A Long Documentary on Martin Scorsese
The best bonus material in the DVD set is "Scorsese on Scorsese," an hour-and-a-half documentary made for Turner Classic Movies by Richard Schickel. This is a long interview in which Scorsese talks about his life and work. For example, he describes his upbringing in New York's Little Italy: "There was always tension—none of this business of happy immigrants jumping and dancing and doing tarantellas." But he saw lots of films as a youth, both Hollywood genre movies and foreign titles, and he specifically mentions Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal.
The bulk of the documentary consists of Scorsese discussing a dozen or so of his own films, which are illustrated with clips. He makes some interesting remarks about the relationship between his life and his most famous movies, Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980) and GoodFellas (1990). But in many ways, he's more illuminating when he talks about Mean Streets (1973), Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974), The King of Comedy (1983), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), Cape Fear (1991), The Age of Innocence (1993), Kundun (1997) and Gangs of New York (2002).
The documentary traces the long road Scorsese has traveled from the rawness of Who's That Knocking at My Door (1967) to the slickness of The Aviator (2004) and ends with a recent TV commercial he appeared in for American Express.
Featurette About Scorsese and Violent Crime Dramas
The DVD set provides a 24-minute featurette "Crossing Criminal Cultures" that is worth watching despite its cryptic title. The principal talking heads in it are Scorsese, Rolling Stones film critic Peter Travers and a forensic psychologist. Scorsese is depicted as growing up in Little Italy surrounded by crime and violence, absorbing old gangster films like The Public Enemy (1931) and White Heat (1949), and going on to direct mob movies like GoodFellas (1990) and Casino (1995). While The Departed deals with slightly different material—both cops and mobsters of Irish descent—Scorsese's previous experience was close enough to enable him to make yet another outstanding film.
In this featurette Scorsese mentions an interesting musical reference. When Frank Costello goes to the opera in The Departed, he hears the sextet from Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, the same piece that Paul Muni's character whistles in Scarface (1932).
Deleted Scenes
The DVD set contains nine scenes that were either deleted or shortened in the finished film, and before each of these Scorsese appears briefly on camera and explains his reasons for cutting it. Some of these scenes are quite good, but were deleted or tightened to improve pacing. This bonus material runs about 19 1/2 minutes.
DVD Details
Below I've listed the DVD details for the Two-Disc Special Edition of The Departed.
Release Date: February 13, 2007
Number of Discs: 2
Widescreen (2.40:1), Color
Feature Film Run Time: 2 Hours 31 Minutes
MPAA Rating: R for Strong Brutal Violence, Pervasive Language, Some Strong Sexual Content and Drug Material
English 5.1 Dolby Digital
French 5.1 Dolby Digital
Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital
English Subtitles
Spanish Subtitles
French Subtitles
"Stranger Than Fiction" (21 min.)
TCM Profile "Scorsese on Scorsese" (1 hr. 26 min.)
"Crossing Criminal Cultures" (24 min.)
Additional Scenes (9) With Scorsese Intros (19 min.)
Theatrical Trailer
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