Rewatchables Reference

Cast

Directed by: Martin Scorsese

Written by: William Monahan

Cinematography by: Michael Ballhaus

Notes

• This is a redo – they did 'The Departed' four years earlier as one of the first Rewatchables but didn't have most categories, talked only 50 minutes, and didn't have Sean. Bill felt they didn't do it justice.
• Russillo and Van Lathan both think 'The Town' is better than 'The Departed' and declined to participate. Bill admits he personally likes 'The Town' more but considers this more rewatchable.
• Sean calls it 'the Irish Godfather' – by default, since there aren't many Irish gang movies starring Irish people (including this one, for the most part).
• Sean's movie theory: there are hang glider movies (you soar and can look in any direction) and zipline movies (hurtling toward the conclusion). 'The Departed' is a zipline movie – 'the messiest Martin Scorsese movie by a wide margin,' but never boring.
• Chris's Vera Farmiga theory from the first podcast: she's attracted to both men because they represent two sides of the male psyche – Costigan is a raw nerve who feels everything, Sullivan is a sociopath who constructs his identity and is always performing. It's 'two ways of interfacing with the world.'
• $291.5 million box office. Won Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, and Editing at the Oscars. Wahlberg nominated for Best Supporting Actor for roughly four days of work.
• Leo not being nominated for Best Actor is 'insane' – the studio backed 'Blood Diamond' instead, and he got nominated for that. All three hosts consider it one of Leo's best performances.
• Horrible Oscar year: other Best Picture nominees were Babel, Letters from Iwo Jima, Little Miss Sunshine, and The Queen. Sean says the lineup should have been Borat, Children of Men, Little Children, Pan's Labyrinth, and 'The Departed'.
• Leo getting shot in the elevator was one of the most shocking theater moments any of them experienced. Bill: 'On a scale of one to G Baby, this was a nine and a half.' Bill's wife, rewatching: 'Oh, I forgot that was going to happen.'
• Scorsese had Spielberg, Lucas, and Coppola present him the Best Director Oscar – a genuinely nice moment. Sean notes the Bong Joon-ho moment years later when the whole crowd stood and applauded Scorsese.
• Scorsese said he was surprised the film won – never thought about awards while filming it, thought it was too nasty and violent and was a remake. His speech referenced his mechanic asking him 'When are you going to win one?'
• Leo said the one-on-one scene with Nicholson was 'one of the most memorable moments of my life.' DiCaprio tried to play the character like someone having a 24-hour panic attack.
• Scorsese officially breaks the record for characters hitting another character with a highball glass – approximately the seventh movie where it happens.
• The X motif: everyone who's about to die has X's somewhere in the frame – crossbeam supports in the airport walkway, taped windows, behind Costigan's head in the elevator, the carpeted floor in the final scene.
• The shower scene where Sullivan turns on the water before Madeline listens to the Costigan tape uses the same three shots as Psycho's infamous shower scene – Scorsese's nod to Hitchcock.
• Bill's sore spot: Nicholson refused to wear a Red Sox hat and banned them from set. Bill is outraged – 'You've killed Scatman Crothers with a fucking axe. You're playing a guy who's a murderer, but the Red Sox hat is too much?' Craig found a photo of Whitey Bulger wearing a Red Sox hat.
• Bill's riff on Hollywood's inability to get Whitey Bulger right: 'This is the all-time layup. The easiest piece of content. And then he ends up in Santa Monica in a two-bedroom.'
• The movie was shot mostly in New York. The Chinatown chase scene is 'so obviously New York.' This inspired Massachusetts to create a 25% filmmaking tax credit, leading to 15 years of movies actually being filmed in Boston.
• First Best Picture winner not released on VHS.
• 238 uses of the F-word.
• Last Scorsese/Michael Ballhaus cinematography collaboration. After this, Scorsese worked with Robert Richardson then Rodrigo Prieto – 'there's a reason the Irishman looks nothing like 'Goodfellas'.'
• Monahan discussed a sequel set before, during, and after the action of the first film – essentially showing events from different perspectives. Bill is amazed Wahlberg hasn't talked Netflix into a Dignam sequel.

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