the m0vie blog

Hosted by Andrew Quinn, Jay Coyle and Darren Mooney, with special guest Aoife Martin, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released every Saturday at 6pm GMT.

This time, continuing our Summer of Scorsese season, Martin Scorsese’s The Departed.

Martin Scorsese is one of the defining directors in American cinema, with a host of massively successful (and cult) hits that have shaped and defined cinema across generations: Taxi Driver, The Last Temptation of Christ, Age of Innocence, Kundun, The Aviator, Shutter Island, Hugo. The Summer of Scorsese season offers a trip through his filmography via the IMDb‘s 250.

Boston gangster Frank Costello believes that boundaries are fungible: sinner/saint, hero/villain, cop/criminal. Sending one of his young followers to infiltrate the local police department, Costello quickly discovers that something similar is happening to him. As the stakes escalate, the boundaries between policemen and gangsters blur, as Colin Sullivan and Billy Costigan straddle the gulf.

At time of recording, it was ranked 44th on the Internet Movie Database‘s list of the best movies of all-time.

Show Notes:

• Recorded 6th October 2020.
• Note: Due to the COVID-19 situation, this episode was recorded remotely. We suspect, going forward that a lot of our episodes will be until the crisis resolves.
• The Departed at The Internet Movie Database.
• The IMDb 250 at time of recording.
• Follow Aoife on Twitter.
• Martin Scorsese wins the Best Director Oscar at the Academy Awards, March 2007.
• Jack Nicholson presents The Departed with the Best Picture Oscar at the Academy Awards, March 2007.
• Owen Harvey puts together a supercut of Martin Scorsese’s use of Gimme Shelter on YouTube, February 2014.
• Martin Scorsese talks to The Independent about his personal attachment to The Rolling Stones, March 2008.
• Dan Reilly at Vulture offers a brief history of Martin Scorsese’s love affair with The Rolling Stones, February 2016.
• Mick Jagger talks to The Australian about working with Martin Scorsese on Shine a Light, February 2008.
• Reuters reports on Martin Scorsese winning the Directors’ Guild Award for The Departed, February 2007.
• John Horn at The Los Angeles Times on the path to Oscars glory for The Departed, February 2007.
• Kristopher Tapley at Variety looks back on the care and craft of the “non-campaign” for The Departed, October 2016.
• Gilbert Cruz at Entertainment Weekly looks at the path to Oscars success for Clint Eastwood’s Letters from Iwo Jima, January 2006.
• John Horn at The Los Angeles Times reports on the controversy over the Oscar campaign for Gangs of New York, March 2003.
• Christopher Campbell at IndieWire looks back at the breakout success of Little Miss Sunshine, January 2009.
• Hunter Harris at Vulture on the tropes of the Sundance indie, December 2016.
• Gill Pringle at Film Ink looks back on the production of The Departed, February 2017.
• Jack Nicholson talks to New York Magazine about working on The Departed, August 2006.
• John Hiscock at The Telegraph looks at the energy that Jack Nicholson brought to The Departed, September 2006.
• Garry Lu at Boss Hunting reports on Jack Nicholson’s excess on the set of The Departed, December 2019.
• Ray Winstone confesses to Digital Spy that he “just didn’t click” with Jack Nicholson on the set of The Departed, October 2014.
• Martin Scorsese describes The Departed as “moral ground zero” in conversation with IndieWire, December 2016.
• Richard Brody contemplates The Departed and its place in Scorsese’s filmography for The New Yorker, January 2014.
• Joe Queenan at The Guardian on Boston’s ubiquity within the modern crime film, December 2015.
• Seth Meyers presents “Boston Accent: The Movie”, January 2016.
• Lisa W. Federaro at The New York Times reports on Boston’s offering of tax incentives following the success of The Departed, March 2008.
• PJ Grisar at Forward examines Jewishness through the lens of Scorsese’s films, November 2019.
• Mark Ryall at Screentime examines The Departed in the context of the Boston crime drama, June 2014.
• Darren Mooney at the m0vie blog looks at Scorsese’s portrayal of the Irish-American community and its struggles with identity, November 2020.
• Jim Emerson at Scanners argues that Colin Sullivan is a closeted gay man in The Departed, March 2007.
• Martha Bayles at the Claremont Review of Books on the child abuse subtext in The Departed, Autumn 2007.
• The Age reports on Jack Nicholson’s improvisation on the set of The Departed, October 2006.
• Christian Long at Uproxx takes a look at behind-the-scenes anecdotes from the production of The Departed, October 2016.
• The Irish Examiner reports on Jack Nicholson’s attempts to “jazz up” The Departed by adding more sex scenes, June 2005.
• Jack Nicholson talks to Rolling Stone about working on The Departed, September 2013.
• Bill Speros at The Boston Globe reports on Ben Affleck shutting down production of Gone Girl over a New York Yankees baseball cap, October 2014.
• Dennis McDougal at The New York Times on the screen pairing of Nicholson and Scorsese, September 2006.
• The Guardian reports on Paramount dropping its contract with Tom Cruise, August 2006.
• Tatiana Siegel at The Hollywood Reporter on how Leonardo DiCaprio became “the last movie star”, July 2019.
• Laura M. Holson at The New York Times reports on the business culture at Warner Bros. during the production of The Departed, October 2006.
• David Bordwell discusses the frantic editting of The Departed at Observations on Film Art, October 2006.
• Thelma Schoonmacker talks to Collider about switching from analogue editting to digital, December 2013.
• Matt Singer review The Departed on Letterboxd, May 2019.
• Esther Zuckerman at The Atlantic takes a look at the narrative of Leonardo DiCaprio’s “Oscar snubs”, February 2014.
• The Departed meets Dear Sister, April 2020.
• Sean Burns at WBUR on the kickstarter to remove the rat from the end of The Departed as a parody of fan entitlement, February 2019.
• Stephen Kelly at the BBC on fan entitlement, February 2020.
• Asher Elbein at The Atlantic on the perils of “the canon”, April 2016.
• James Cooray Smith at The New Statesman on the fan entitlement around the ending of Game of Thrones, May 2019.
• Stephanie Chase at Contact Music on the hidden “X” imagery in The Departed, June 2014.
• Emanuel Levy discusses the use of colour in The Departed at EmanuelLevy.com, September 2006.
• Michael Ballhaus talks to American Cinematographer about shooting The Departed, October 2006.
• The Hollywood Reporter reports on the banning of The Departed in China, January 2007.
• Jordan Raup at The Film Stage reports on Jack Nicholson dropping out of the Toni Erdmann remake, August 2018.
• Follow The 250 on Twitter.
• Subscribe to The 250 on iTunes.
• Subscribe to The 250 on Stitcher.
• Listen to The 250 on Soundcloud.
• Listen to The 250 on Spotify.

Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: aoife martin, best picture, boston, irish, Irish American, jack nicholson, jason coyle, jay coyle, Leonardo diCaprio, martin scorsese, matt damon, Oscars, ray winstone, sexuality, summer of scorsese, The 250, the departed |