Why The Departed is my feel-good movie
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Spoiler alert: I am giving away bits of the movie, so stop if you haven't seen it. Or continue if you have no intention of seeing it, you Philistine.
I've been struggling to think of an appropriate invitee for the weekend party but I've only come up with rather ambitious characters like Jay Gatsby and Caleb Trask and everyone from Downton Abbey. It's been quite the week and I would like nothing more than a small dinner with a close friend. So, I'm turning to the movie that never fails to make me feel.
Let me preface this by noting that my husband and I spent Leap Day doing something we never do: we saw a movie in 3D (I still have a bitter taste in my mouth from dishing out the cash to see Avatar in 3D just so I could appropriately bash it). We saw Hugo and suffice it to say I doubt I will ever utter these words again but I'm so glad that I saw it in 3D. I don't think the movie quite makes sense without it. In fact, I think 3D has been waiting for Scorsese to come along and tell this one story for which it was created so that it can finally bow out with a measure of grace and die.
But I digress... Scorsese makes me want to watch more Scorsese. I may be the only person who loves Shutter Island (also read the book by Denis Lehane, which is a great page turner) and Hugo, while a bit like the cane syrup in our cabinet--slow and saccharine, it is still lovely in its own way. Haven't read the Brian Selznick book yet.
So, The Departed. Billy Costigan is a wonderfully tragic hero. It doesn't hurt that he's portrayed to perfection by Leonardo DiCaprio, circa pre-Christopher Nolan face morph. On that note: To my brothers who defamed his Titanic/Growing Pains era by bestowing him with the moniker DiCraprio despite my ardent defense of his talent (and boyish good looks), you are welcome to join Billy and I for the party but your meal option will be limited to crow.
Why does a movie in which every one dies (save one) make me feel good? Because it's awesome, obviously: Well acted (aside from the adorable Martin Sheen's waffling "Boston" accent), gorgeously scored, brilliantly shot and edited, filled with snappy dialogue, and by God if it doesn't have the best title sequence ever. EVER. When The Dropkick Murphys' "Shipping Off to Boston" begins, my heart skips a beat. And suffice it to say, the script by William Monahan changed my life (download it here). Not all scripts are particularly enjoyable (I'm looking at you, Coen Brothers), but this one is pretty damn great.
Perhaps my favorite moment in the movie paints a tragic vignette of Billy's whole life summed up in a few precious seconds and if you blink, you'll miss it.
"In another life, he might have dated her. Not in this one." Billy's whole life is little more than symbolic and rife with roads severed by his choice to serve his community with a secret and a mask. And in the end, what is it all for?
In another life... The moment is pregnant with possibility and the metaphorical miscarriage of a normal life, one that includes the casual date or a serious relationship, reveals his dark and lonely road. That's the kind of hero I love to read about, the kind of hero for which I cry.
He isn't Peter Parker who thinks he can truly love both Mary Jane Watson and New York City. No, he is Batman, who realizes that his motivations for heroism are not always pure, that romance is a commodity that (super)heroes can't afford, and that sometimes to be a knight, he must also be dark. Or at least perceived to be so by the city he serves but let their judgment distort his dedication to change.
In another life...
Yet we have but one, which is perhaps why when I am feeling tired or sad or ridden with flu, I want to linger with the dearly departed whose hopes and dreams and visions of love have been buried under six feet of cold dirt and weeds. If that doesn't make me feel better about my current situation then I don't know what will.
Then again, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe what makes me feel better is Alec Baldwin's cocaine induced rants as the man's man Ellerby or a righteously bitchy Mark Wahlberg. I mean, do you look at hospital booties the same way? Maybe aside from the movie, I like imagining the endearing portrait of Martin Scorsese who is at once both Oscar the Grouch and Harry Caray. He who may have "failed" at marriage, yet has ever grown in his hopeless devotion to the medium of film, whose future and integrity will be preserved because of his influence over a generation of new filmmakers who will grow out of their Wes Anderson and Lars Von Trier phases and learn to play in the sandbox again. And (I pray) teach a generation of film goers raised on Brett Ratner, and Michael Bay (and dare I say, Zack Snyder) that what they've been playing with aren't Lincoln Logs...
Happy Friday, All. Thanks for indulging my snobbery and love for obscure references that only my husband seems to get. Look for my party with Billy Costigan and go watch The Departed!
I've been struggling to think of an appropriate invitee for the weekend party but I've only come up with rather ambitious characters like Jay Gatsby and Caleb Trask and everyone from Downton Abbey. It's been quite the week and I would like nothing more than a small dinner with a close friend. So, I'm turning to the movie that never fails to make me feel.
