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Will Marty score this time?
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The Departed, opening tomorrow, marks the third collaboration between Martin Scorsese and Leonardo Di Caprio, writes MINI ANTHIKAD-CHHIBBER
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PHOTO: AP
THIRD TIME LUCKY? Martin Scorsese and his muse of the moment, Leonardo Di Caprio. The director, like other greats such as Frederico Fellini, Stanley Kubrick and Alfred Hitchcock, has never won an Oscar.
We have heard of all these rocking director-actor combos from Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune, Pedro Almodovar and Penelope Cruz, David Dhawan and Govinda, Mukul Anand and Amitabh Bachchan (actually anyone and the big B) to Karan Johar (ugh!) and Shah Rukh Khan. And then was Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro. The two have worked together in a phenomenal eight films. The films including Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas and Casino are extraordinary works that defined and inspired generations of filmmakers from Quentin Tarantino to directors from Hong Kong. And now Scorsese seems to have found his muse in Leornado Di Caprio, having cast him three times.
Hong Kong film remake
Incidentally, Scorsese's latest film, The Departed, is a remake of Infernal Affairs from Hong Kong, which in turn is a tribute to Scorsese's style of filmmaking! Wheels within wheels, which is just perfect for this movie about mirror images and doppelgangers. The Departed also marks the third Leonardo Di Caprio-Martin Scorsese combination after the brutal, bloody sprawling epic Gangs of New York and the strangely impersonal biopic The Aviator.
Scorsese and De Niro enjoy a different equation with De Niro helping the director battle his cocaine addiction by convincing him to make Raging Bull. Scorsese says that he shows every script he is working on to De Niro for his feedback and the two are apparently working on one about their childhood, having both grown up in the same neighbourhood in New York. That would be a film to look forward to!
De Niro was initially supposed to play Bill the Butcher in Gangs... and also Frank Costello in The Departed, a role that Jack Nicholson has made his own and there is already a buzz about his high- voltage performance.
As far as Di Caprio goes, working with Scorsese has given the angel-faced actor a weighty screen presence. In Gangs, Di Caprio's superstar Titanic persona overshadowed his character Amsterdam while his boyish good looks were out of place as the troubled movie mogul Howard Hughes in The Aviator.
In The Departed, Di Caprio seems to hit his stride as Billy Costigan, a cop who is a mole out to get the wicked crime lord Costello. The film is hailed by many as Scorsese's return to his cinematic mean streets roots after biopics, period films and that wonderful documentary on Bob Dylan, No Direction Home.
The Departed deals with Scorsese's familiar themes of machismo, crime, guilt and redemption, all soaked in blood, shot in steady cam, set to blaring rock music.
Scorsese and music have another long collaboration — from editing Woodstock to helming The Last Waltz (a concert movie about The Band), the Dylan documentary and also believe it or faint — Michael Jackson's Bad!
The Departed, set in Boston, is a fairly faithful retelling of the Hong Kong original and tells the tale of two undercover men on opposite sides of the law. There is Colin Sullivan (played with competent creepiness by Matt Damon) who Costello grooms to be his second-in-command and a mole in the police department. Opposite him is Di Caprio's Billy Costigan, who is a mole in Costello's outfit. Soon both sides realise there is a leak and it falls on the two men to find the informer, which is themselves!
Razor-sharp editing
Apart from Scorsese's sure touch and long-time collaborator Thelma Schoonmaker's razor sharp editing, the stellar cast greatly helps the film. Apart from Damon, Di Caprio and Nicholson, there is Mark Walhberg and Alec Baldwin as detectives, and Martin Sheen. The only female lead, Vera Farmiga playing the police shrink with whom both moles are involved, is rather lost amidst all the super-charged testosterone.
While, the other Catholic director of '70s Brian De Palma's return-to-roots film Black Dahlia was savaged by the critics, fans and the box office, Scorsese's film seems to have come up with a winning combination on all counts.
Incidentally, Scorsese and Di Caprio are now working on The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. And that will be combo No. 4!
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No luck at the Oscars
What do Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Fredrico Fellini and Martin Scorsese have in common apart from being the most influential directors of cinema? None of them have won an Academy Award! Scorsese has been nominated five times (Raging Bull, Last Temptation of Christ, Good Fellas, Gangs of New York, The Aviator) but has never won. Renowned film writer Roger Ebert calls Oscar voters "twizzler-brained who get timid when confronted by genius".
When nominated for Raging Bull, the Oscar went to Robert Redford for Ordinary People, Barry Levinson won for Rain Man instead of Last Temptation... , Kevin Costner took home Oscar for Dances with the Wolves instead of Goodfellas. Roman Polanski picked up the Oscar for The Pianist against Gangs... and The Aviator lost to Clint Eastwood'sMillion Dollar Baby. In spite of critics singing paeans to The Departed, one wonders if Marty will finally take Oscar home. If he does, it is a long overdue honour but if he does not, that is all right as well. Like a philosophical Scorsese comments: "We should feel lucky we even get to make movies anymore."
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