At Pajamas Media: “His final Oscar ballot hot in his hand (due February 20th), Academy member Roger L. Simon reviews one of this year’s clear Oscar favorites – The Departed.”
Although Roger greatly respects Martin Scorsese he starts off by saying that, although he likes most of his movies he does not love most of them. He explains:
I think it’s because – in recent years at least – they don’t have all that much to say and, for that reason, their entertainment value diminishes as the movies progress.
Then… What about The Departed? The movie could not capture Roger… at all. His mind was wandering while he was watching the movie. He wondered “why don’t I care very much about these characters? Why is my mind wandering?”
He explains:
Despite the accuracy of the Boston accents of various classes and the authenticity of the locales, something was beginning to feel fake about the entire Departed enterprise. I was off down memory lane, thinking of the gangster flicks I loved – White Heat and High Sierra, both directed by Raoul Walsh – musing how distant their romanticism seemed from our times. It was a strain to reproduce that style, as the The Departed did, in a world of forensic shrinks and political correctness even if those aspects of modernity were being criticized or questioned implicitly in the film. The movie seemed to want to have its cake and eat it too – being taken seriously as reality and homage at the same time. The plot became hard to follow or reliant on transparent tricks. I found myself not caring about what happened, so by the time of the final shoot out, everything appeared anti-climactic. It just went on and on to make sure everyone, good or bad, got blasted in the head or somewhere. At the end, logic went out the window in an orgy of inconsequential bloodletting.
I do love some Marty Scorsese movies – Mean Streets and to a lesser extent Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. But those were a long time ago. Raging Bull, the last of the three, was 1980. But I don’t blame Scorsese in the slightest for this decline. It’s often true of artists that they do their best work early.
This is particularly common in film where, once you have obtained a measure of success, you dissolve into the movie industry itself. You become a creature of it and it consumes your daily life. After a while, you become increasingly distant from the subject matter that made you want to create in the first place. You are “taking meetings� when you should be engaging with the world at large.
In short, Roger won’t be voting for The Departed for this year’s Best Picture Oscar. Nor will he vote for Scorsese for Best Director. He adds though: “although I think, now that the DGA has anointed him with their award, he is a lock in the category. It will be an early lifetime achievement award and a deserved one.”
Then, for whom will Roger vote in both categories he mentioned? The Queen.
Because I haven’t watched either movie I cannot comment on Roger’s review. It was a good, interesting review though, which is why I link to it. Besides that, I also wonder what those of you who did watch The Departed have to say about it. Do you agree with Roger, or do you disagree? Was the movie able to capture you? Did you care about the characters? Andsoforth.
P.S.
Thanks to Pajamas Media for publishing this review.
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