Leonardo DiCaprio gets ready for battle in Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-winning THE DEPARTED
THE DEPARTED (Martin Scorsese, 2006)
Bow Tie Ziegfeld Theater
141 West 54th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Thursday, February 13, 3:30
Festival runs February 13-14
212-765-7600
www.bowtiecinemas.com
Based on Andrew Lau and Alan Mak’s awesome Infernal Affairs (2002), Martin Scorsese’s relatively faithful remake, The Departed, moves the relentless action and intrigue from Hong Kong to the mean streets of Boston, where it is hard to tell cop from criminal. Just out of the academy, Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) rises quickly to detective in the Special Investigations Unit, but he’s actually in cahoots with master crime lord Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson). Meanwhile, Billy Costigan (an excellent Leonardo DiCaprio), training to become a cop, is sent deep undercover (including a prison stint) to infiltrate Costello’s gang, with only Captain Queenan (Martin Sheen) and Sergeant Dignam (a very funny and foul-mouthed Mark Wahlberg) aware of the secret mission. Sullivan and Costigan are like opposite sides of the same persona; in between them stands Costello — and Madolyn (Vera Farmiga), a psychiatrist who is in a relationship with one and is doctor to the other. As both the cops and the criminals search desperately for their respective rats, no one can trust each other, leading to lots of blood and a spectacular finale. Nicholson has a field day as the aging gangster, chewing up mounds of scenery in his first film with Scorsese, who returned to peak form with his best work since 1990’s Goodfellas. The film was nominated for five Oscars, winning four, for Best Director, Best Film Editing (Thelma Schoonmaker), Best Adapted Screenplay (William Monahan), and Best Picture, while Wahlberg was nominated for Best Supporting Actor.
Collaboration between Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio is celebrated with two-day festival at the Ziegfeld
The Departed is being shown on February 13 at 3:30 as part of a two-day salute at the Ziegfeld to the long-running partnership between DiCaprio and Scorsese, including screenings of all five of their collaborations: The Aviator, Scorsese’s examination of Howard Hughes’s (DiCaprio) high-flying and controversial airplane career; Gangs of New York, which pits Amsterdam Vallon (DiCaprio) against Bill “the Butcher” Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis) in the city’s immigrant-heavy Five Corners; Shutter Island, an adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s novel with DiCaprio as a U.S. marshal; and their latest, the multi-Oscar-nominated The Wolf of Wall Street, in which DiCaprio plays real-life stockbroker Jordan Belfort. DiCaprio, Schoonmaker, and screenwriter Terence Winter will take part in a Q&A with Kent Jones prior to the 7:00 screening of Wolf on February 13.