The Faithful Departed
Oct. 26th, 2006 01:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
libertangoMy father is buried in Mattapan.
Mattapan, for those who don't know, is somewhat like the Boot Hill of Boston. There are at least three cemetaries there.
This is all a lead-in to why I enjoyed Marty Scorsese's The Departed so much. As we were watching, I turned to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
akirlu and said, "He had me at the flat vowels."
What's most interesting to me, reading many reviews of the film, is how most of them mention that this movie is based on the Hong Kong Internal Affairs, but...
As I was watching the movie, I kept thinking, "Wait, I know this story... Oh, yeah, right, this is the story of Whitey Bulger."
Bulger is an honest-to-god FBI 10 Most Wanted guy. Here he's called Frank Costello, but the outlines of the character are still recognizably there. (And, not unlike the observation that the main characters in Nixon In China were at least theoretically able to see it, Bulger's alive and on the lam. My bet is he's seen the movie in the theatres himself by now. Sincerest flattery, and all that.)
Whitey, though, is only part of the Bulger story. There's also his brother Billy Bulger, who went as straight as Whitey went crooked. Billy ended up Massachusetts senate president and president of the University of Massachusetts. I think Scorsese and screenwriter William Monahan are alluding to this when they have the character Colin Sullivan -- a mob mole in the Mass State Troopers -- move into an apartment with a lingering view of the golden State House dome. You can read more about The Brothers Bulger, if'n you want.
My favorite piece of Monahan's dialogue is this, though:
Frank Costello (played by a critically-maligned Jack Nicholson) asks a guy how his sick mother is doing. "She's on her way out," he tells Costello.
Costello's retort: "We all are. Act accordingly."
*^*^*
Another interesting thing is... William Goldman talks about how, in The Great Waldo Pepper, there's a moment when they completely lost the audience. Up until then, it was all enjoyable enough, but once that moment went by, whoosh!, you could feel the audience lose faith in the movie.
There's a similar moment in The Departed. It was spooky to feel the audience turn like that.
It's a tribute to Scorsese and Monahan that they're able to -- mostly -- win the audience back before the lights come up.
Mattapan, for those who don't know, is somewhat like the Boot Hill of Boston. There are at least three cemetaries there.
This is all a lead-in to why I enjoyed Marty Scorsese's The Departed so much. As we were watching, I turned to
akirlu and said, "He had me at the flat vowels."What's most interesting to me, reading many reviews of the film, is how most of them mention that this movie is based on the Hong Kong Internal Affairs, but...
As I was watching the movie, I kept thinking, "Wait, I know this story... Oh, yeah, right, this is the story of Whitey Bulger."
Bulger is an honest-to-god FBI 10 Most Wanted guy. Here he's called Frank Costello, but the outlines of the character are still recognizably there. (And, not unlike the observation that the main characters in Nixon In China were at least theoretically able to see it, Bulger's alive and on the lam. My bet is he's seen the movie in the theatres himself by now. Sincerest flattery, and all that.)
Whitey, though, is only part of the Bulger story. There's also his brother Billy Bulger, who went as straight as Whitey went crooked. Billy ended up Massachusetts senate president and president of the University of Massachusetts. I think Scorsese and screenwriter William Monahan are alluding to this when they have the character Colin Sullivan -- a mob mole in the Mass State Troopers -- move into an apartment with a lingering view of the golden State House dome. You can read more about The Brothers Bulger, if'n you want.
My favorite piece of Monahan's dialogue is this, though:
Frank Costello (played by a critically-maligned Jack Nicholson) asks a guy how his sick mother is doing. "She's on her way out," he tells Costello.
Costello's retort: "We all are. Act accordingly."
*^*^*
Another interesting thing is... William Goldman talks about how, in The Great Waldo Pepper, there's a moment when they completely lost the audience. Up until then, it was all enjoyable enough, but once that moment went by, whoosh!, you could feel the audience lose faith in the movie.
There's a similar moment in The Departed. It was spooky to feel the audience turn like that.
It's a tribute to Scorsese and Monahan that they're able to -- mostly -- win the audience back before the lights come up.
There
Date: 2006-10-26 09:40 pm (UTC)Be aware, though, that Mattapan isn't in the movie. That was me trying to explain why I feel roots in Boston, how the movie touched those. Though for all I know, the NESFA folks hated the movie.