| Meeting With Martin and The Departed |
| Written by Brad Balfour | |||||
| Wednesday, 28 February 2007 08:13 | |||||
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The following documents two 40-minute press conference sessions merged together that tell the tale of Martin Scorcese's latest elaborate feature, "The Departed," one that finally has garnered him the top Oscar awards--Best Director and Best Picture. Based on a Chinese crime trilogy, "Infernal Affairs 1-3," the original served to inspire a film that has all of Scorcese's brilliant directorial stylizations but it also plays on his own riffs as well.  Scorcese finally got his much-deserved Best Director Oscar on his sixth nomination
 Scorcese and his cast on set of "The Departed"
 Leonardo DiCaprio at the L.A. premiere of "Blood Diamond"-his other buzzed-about lead performances this year
 Matt Damon and DiCaprio riff off each other in "The Departed"
 Two screen legends confer on set: Jack Nicholson and Marty Scorsese
Q: Martin, doing cops seem new for you. What are the similarities between gangsters and cops? Martin Scorcese: I think no doubt there's similarities--the old cliche of catch a thief, set a thief. To catch someone in the underworld, to play against it, to try to get them, and make apprehensions--I think Bill's depiction of that world made me try again to work within a genre that dealt with Bill's depiction of gangsters. I felt comfortable certainly with the guys in the street, guys in bars and that sort of thing, and even more comfortable with the doctor scenes. But with the police scenes, I did feel a little uncomfortable. I did sometimes get a little nervous-- it had an feel that I was guilty for something and I was worried that there were cops all around me and they were gonna take me in. So I was nervous a couple of times, but they made me feel comfortable. Duffy was great to hang around. Q: What's up with violence in your films? MS: I really don't know what to say. I've said many times I can't defend it. I don't know if I approach it differently. I approach it the way I thought I experienced, anyway--what I know, what I saw. Some people are more impressionable than others. I was very affected by it. I can tell you more than the physical violence, I was affected by the emotional violence around me. It's part of who and what I am and somehow it channels itself into the films, but I don't see it. I see it almost as absurd. In this film, the violence is almost absurdity. There seems to be a lot of violence in films that are like video games. if you want to experience violence, you should experience violence powerfully and real. Q: Why have your films become more Irish in recent years? Will you return to Italian-centric cinema? MS: It's an interesting question. I've always felt a close affinity with the Irish, particularly coming out of the same area of New York City--although by the time the Italians moved in, by the 1920's, 1930's, most of the Irish had moved out of that neighborhood. It goes back to "Gangs of New York," stories about the way Irish helped create New York, the city itself, and America. Irish literature is very important to me and the poetry of the Irish is extraordinary. Yes, there were some differences when they first moved into the same neighborhood. The Irish sense of Catholicism is a very interesting contrast to the Italian sense of Catholicism. Don't forget I do have a very strong love for Hollywood cinema, and some of the greatest filmmakers to come out of Hollywood were Irishmen: John Ford, Raoul Walsh and others. "How Green Was My Valley" was about Welsh miners, but it was directed by an Irishman. It had that warmth, the family structure, and felt very close to the culture of the Irish--and the Italians felt that. Besides, the script is written by William Monahan. [Someone] talks about crime as being a left-handed form of human endeavor. When you start to go that way in your mind and you live by that in the street, it doesn't matter whether it's Boston, Chicago, New York, or anywhere--it filters down to survival of the streets. In the film you're talking about a society within a society within a society. There's a war in the streets, and these guys know what's going on from the beginning and if they make one mistake, they get killed, they're dead. There's no place to run or hide. None. So you take that as a philosophy of the situation and then your philosophy becomes survival. I think as a human being, the differences between different ethnic groups as quote gangsters, that's purely technical. Q: Why film Boston in Brooklyn? MS: We didn't really shoot in Brooklyn, we shot in an armory in Brooklyn. That's where there's a space. I think it was an issue of a very good shooting deal in New York as opposed to Boston. After looking at locations in Boston, we thought we could double for things in Boston, but it's not easy. It's difficult to rent, the bit players have to be from Boston, so we had to