Martin Scorsese!

NetHoster

I don't know about everyone else, but I am thrilled that Martin Scorsese finally won his due this year!

MOTHERTRUCKER

NetHoster wrote:

I don't know about everyone else, but I am thrilled that Martin Scorsese finally won his due this year!

Personally, I have become less and less of a Scorsese fan the more films I see that he directed. Goodfellas is still my 2nd favorite movie of all time, and the Departed is in the top 20. Prior to buying Mean Streets on Dvd (it was only 5euro with the purchase of The Departed, thank God), I have tried multiple times listening to the many recommendations of other Scorsese films I would absolutely love. I mean, they are classics right? So I bought Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. Man was that a mistake. I find the cinemetography dizzying and distracting, I find it almost impossible to be connected to any of the characters (not from lack of character development, but I just have absolutely NOTHING in common with these characters and find them unappealing in every way).
I know many of you will comment that people don't have to be "good" for you to root for them, and I completely agree with you. But when people are so stupid in every action they take, I find myself not even caring what they do next. I immediately sold Raging Bull and Taxi Driver to a used DVD store. What do I get when I try another Scorsese film in Mean Streets? More boring plot lines with music that is too loud and characters that I couldn't care less about.
Thank god for The Departed so Scorsese has won his oscar, that way I don't have to hear people complaining about how "brilliant" of a director he is any more. Frankly, I agree with the Oscar voters. Only Goodfellas deserved a best director oscar. The Departed was good, but I think it won because of a weak year in films. Why do I feel he was deserving in Goodfellas? I loved the characters! I rooted for them! I cared when they did something wrong! I was able to apply some of the story to my own life. Anyways, enough ranting. I am sure I will get plenty of grief for this, but I hope people will voice their opinions on the subject as honestly as I have.

Money Shot

Scorcsese to get an award for the Departed is an insult to his career. He has made many, many better moveies. For starters, it was a direct remake of an excellent hong kong thriller. Have you ever seen a photocopy of a photocopy ? The value of the original significantly decreases from one Xerox to the next. Black lines that previously were bold start to fade. Margins that contained important information are reduced. Text bleeds together, making most words illegible. Such is the case with “The Departed,” Martin Scorsese’s half-hearted and limp attempt to Americanize the buzzworthy 2002 Asian thriller “Infernal Affairs” – which itself owes a debt of gratitude to Scorsese’s earlier, more frenzied and worthy projects. By honoring his source, Scorsese indirectly is mimicking himself, falling back on voice-over narration, intensely violent physical explosions and classic-rock music cues that used to amplify original material but now highlight obvious deficiencies.

It would be hard for any crime drama to match the tension and intricate structure of "Infernal Affairs" and its two sequels (I believe marty is thinking about doing these also – shame on him). It's a top-notch psychological thriller with great performances by Andy Lau and Tony Leung as two undercover operatives. It set a high standard in its depiction of the infernal agonies of fear, paranoia, and lack of trust.

A large number of flaws make "The Departed" suffer in comparison to "Infernal Affairs" and its sequels. One is the completely unfeasible love relationship between psychologist Madolyn (Vera Farmiga) and the two moles. Her character is not developed in any way to help us understand why she would have sex with a self-absorbed cad like Sullivan or a basket-case of neuroses like Costigan.

The second sign that the drama is on shaky ground comes when Jack Nicholson starts to break character and do his crazy Jack number, waving severed hands around and such like. This is entertaining at first but it distracts from the sober business at hand as his character, Costello, desperately tries to find out who is the traitor within his organization. He really should have looked closer at the recently aquired ‘tough’ straight out of police academy. The Costigan character in Infernal affairs is not known to be an ex- police cadet and takes ten years (a different actor used to get this across) to infiltrate the organization, not beating up two random mobsters in a bar and some rubbish about his uncle, and father who was clean but would have made a good (if not ‘the best’) mobster.

The final scenes in "The Departed" leave corpses scattered all over the place as if to suggest that we are witnessing a grand tragedy on the level of Shakespeare. Only problem is, the screenplay has not given us characters who involve us in their struggles like the characters in those passionate tragedies.
Another shortfall is that Damon and DiCaprio play morally slushy characters, lacking much growth or complication. They fret their roles, fatigued by lumpy writing, though Damon fits the milieu. The Departed marks Scorsese’s third collaboration with Leonardo DiCaprio, as the actor once again accepts a role that finds him isolated, alienated and paranoid to the point of harm. The goateed (to look butch and tough) DiCaprio similarly squinted and squirmed in “The Beach,” “Gangs of New York,” “Catch Me If You Can” and the second-half of “The Aviator.” He’s in serious danger of becoming typecast at a very early stage of his career.

Scorsese does attract an A-list cast, but he hires specific actors to fill distinct roles and the assembled performers merely do what they’ve always done best. Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen and Ray Winstone play slight variations of roles they’ve previously explored. Need a leading man that masks an icy menace beneath his boy-scout charms? Get Damon. Want a wild-card villain who commands the paternal respect of an industry icon but isn’t afraid to improvise? See if Nicholson’s available.

