Best Buy Steelbook on Tuesday.

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From Home Media Retailing

Scorsese Identifies With Isolation in ‘The Departed’
Author: JESSICA WOLF
[email protected]
Posted: February 6, 2007


Martin Scorsese, Oscar-nominated director of The Departed, found familiar themes in his critically acclaimed work, elements that exist both in his professional oeuvre and personal history, the director said.

The evening before he was honored with a Director’s Guild Award for The Departed, Scorsese turned out for a special screening to celebrate the upcoming DVD release of his much-lauded crime drama.

The Departed two-disc special-edition DVD arrives Feb. 13 — just a little less than two weeks before the Academy Awards ceremony — from Warner Home Video with the documentary Scorsese on Scorsese directed by Time Magazine critic Richard Schickel. In addition to Scorsese’s directing nom, the film was nominated in the best picture, best supporting actor (Mark Wahlberg), best adapted screenplay and film editing categories.

Schickel chatted with Scorsese in front of an audience prior to the screening of The Departed Feb. 4, touching on the film as well as his history in moviemaking.

There are themes of isolation and power struggles and desperation in so many Scorsese films, Schickel pointed out, asking the director if that’s what drew him to the William Monahan-penned The Departed, which is a re-imagining of a classic Hong Kong action drama, Infernal Affairs.

“I guess it goes back to the world I grew up in,” Scorsese said, recalling his childhood living in a very insulated Sicilian neighborhood in Queens where powerful men and would-be powerful men walked the streets, and where hardworking Italian immigrant families lived and spoke in the cadence of their native culture.

“Pretty much, I have more than one foot in the old world at all times,” he said.

Scorsese and Schickel touched on stories that run through the DVD documentary — stories about Scorsese’s asthmatic childhood that kept him out of sports and rowdy street games and often in the movie theaters, where Technicolor Westerns and horses caught the young boy’s imagination and influenced his early thoughts on filmmaking.

“I’ve said before, I once thought I would make Westerns,” Scorsese joked. “The closest I ever got was Gangs of New York. I made an ‘Eastern.’”

With The Departed, Scorsese knew he couldn’t tackle the film in its Hong Kong Cinema roots.

“I can’t attempt to make anything in that style, so I very reluctantly opened the script,” he said.

Monahan’s treatment of the original Chinese storyline drew the director in immediately.

“I started to visualize scenes as I got involved with the characters,” he said.

Scorsese said he originally intended to make the film an exercise in style, rattling off a list of influences including Le Samourai by Jean-Pierre Melville, noir classic The Third Man and Ashes and Diamonds by Andrzej Wajda.

“[But] the making of any film is a bastard of a situation,” he said. “As I got to know these characters and worked with the actors, I found I was stripping away style.”

The language of The Departed, the Irish-Catholic colloquialism of the characters’ dialogue, behavior and mentality, appealed to him, Scorsese said, as did the isolation of the characters.

“I’ve been very lucky to do pictures that I feel very strongly about,” he said. “Looking back, I must have been attracted to stories that have that sense of isolation I had as a kid.”

Incorrect.... it at the moment seems to be the only way to get the 2disc at best buy.... still available everywhere else.

Is there any chance that the best buy version won't have Scorsese on Scorsese?

I can't see why BB would omit the Scorsese on Scorsese doc, unless they're pulling a Battlestar Galactica Season 1 fiasco (if you recall, BB's release of BSG season 1 omitted the miniseries and several extras, but that problem has since been resolved).

I want to get the movie from Target so I get the script but when I go to order it from the website it doesn't say anything about including a script, am I going to have to go to the store and hope they have them to get a copy?

I wonder if it's actually the single-disc version packed with a Best Buy exclusive disc that is different from the second disc in the "official" 2-disc set. Hasn't that happened before?

I was thinking that that could be a possibility as well. You never know with Best Buy...that's why I still have my pre-order on Amazon saved.

Best Buys near me suck anyway...most SEs sell out in the first 6 hours. It's nuts.

I don't see why they would either, but A, maybe they got the old copies which didn't have Scorsese on Scorsese (if there even where these copies, because, it was reported that there wasn't gonna be SoS at first), and B, the BSG fiasco is exactly what I was thinking.

If it was confirmed that it was the exact 2-disc release, then I would order online off Best Buy in a heartbeat. But whatcha gonna do when they send you the 1-disc?
It's too much of a hassle to send it back (did that once with Amazon and that took forever).

Tell me about it. I'm getting my brand new HD tv and player at the end of this month, and nothing will satify me more then cutting the ribbon by watching this movie, but the stupid collector in me wants that steelbook so bad.

I got some merchandise credit at FYE, so i'll pick up the HD there and buy the steelbook at Best Buy. When will I ever learn?

Good news! the Best Buy Limited Edition Steelbook picture is up at bestbuy.com. It is nearly identical to the Futureshop Limited Edition Steelbook artwork, if not better. If you live in the USA, and wanted the Futureshop version to begin with the Best Buy version is the one to get.

so tempted...
don't know which version of the DVD i should get.

the american version with an attractive amount of bonus features or the Hong Kong import with a different set of bonus features plus an English DTS-es audio track...

i still think ppl who live in the US should buy it from their local stores instead of ordering online since you will probably end up getting the regual 2-disc version...it happened to me before with one of their exclusives....since i don't live in the US, i ordered online.hopefully i get the tin version.

In my case, I'll visit Future Shop first to make sure whether their steelbook is the one disc or two disc version. If it's the one disc, I'll go and purchase the Best Buy version.

I'm still debating which exclusive to get. I'm thinking now of getting Target's (I think having the script in the long run will be a coller item to have), but the steelbook could be cool if its like the Dark Sky's Texas Chainsaw Massacre of last year, but I have a feeling it looks like maybe a slimmer version of the King Kong tin.

A "steelbook" is the actual name of the type of packaging, which is like the Texax Chainsaw Massacre packaging that you mentioned. If it was a tin, it would say that it's a tin.

it's a steelbook not a tin, so most likely it will be like TCM:UE

Yeah, I feel dumb now, but of course...

Can't decide. BB version, besides the cover has lobby cards or mini posters, right?

Has anyone got'n just a DVD, single or double from best Buy? I ordered it and I know there shipping materials for box sets are disasterous, but was wondering how they pack just a dvd.

Hey all. So I hope I'm not breaking some geek rule but can someone just tell me where I should buy The Departed on Tuesday? I don't wanna read through 80 pages, so where is the best place to get the DVD? Is it a SE?

Go to Best Buy and fetch up the Limited Edition Steelbook version complete with the 2-disc DVD, postcards, etc.. More bang for your buck!

Does anybody know if the regular plastic DVD case comes inside the steelbook case, or is it completely different? I've never bought a steelbook case before.

No, the plastic case doesn't come inside. You open the steelbook up and on the left is an area for an insert and the right either has a space for one disc or two overlapping discs.

Oh ok. Thanks.

Dvd empire had updated their box cover page for the departed

http://www.dvdempire.com/Exec/v4_ite...or=1#topoftabs