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May 24, 2006
THE DEPARTED GETS A DATE AND SOME WORDS
THE DEPARTED, Martin Scorsese's remake of INFERNAL AFFAIRS, finally has a release date: October 6, 2006. It could change, but that's what it is for now, so thanks to the sharp-eyed reader who sent it in.
THE DEPARTED also gets a gift of some choice words from Christopher Doyle, Hong Kong's acclaimed cinematographer and the visual consultant on INFERNAL AFFAIRS. Saul Symonds, a writer in Hong Kong, interviewed Doyle and these are the outtakes, which are fascinating. Here's what Doyle had to say about THE DEPARTED:
"I find it disappointing if not depressing to see someone of the integrity and scholarship of Marty:
1) apparently not knowing or caring where the original originates from (which I find insulting to our integrity and efforts...when of all the filmmakers in the world Marty is the one who pretends to celebrate excellence and integrity and vision in cinematography)
2) needing to suck box office, or studio, or whoever's dick he feels he needs to suck...it can't be for the money...it can't be for the film (for the reasons above)...it must be just to work...which is mostly my motivation most of the time...but to have something fall into one's lap because one is supposedly competent in a certain kind of filmmaking is exactly why we are moving on and accountants are making non-subtitled versions of what we do.
3) it makes me very sad to see Marty and so many others genre-fying and gentrifying himself into mediocrity. Granted, mediocre is not just a Western ailment...but it would seem the disease is malign and endemic."
Quotes like this are why I love Chris Doyle. No BS, no worrying about burning bridges, just speaking his mind and not caring what the result is.
May 24, 2006 at 10:03 AM in News | Permalink
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In his New Yorker review of In the Mood for Love, David Denby averred that Christopher Doyle's cinematography abetted "a new form of perversion." Grady Hendrix discovers a release date for The Departed, Martin Scorsese's remake of Infernal Affairs, on... [Read More]
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Tracked on May 25, 2006 7:28:50 PM
Comments
Amen and God bless Mr. Doyle.
Scorsese is a hack. Always has been, always will be. Go ahead, sue me.
Rewatching his stuff years later is painful. He is Ratner with street cred. I am so sick of all of these "sixties school" filmmakers (Scorsese, Lucas, Coppola, Spielberg, et al.) getting a "pass" from critics and geeks when, taken as a whole, much of their work is only fair or poor, at best. Hollywood, you suck.
Let the battle begin...
Posted by: Wyatt Wingfoot | May 24, 2006 12:03:51 PM
WOW! Chris Doyle is my Hero! I wonder what he meant by,"...we are moving on and accountants are making non-subtitled versions of what we do." Does that mean they aren't going to use English subtitles on some of their future films? Who are these "accountants"? I'm over-reacting aren't I?
Posted by: razz | May 24, 2006 12:46:56 PM
It's pretty rich for the guy who shot the 1998 Psycho to criticize anybody on the subject of remakes.
Are people, even someone as smart as Doyle, still unclear on the fact that The Departed is not a remake of Infernal Affairs? I know it's great opportunity to bash American films and Hollywood (heaven forfend this blog should miss a single one), but it's a completely different movie. The only connection is that the producers bought the remake rightrs, and are probably legally required to put a "based on the..." credit on the film no matter how much the project has mutated.
Posted by: scott | May 24, 2006 1:07:51 PM
I went to a lecture by Doyle at the Seattle film festival a couple years ago and he described the Psycho remake as just a big "fuck you to Hollywood." Whether that makes his involvement in it okay or not is open to debate. Nevertheless, it was amusing.
Posted by: Ben | May 24, 2006 1:44:53 PM
Razz, it just meant that they're doing something original and hacks (the word he chose is "accountant") are just remaking them as by-the-numbers factory crap. It's a figure of speech.
Posted by: Gibs | May 25, 2006 2:46:48 AM
What particularly disappointed me is to read that one of "Infernal Affairs" stars, I believe it was Andy Lau, had hoped to get at least a cameo in Scorsese's film. He was told there were no parts for Chinese actors as the characters were Italian or Irish. A check of IMDb shows that this is not true, and that "The Departed" has a couple of Triad members.
I also find Scorsese's professed ignorance of "Infernal Affairs" baffling in light of his praise of John Woo well before Woo became well known in the U.S.