Unfortunately, Scorsese cuts Jack way too much slack, and the character’s lethal menace often devolves to camp. More than a few people at our screening cackled at Nicholson’s lines when they were supposed to be cowering. “Don’t laugh,” Nicholson barks at a hired hand after dressing him down in front of the team. “This ain’t reality TV.” No, but it sure feels like a re-run. Much more than Nicholson, the other old pros like Martin Sheen and Alec Baldwin grab the stage easily, and Mark Wahlberg is effectively simple, as an angry cop defined by hate.
Main scripter William Monahan (“Kingdom of Heaven”) achieves a rhythm of industrially low-grade and sadistic hysteria. A lot of talent bought into this, but can they sell it? Crime stories have become incredibly generic, and though this is not a pit like “Miami Vice,” some bursts of good staging and imagery only serve to remind us how far from grace Scorcese has fallen.

It’s a reasonable decision, hiring Scorsese to apply his trademark flourishes to a sprawling organized crime story. Not that we have time to appreciate what works in “Departed.” Scorsese hurries through scenes with an impatience that suggests boredom. Spontaneous violence doesn’t shock us anymore in Scorsese’s environments. Even the director’s reliable technicians let him down. Cinematographer Michael Balhaus shoots well-lit scenes that give “Departed” a polish it doesn’t deserve. The movie’s so erratic, I was surprised to learn Scorsese’s longtime editor Thelma Schoonmaker cut the piece together. Scenes that need more attention are severed, while superficial interactions (most involving abandoned love interest Vera Farmiga) last an eternity.

In summation, the Departed is an ok film, Aviator was average, Gangs of new youk was poor, bringing out the dead was terrible, Casino was a rehash of goodfellas. He hasn't done anything original or worthy since goodfellas, apart from the Bob Dylan Docu which I really enjoyed.

Praise is heaped at Scorcese, but it needs to be tempered with the films he has been making of late.

Karl Hungus

Hmm, this shouldn't have been in Film Awards. Moved.

Sean7

Money Shot wrote:

For starters, it was a direct remake of an excellent hong kong thriller.

Not to be argumentitive but to my knowledge the script Scorcese accepted was a translated earlier script for Infernal Affairs, which hadn't seen before he began work on The Departed so not a remake just same basic scripts taken in different directions. I for one thought that it was a really good film, not Scorcese's best by any means (I'm between Goodfellas and Raging Bull for my personal favourite) but good. I agree with you that they did simplify alot of things that Infernal affairs deals with much better but I feel it still a well done film and I am definatly happy to see him get his long overdue Best Director Oscar for this over The Aviator or Gangs of New York. I really thought he would get it for the former actually just as an 'apology' oscar for not giving him one many years earlier

Money Shot

Sean7 wrote:

Not to be argumentitive but to my knowledge the script Scorcese accepted was a translated earlier script for Infernal Affairs, which hadn't seen before he began work on The Departed so not a remake just same basic scripts taken in different directions. I for one thought that it was a really good film, not Scorcese's best by any means (I'm between Goodfellas and Raging Bull for my personal favourite) but good. I agree with you that they did simplify alot of things that Infernal affairs deals with much better but I feel it still a well done film and I am definatly happy to see him get his long overdue Best Director Oscar for this over The Aviator or Gangs of New York. I really thought he would get it for the former actually just as an 'apology' oscar for not giving him one many years earlier

Fair enough, but I think any claims that he didn't know about Infernal Affairs have been proved to be spurious. The films are almost identical in parts.
I think this was a sympathy Oscar that they have been trying to give him since Goodfellas (where they should have done the right thing), but sadly all films since were not even close to the mark. I think it got to the stage where they felt they may not get another opportunity, and as this was well received by the public, so they just went for it. I hope this will put an end to his oscar whining, and he can concentrate on some less commercial films. Who knows he might even have another good film in him, or maybe a great one. Although, on current form it's hard to see.

Sad Professor

AFAIK William Monahan adapted The Departed using the script to Infernal Affairs without watching it. Scorsese is a big fan of Asian cinema and almost certainly would have seen the original long before signing up for the remake. As already pointed out, many of the shots/camera angles are identical.

I don't really care if Scorsese deserved the oscar for The Departed, he deserved it for Taxi Driver and got screwed over so it's fair game. Since when have the Oscars ever been awarded on merit? As far as I'm concerned the Academy owes Scorsese another two oscars, for Raging Bull and Goodfellas respectively. A case could also be made for Last Temptation.

I was very happy to see Scorsese win. It obviously meant a lot to him, he's spent his whole career trying to be accepted by the Hollywood community and they spat in his face over and over again. Sean Penn got passed up one or twice and he acted like a baby and when he finally did win he stood with his chin in the air nodding while everyone applauded. I was impressed by how humble Scorsese was after all those years.