The Departed

As this very good film is from the gangster genre it is full of swearing, drug use and violence. Any Audience who watch the first few minutes of this film can straight away tell from all the violence and language that its a Gangster / Action film. The very first shot of the movie is a black screen with the Words : Boston, Some years ago. This is immediately informal and sets the tone of the movie. The next sequence of shots are snippets of fighting and police trying to control it with the non diegetic voice of Frank Costello ( Jack Nicholson ) talking about the city. The shots shown are fast changing and are a mixture of hand held cameras and medium shots. Some Music is quietly played whilst Jack Nicholson is speaking which gets louder as the sequence goes on. With him still speaking the shot changes to a medium shot of Jack Nicholson in the shadows of a garage. The mise en scene of this shot is he looks mysterious. As the commentary continues he walks slowly and casually through the garage, with the shot only showing one side of him. His sunglasses and cigarette show us that he is not someone you would want to approach. Then the non diegetic sound of him speaking and the feel good music takes over as there is a point of view shot of him walking towards a friendly looking Cafe / Diner. As he gets closer it shows a woman walking her dog and a old man reading a newspaper. This shows that it is a place welcome to anyone. He continues to walk and as he enters the cafe the man working there looks nervous and immediately stops what he was doing and gives Jack some money from the till without him even speaking. The rest of scene continues in this fashion with Jack shown as being powerful as he talks about the mans young daughter and makes the man give the young boy at the counter a bag full of food. His costumes is shown as a laid back man and the non diegetic music helps the shots flow. The positioning of Jack gives him power and the Dialogue used shows to the audience even more how the rest of the characters respect the man. A very good film and click the link to view the opening scene ...