Martin Scorsese (left) and Robert De Niro work together on one of Raging Bull‘s infamously brutal boxing scenes.
The Departed was the first Martin Scorsese film I loved. I had started watching The Aviator a few years before … and fell asleep partway through. But something about The Departed blew away my fragile, adolescent brain.
“I’m Shipping Up to Boston” over the titles? Genius. Those aestheticized bursts of gore and violence? Haunting. That last shot with the rat? Okay, kind of heavy-handed, but let’s give the man some leeway here.
The Departed may have been the first Scorsese film I loved, but it was far from the last. Not long after I saw it, a friend lent me a (dubiously legal) copy of Raging Bull. I watched Robert De Niro’s almost balletic movement in the boxing ring with slack-jawed awe.
Next was Taxi Driver — a sick, twisted valentine to New York. I made the poor decision to watch this with my parents, and I don’t think Mom’s ever quite gotten over that blood-soaked finale.
Then came The Aviator, again. I found Scorsese’s biopic much more interesting the second time around, his kinship with the profoundly brilliant yet troubled Howard Hughes touchingly palpable.
Of course, Goodfellas popped up soon after. I’d seen the Copacabana single take earlier, out of context, and was immensely curious to see the rest of the film.
Recurring motifs and subjects run through Scorsese’s oeuvre — most notably the mafia (Mean Streets, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Casino) and faith (Mean Streets, The Last Temptation of Christ, Kundun) — yet he has never let himself be defined or pigeonholed by the kinds of movies he makes.
He’s got an uncanny knack for selecting accompanying music. His infrequent use of original scores almost always results in something iconic; whether it be the wistful, French-tinged single takes from Hugo or the jazz-fueled establishing shots in Taxi Driver.
In the years since, I’ve seen pretty much all of his filmography (sorry Kundun and Bringing out the Dead), but I keep coming back to The Departed. I don’t think it’s his best work, not by a country mile, but something about that film spoke to me back when I was a freshman in high school, and still does to this day.
The Departed may have been the first film I’d ever watched that made me aware of the director’s voice in a movie. As a child, I’d grown up thinking actors were the bee’s knees, that secret ingredient separating bad films from the good. Yet The Departed suggested otherwise: The director’s control over a film’s look, sound, performances and pacing is what makes a movie great; that a film could be the product of a singular vision.
In interviews and biographies, Scorsese has often talked about, his upbringing in New York, and how, as an asthmatic young’un, he loved movies because they provided an escape from his otherwise dull day-to-day life. It’s fitting, then, that he has managed to endow all of his films with this love, passion and profound appreciation of an artistic medium.
The Departed was my first eye-opener, and for that, I thank you, Martin Scorsese.
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