The Departed
Martin Scorsese and Cast Talk Adapting The Departed
“Taking from the Hong Kong trilogy, Andrew Lau's film, you know, that's the device,” said Scorsese. “It's the plot. That idea. The concept of the two informers and being totally, whether I like it or not, drawn to stories that have to do with trust and betrayal. I found that I kept being drawn back to the script and to the project, so as I say, it became something else.”
Well, it’s still the story of an undercover cop and a mobster mole in the police force. Being a film scholar, Scorsese is well versed in Hong Kong Cinema. “I felt it was ok because what they do I cannot do. And I thought I have to find my own way and I think Bill [Monahan]'s script was the way. I think the microcosm that he described the people the way he described him, the way they behaved, the language they used, that all added up. I admire and respect their work so much in Hong Kong. All of Chinese cinema really, Beijing and Taiwan, that I know I can't go there, so I know I had to find my own way to go, and I realized that as I hope my next film is another remake of an Asian film. I'm only making Asian remakes anymore. 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 depicts. And then developing the script and the story along and you know the incestuous nature of the characters too that both Matt's character and Leo's character, they both have relationships with Vera's character but they never know that. But yet all the characters and then you add Jack's character and all these characters are connected in this sort of incestuous way and I thought that I just felt comfortable in that world.”
Stars Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio saw Infernal Affairs also. “We all watched it and we all enjoyed the film but I think we had to separate ourselves from it to a certain extent,” said DiCaprio. “Certainly, the construct and the skeleton of the story is pretty much, well, it's very similar in this version, but it's dealing with an entirely different underworld. It's dealing with Irish-Americans in Boston and we watched it very early on but we also had to forget a lot of those elements because we knew that we had to invent an entirely different film.”
Damon added, “I just echo what Leo said. I loved the Hong Kong film. I thought it was fantastic and I loved those Hong Kong actors. But it's about such a different culture. Boston is different even from any city here in America so it's very specific with the structure was used from the Hong Kong version but the world that Bill built around it was very specific to Boston.
Vera Farmiga waited until after filming to view the Hong Kong film. “I didn't see the film and I only saw it after my work was complete. I hear that it's a compilation of three female characters, which would have been altogether confusing for me, and I think Madelyn was going to be used in an entirely different way in this script to really illustrate the differences and the similarities of these two characters, so I just read from the script.”
The Departed opens this Friday, October 6th.
For the trailer, posters, stills and more movie info, go to The
Departed Movie Page.
Stay tuned for updates.
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