The Departed

‘The Departed’ was directed by Martin Scorsese and written by William Monahan. The movie was released into the UK on the 6^th of October 2006. The lead role was played pay Leonardo DiCaprio - Billy Costigan, followed by; Matt Damon - Colin, Jack Nicholson - Costello and Mark Wahlberg – Dignam. The movies genre is a crime, drama and thriller.

The reasons that the film is typical thriller is because it includes the police, guns, deaths, blood, high tense music, criminals, murderers and so on. In the beginning of the film Billy’s flaw is his background. He is immediately underestimated because of his uncle’s bad history, his failure for a father, and childhood. This immediately exposes his faulty history; and causes Dignam and his boss ‘Martin Sheen’ to question him intensely.

This film had extreme elevated tension. It created suspense in every scene where Leonardo ‘DiCaprio’ was present. It always caused the audience to anticipate closer and closer waiting for Billy to get caught out or exceedingly close to being caught out. This caused nerve wracking tension throughout the whole movie, never ending excitement throughout.

The film was constantly concentrating on Billy’s undercover status and one step closer for his true identity to be revealed. Every time he came face to face with Costello, you could tell that he was unbelievably nervous, frightened and heart wrenched permanently.

Billy experiences very horrific situations; for instance, where someone’s hand has been cut off for disloyalty by Costello. At this stage Billy looks like he is going to vomit but can’t because if he shows any sign of distress, this illustrates that he is hiding something and that’s where he will be the vulnerable character. When Billy left, he got rid of the wire he was strapped with straight away because of how terrified he was.

The final scene had the most unexpected occurrence anyone could have seen coming. Once Billy apprehended Colin – ‘Matt Damon’ on the roof top and made his way down through the elevator, you would have thought it was going to be a long argument, but the second the elevator doors revealed Billy’s face, he was shot right in the middle of his forehead, and a large his blood remained on the back of the elevator. This left the audience speechless; the man that rescued him who was also a corrupted policeman. Colin then shot him in the head and an innocent policeman who showed up. When he got home Dignam – ‘Mark Wahlberg’ shot Colin in the head. This had to be the most shocking turn of events anyone could have ever expected.

The conclusion of the film contained a lot of parallel sound. The reason for this is because of all the deaths that took place. After Colin - ‘Matt Damon’ was killed right at the end, sad music played as the camera panned up his body and concentrated on the view of the church. At the beginning of the movie, Colin was a child and as he grew up he attended church as a believer. That’s the basis on which he bought the apartment; and that’s the core of his dishonesty as well as the cause of his death in front of the church that he was raised upon.

The fact that the movie was named ‘The Departed’ is because the three main characters all departed. The result of the title only takes effect on the viewer after the movie ends.

From this movie we have learned how to improve our own film sequence. We will use these techniques in order to perfect our production. We will do this by using a number of different tactics such as black wipes to reveal a larger location. What was effective about the film was how they reflected the lives of two completely different characters who were after the exact same thing.

We wish to relate all the characters in our sequence as they did in 'The Departed'. One of these may be when there is a voice over and related terminology in accordance with what is going on, and if we can do this then we would be able to attract the viewer and create curiosity.

There was excellent Mise-en-Scene used in this film. The main parts are involved where Billy is witnessing a chopped off hand being thrown around like it's it a tennis ball. This shows how deeply disturbed Costello really is and how he couldn't care less.

The lighting that was used throughout the film was quite dim and very short amounts of time were shot in the day as the most effective scenes were shot at night. Such as the scene where Billy is almost caught out in the warehouse where a deal is being made.

There were some very good edits used in the film. I particularly liked the scene where Billy was in the middle of a busy junction and the shot began with a small circle showing his upper body and then zoomed out with a wipe to reveal his surroundings.

Sound was very effective during this film. There was a lot od Non-diagetic sound used such as the soundtrack used while Billy was in prison and Colin was graduating from the state police force.

The films primary target audience would be from 18 to whenever due to the mixture of a great story and acting. There are 4 great actors with 4 great parts.