THE DEPARTED: The Letter-X Rated Version
With THE DEPARTED - nominated for five Academy Awards -- is back in movie theaters, the Miami Herald's film critic Rene Rodriguez took the time to obsesses about Boston gangster drama. In Rene's blog Reeling, he writes that director Martin Scorsese, in homage to SCARFACE (1932) put the the sign, design and letter X throughout the film --- and he's got the screengrabs to prove it.
How sharp and tense each image is--gorgeous if you follow the actors' eyelines - or the direction they are moving - you can see how the X's help to guide your eye and make each frame balance.
As has been discussed at length elsewhere, the film is based on the screenplays of the three Hong Kong-made INFERNAL AFFAIRS crime dramas written by Andrew Lau. Journalist turned novelist turned screenwriter William Monahan spoke to the Associated Press about his Oscar-nominated screenplay, the possible sequel and dialogue that was cut from the film
The DVD is due out Feb. 13.