Posted by: Peter Nellhaus | May 25, 2006 5:43:42 AM
I do find it very disrespectful to not even know the country of origin. I mean, come one.
And that's pretty disgusting, what you said Peter. I don't mean you, I mean what you said Scorsese said. It would've been cool to have Lau in a cameo in the movie.
Posted by: Tory | May 25, 2006 8:24:25 AM
I just want to clarify that the article did not specify who told Lau that there was no role for him in Scorsese's version. I am assuming Lau was rebuffed by someone at Warner Brothers or someone designated to represent the production. I hope that Grady or someone at Variety can discuss this with Scorsese and Lau, especially as Scorsese made a point of having some of the original cast in his remake of "Cape Fear".
Posted by: Peter Nellhaus | May 25, 2006 9:44:16 AM
"I also find Scorsese's professed ignorance of 'Infernal Affairs' baffling in light of his praise of John Woo well before Woo became well known in the U.S." Not baffling at all. Scorsese became involved before the original was even released in the US. Then he made a conscious effort to avoid it. Scorsese doesn't watch films that are currently in theaters, but catches up to them later on.
Peter, what article are you talking about that said Lau tried to get a role in Scorsese's film?
BTW, is anybody bothered that this article is just ripping off the same one from December? It's from the same Saul Symonds interview... and it's 6 months old!
http://www.kaijushakedown.com/2005/12/chris_doyle_dep.html
Posted by: A | May 25, 2006 11:34:02 PM
"I do find it very disrespectful to not even know the country of origin. I mean, come one."
Ridiculous. He knew the country of origin in this interview from 2004:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/collective/audio/scorsese4.ram
Posted by: A | May 25, 2006 11:51:01 PM
Weren't his comments posted before on this site? Or is it that a big enough reaction wasn't achieved the first time around, so Doyle decided to quote himself in a new interview?
And of course Scorsese knows where the original comes from. He's mentioned it in several interviews. Separate ones.
Posted by: Calide | May 26, 2006 1:41:43 AM
"BTW, is anybody bothered that this article is just ripping off the same one from December? It's from the same Saul Symonds interview... and it's 6 months old!"
Except for the rather important fact that the "suck dick" part of the quote had been edited from the original article, and now appeares in full...
Posted by: John Doe | May 26, 2006 1:49:51 AM
True. But Doyle must love dick. Last fall, he asked "why the fuck would a great filmmaker need to suck the dick of the Academy" in another rant to Filmmaker magazine.
Posted by: A | May 26, 2006 1:59:19 AM
This is just the full version of the article with Doyle's dislike in unedited form. And Saul Symonds is attributed in both posts.
Posted by: Grady Hendrix | May 26, 2006 4:38:33 AM
well I think what Doyle is getting at about Scorsese is true. Isn't it obvious that Scorsese's making Oscar bait stuff? I had no interest in seeing Gangs of NY or Aviator. Having grown up watching Mean Streets and Taxi Driver dozens of times, it does seem to me that Scorses is trying really really hard to do something more Hollywood and/or more middlebrow and Oscar-worthy. I think he's obsessed with getting an Oscar or something.
Posted by: glenn | May 26, 2006 5:48:38 AM
Thanks, Grady. But without making that clear, it appears that it's from a new interview.
BTW, Doyle told Filmmaker magazine last year that he offered his services as consultant to Scorsese, who turned him down. So is Doyle a man of principle or merely a scorned man?
Posted by: A | May 26, 2006 9:38:45 PM
I totally agree with Chris Doyle. Scorsese is an overrated hack who thinks he's an auteur because he has made a couple of great movies (Taxi Driver basically, and that has a lot to do with the underrated Paul Schrader). He's stage managed his ascent as the "great American director" (a title that belongs to David O. Russell)by brown-nosing film history. Italian cinema - what a farce! The only thing that gives him a qualification there is not his stupid stories that he tells in his overblown dull boring lecture on Italian cinema (it's just standard Italian cinema 101) but the fact that he has slept with Isabella Rossellini. That's an achievement in itself but it's not cinema...Chris Doyle is the Real Thing. Scorsese should quit while he's ahead (wait...is he ahead? There's Coppola, de Palma, Tarantino in front)
Posted by: zero | May 29, 2006 12:26:42 AM
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