bring them back from Boston, it got a little complicated. But it turned out to be advantageous for us. Monahan: Yeah, the tax break we got from shooting really helped out the production. Also, when you're shooting interiors and you're building everything inside you had to be really aware that it kept everyone in the same place and it was convenient for everyone. Q: Marty, why did you do a remake? MS: I'm aware of all the Hong Kong cinema. I felt it was okay because what they do I cannot do. I have to find my own way and I think Bill's script was the way. I think the microcosm that he described--the people, the way he described them, the way they behaved, the language they used-- that all added up. The story of trust and betrayal, only set in the context of the Irish Catholic world of Boston, the incestuous nature of the world that that depicts. Both Matt's character and Leo's character have relationships with Vera's character, but they never know that. Then you add Jack's character, and all these characters are connected in this incestuous way. We were able to collaborate with Bill, Vera, Matt, Leo, and Jack bringing his own elements, it all pulled together. Mark Wahlberg's attitude was very clear, Alec Baldwin picked up on it beautifully and counterbalanced, it was almost like an Abbott and Costello routine between Wahlberg and Baldwin. I didn't have to say anything to them, they just did it. But this is really by Bill and from Matt's placement. Q: Did Hong Kong translate into Irish Boston? MS: I didn't think of it as Hong Kong. Taking from the Hong Kong trilogy, Andrew Lau's film, it's the device, the concept of two informers. Whether I like it or not, I am drawn to stories that have to do with trust and betrayal. I just thought of how Bill Monahan put down a way of life, a way of thinking, an attitude, a cultural look at the world, really, a very, very enclosed society, and I liked the idea. Once I saw John Woo's "The Killer." You can't go near that. Another Hong Kong film I saw in the '80s was King Hu's "The Touch of Zen." It's a whole other thing going on there. We do what we do, and if we influence their culture at all, it has come out through John Woo, Tsui Hark and Ringo Lam. The Hong Kong cinema of Wong-Kar Wai and Stanley Kwan is something you have to appreciate as a filmmaker because we see new ways of making narrative film. Even if I said to myself, gee, maybe I can make a film like John Woo, the minute I get to design the shot or I get behind the camera with the cinematographer-- Michael Ballhaus in this case--well, many times I saw I'd done this shot five times already in two other movies. I admire and respect their work so much in Hong Kong. All of Chinese cinema really, Beijing and Taiwan. I hope my next film is another remake of an Asian film. I'm only making Asian remakes anymore. Q: Leo, what is it about Scorsese that attracts you to his films? Leonardo DiCaprio: Well, I'm a fan of his work, number one. it all started with wanting to work with him doing "This Boy's Life" with Robert DeNiro. So I became a fan of his work at a very early age. if you asked me [when I was] starting out in the business, who I wanted to work with it would have been Marty. I got fortunate enough to work with him on "Gangs of New York" in 2000. I think just from there, we have a good time working together and we have similar tastes [in] films. He certainly has broadened my spectrum as far as films that are out there, the history of cinema and the importance of cinema, and it really brought me to different levels as an actor. I look at him as a mentor. Q: How did you get into this project? Matt Damon: Graham came to me because his company had access and I first heard about it through him. It's like the dream of all dreams. Hey, did you hear that Martin Scorsese is directing a movie about Boston? Then I got a copy of the script and loved it and when I came back to New York, I met with Marty. But I think I had already agreed to do it. Most of these things are contingent on a meeting. I wasn't even trying to be cool about it--I'm in, so if he needs to meet with me, I'll go meet him wherever he wants. It was a really easy yes for me. DiCaprio: I never had an initial conversation with Graham. I had received the script and Bill Monahan's work is this tightly-woven, highly complex ensemble piece, this gangster thriller. It's very, very rare in this business where a script lands on your lap ready to go--this was one of those rare occurrences. There was a certain amount of work, character development, taking things out, changing dialogue, but to have the construct of the story and really complex, duplicitous characters, information, disinformation, plot twists, all leading to a satisfying ending, is something you hardly ever get in this business. So I know I got the script when Marty got it and it was one of those things that we really didn't need to discuss. He really wanted to do it. I really wanted to do it. |