Let me preface this by noting that my husband and I spent Leap Day doing something we never do: we saw a movie in 3D (I still have a bitter taste in my mouth from dishing out the cash to see Avatar in 3D just so I could appropriately bash it). We saw Hugo and suffice it to say I doubt I will ever utter these words again but I'm so glad that I saw it in 3D. I don't think the movie quite makes sense without it. In fact, I think 3D has been waiting for Scorsese to come along and tell this one story for which it was created so that it can finally bow out with a measure of grace and die.
But I digress... Scorsese makes me want to watch more Scorsese. I may be the only person who loves Shutter Island (also read the book by Denis Lehane, which is a great page turner) and Hugo, while a bit like the cane syrup in our cabinet--slow and saccharine, it is still lovely in its own way. Haven't read the Brian Selznick book yet.
So, The Departed. Billy Costigan is a wonderfully tragic hero. It doesn't hurt that he's portrayed to perfection by Leonardo DiCaprio, circa pre-Christopher Nolan face morph. On that note: To my brothers who defamed his Titanic/Growing Pains era by bestowing him with the moniker DiCraprio despite my ardent defense of his talent (and boyish good looks), you are welcome to join Billy and I for the party but your meal option will be limited to crow.
Why does a movie in which every one dies (save one) make me feel good? Because it's awesome, obviously: Well acted (aside from the adorable Martin Sheen's waffling "Boston" accent), gorgeously scored, brilliantly shot and edited, filled with snappy dialogue, and by God if it doesn't have the best title sequence ever. EVER. When The Dropkick Murphys' "Shipping Off to Boston" begins, my heart skips a beat. And suffice it to say, the script by William Monahan changed my life (download it here). Not all scripts are particularly enjoyable (I'm looking at you, Coen Brothers), but this one is pretty damn great.
Perhaps my favorite moment in the movie paints a tragic vignette of Billy's whole life summed up in a few precious seconds and if you blink, you'll miss it.
INT. EMERGENCY ROOM. NIGHTThat's it. Almost unworthy of being included in the film since his intent hardly translates beyond simply seeming pathetic and alone but his lonely emergency room trip juxtaposed with Colin Sullivan and Madolyn at the fancy French restaurant (and Sullivan's petty disgust that they don't serve duck l'orange) makes it all the more heartbreaking.
BILLY, unlit cigarette in his mouth, is having his hand wrapped in plaster by a lady doctor. In another life he might have dated her. Not in this one.
"In another life, he might have dated her. Not in this one." Billy's whole life is little more than symbolic and rife with roads severed by his choice to serve his community with a secret and a mask. And in the end, what is it all for?
In another life... The moment is pregnant with possibility and the metaphorical miscarriage of a normal life, one that includes the casual date or a serious relationship, reveals his dark and lonely road. That's the kind of hero I love to read about, the kind of hero for which I cry.
He isn't Peter Parker who thinks he can truly love both Mary Jane Watson and New York City. No, he is Batman, who realizes that his motivations for heroism are not always pure, that romance is a commodity that (super)heroes can't afford, and that sometimes to be a knight, he must also be dark. Or at least perceived to be so by the city he serves but let their judgment distort his dedication to change.
In another life...
Yet we have but one, which is perhaps why when I am feeling tired or sad or ridden with flu, I want to linger with the dearly departed whose hopes and dreams and visions of love have been buried under six feet of cold dirt and weeds. If that doesn't make me feel better about my current situation then I don't know what will.
Then again, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe what makes me feel better is Alec Baldwin's cocaine induced rants as the man's man Ellerby or a righteously bitchy Mark Wahlberg. I mean, do you look at hospital booties the same way? Maybe aside from the movie, I like imagining the endearing portrait of Martin Scorsese who is at once both Oscar the Grouch and Harry Caray. He who may have "failed" at marriage, yet has ever grown in his hopeless devotion to the medium of film, whose future and integrity will be preserved because of his influence over a generation of new filmmakers who will grow out of their Wes Anderson and Lars Von Trier phases and learn to play in the sandbox again. And (I pray) teach a generation of film goers raised on Brett Ratner, and Michael Bay (and dare I say, Zack Snyder) that what they've been playing with aren't Lincoln Logs...
Happy Friday, All. Thanks for indulging my snobbery and love for obscure references that only my husband seems to get. Look for my party with Billy Costigan and go watch The Departed!
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