It was disappointing tonight to see The Departed and Martin Scorsese win Best Picture and Best Director. I know that’s against the grain; these were universally predicted. Then again, Phil in Little Rock and other critics were taken with the German movie The Lives of Others, which did take its category Best Foreign Film.
That has not come to Fayetteville yet — I’m surprised enough to have screened Volver (will get to Pan’s Labyrinth this week or next but missed Last King of Scotland which came and went in two weeks — with Whitaker’s win it should return though) here.
I enjoyed The Departed , but a Best Picture should go to a remarkable film that leaves you thinking. Here you had interestng dialogue and colorful characters, and the good guys win in the end, barely, but “so what” was the taste left. The comedy Little Miss Sunshine left one contemplative — and is the best show I saw in theaters this year — but I’m not sure it had that Best Picture sheen.
The Departed was an everyday cops-and-crooks flick, brilliantly done. Take a solid screenplay (adaptation of a good foreign film) to an experienced director with the best actors, and you get this. Scorsese is not dying, looked healthy this evening, and has masterpieces left in him, like another Taxi Driver. If he did have feebleness in the near future, there’s the lifetime achievement Oscar, as was given Robert Altman last year. That’s what it’s for. That leaves one to say what should have won. I would have wanted to see something given to Ripples in the Cement or A Cod for Wally.
All in all, though, what was my choice for Best Picture and Director (since they usually but not always go to the same show)? The Thinker by Auguste Rodin. Augie, like Marty, has never won in a long and rock-solid career, with an international reputation. And this picture should wear like bronze, with a patina of age. It has moments of wit but ultimately a profound, universal message in its story of a man who wants to get off his behind and finally do something, yet never manages to. -30-
