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Contents © 2006
by Jim Holman.
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TALK ABOUT MOVIES
November/December 2006
THE DEPARTED
Directed by Martin Scorsese; Starring Jack Nicholson, Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio; 2006, 152 minutes, color, USA, English. Now in theaters. (Strong violence and language.)
Ernie: What purpose did the psychiatrist serve? Was she just there to let the viewer see through the lens of feminine intuition? She's charmed by Sullivan, even considers marrying him. But something inside her tells her that Costigan is the better man. But we knew that already.
Matthew: Well, somewhere under all the tension and violence and the brutal approach to life -- or maybe alongside all those things -- there's an attempted meditation on truth and lies. "The world is full of rats" and all that. Deception on both sides of the law, and gang boss Costello saying that when you're looking down the barrel of a loaded gun, it makes no difference whether you're a cop or a criminal? But Sullivan and Costigan put the lie to that notion. They're both liars, but they're deeply different men. Sullivan is befouled by his lies, and the lies destroy his relationship with the psychiatrist -- even though she professes an understanding of "lying to keep things on an even keel." Costigan, on the other hand, tries to save the man he's lying to -- begging Costello to get out of the business. And the deception, while it doesn't befoul him, does destroy him personally.
Ernie: I think Costigan can see in Costello -- particularly when he finds out that Costello is a rat as well -- what the life of deception leads to: ever-increasing brutality, sexual depravity, paranoia, and violent death. So he returns to his initial hunch, that there is something dehumanizing about constant lying, even in the pursuit of a good end such as police work.
Matthew: Of course, they pick him for the job because he's already slightly damaged goods in that department. He's already been living a double life, playing one person during the week with his mother among the lace-curtain Irish, and another during the weekends with his father down in Southie. When the psychiatrist talks about lying to keep an even keel, he nails her -- "Oh, so one of your parents was an alcoholic?"
* * *
Matthew: It's telling that Costello takes the time to needle the priest about the sex scandals. He's a lapsed Irish Catholic, and he's letting them know that their own moral failings have let him off the hook.