese's own Cape Fear, were he eliminated the simple 'good vs evil' elements of the original in order to focus on the flaws of Nick Nolte's character and on the more admirable ambitions (education, etc.) of DeNiro's character.)

Perhaps 'response' isn't the best word; what I mean is to tweak the remake in new and alternative, often opposite, ways.

That makes more sense, but I think there's a big difference between remaking something that's a classic embedded into the same cultural consciousness as you're making your film for (a la Cape Fear, Psycho, or Gone With the Wind (heaven forbid)) and remaking something that belongs to a different language and culture with a relatively small overlap (e.g., The Ring, Insomnia, The Magnificent Seven).

In the former case, you're much more likely to work off the assumption that your audience has seen the earlier film or knows something about it (much like when adapting a famous novel), and they're coming to your film to revisit it in a sense, not unlike making a sequel. In the latter case, other than the foreign filmophiles that watched the original, you're dealing with a wholly new audience, and you're probably making the film either because your producer figures it's a sure success based on the original film's performance, or because you're unoriginal or lack confidence in your originality and you found something you really liked in the previous film that you'd like to work out for yourself.

In Scorsese's case, I think we can be sure that the producers saw the success of the original story, and Scorsese saw some potential in the synopsis. In this scenario, I ask myself: why would Scorsese want to watch the original film? If anything, watching the original film would make it harder to do the remake, since now you would have the original film in your mind whenever you looked over the script. Easier and better, I think, to simply reimagine the whole thing from the new script.