inter‘xre‘mfl about the unfinished film
he made based on the Hour,- hrothers'
lives. which is followed try a “,lll) of the
llllll .yrtfirn a film that is so ’,()ll‘.’|ll(;lfl(]
it looks like Ht ssell himself directed it. lhe leading roles are pla,(:d by
acting twins unot (onloinedi Luke and Harry l'rearla'xxay. .‘xho rlelryer a pair of credrlile performances under the (;o~ direction of Americans Keith Fulton and l ours Pepe tic/hr, pr‘evrously documented lerr‘, Gillrarns disastrous attempt to film Don Quixote Ill Lost in la Mane/far l ulton and Pepe rnarntarn an admrrahly poker faced approach to the material. working from a script hy lony (,‘irrsonr. whose prevrous collahoratrons wrth the aforenrentronerl Gilliam on irde/ant 1' and fear and
l oat/ling Ill Las Vegt’rs give you an inkling of Just how gloriously demented his imagination is, And yet the origins of this genuinely eccentric oddity go hack to the lth‘Os and what turned out to he a very prescient novel by the grandfather of British science fiction. Brian Aldrss. It could only have been made on these shores. (Miles Fielder) I (3/ T, G/asgow; Crnewor/d Rerr/rew Street. Glasgow 8. Crri(3W()/d Edinburgh. See rate/View, page (97.
CONCf Rl MOVIE
NEIL YOUNG: HEART OF GOLD
(PG) 103min ooo
This concert film. combining the two nights Neil Young played at Nashville's legendary Ryman auditorium in August 2005 finds the Canadian troubadour in rude health and sounding as s0ulful as men. Amazingly. Young played the two gigs JLlSl a few short months after he was diagnosed wrth a potentially fatal brain aneurisrn. He was. of course. Operated on successfully, but the set- lrst. which includes a number of old favourites. showcases songs from Prairie l’l/l/ld. the album Young wrote in an awful hurry when he thOught he didn't have long to live.
Director Jonathan Dernme takes a no frills approach to filming the twrn gigs. which he seamlessly stitches together. After some brief intervrews wrth YOung and his troupe of veteran rnusrCrans. Demme Cuts right to the chase filming the performances in various stages of close up from the audience point of view. Heart of Gold
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(JANQSIE l1. IDLEWILD (15) 121 min 000
There is a tendenrr, Ill A‘r'rr:ar‘ American rinema and ,ul‘._ire ithink Chester Hrmes nomlsi to romanticise the 1930s. a world ’leriirited in Haired Nights. Cotfrx‘ Comes to Har/em and the first hour at Mauro/m X as a time of black gangsters that re\.'ol\.red around hlack husrnesses and the )a// and
I“. '2
THRILLER THE DEPARTED (18) 151 min 00.
Ghosts are always a problem for Martin Scorsese. Each film he makes is inevitably compared to his own past masterpieces, so let's start by saying that The Departed (those ghosts are even in the title now) is not as good as Taxi Driver, Raging Bull or Goodfellas. In those, Scorsese led the way, forging his own style and morality. Now, at 64, he's doing remakes, here taking on the fabulously twisted and flashy Hong Kong triad thriller, Infernal Affairs.
But there's an odd feeling that something isn’t quite right throughout The Departed, like when a favourite T- shirt comes out of the wash and you're not sure if it has shrunk a bit or you’ve put on weight. It’s still a pretty good T-shirt though.
This is a gangland tale, set in Irish-American Boston (a move that feels forced, as if Marty thought that as long as he doesn’t do Italians, people won’t notice we’ve been here before) where Jack Nicholson’s Frank Costello rules the underworld like an overweight devil. He’s planted a mole (Matt Damon) high up in the police force. But the cops - led by an overweight Martin
swing scene. lhese films ’J'l‘wl r2. 7. t; deal ‘.‘.’|lll the ramrar when Oscar Mi(,lteaux
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Sheen and an over acting Mark Wahlberg — have placed a rat (Leonardo DiCaprio) high up in Costello’s mob.
The device worked in Hong Kong, a sort of ying/yang structure that suited the oriental setting. Scorsese’s efforts to mould the situation into a more Catholic struggle between good and evil aren’t quite as successful, although the director’s familiar themes of what man will do to survive are reassuringly in place.
Indeed, while Damon and DiCaprio have never been better - at last Leonardo finds a role that suits his youthful energy! Nicholson, in his first collaboration with Scorsese, is at his worst, desperately trying to steal every scene with Lucifer-like tricks. I found myself wishing it was De Niro or Day Lewis in the part. Those ghosts again.
And yet The Departed slithers along like a rat, hooking us right to the very last shot, and there are several superb set pieces along the way. It’s in these moments when Michael Ballhaus’ camera glides over unspeakably violent acts to a rocking soundtrack, that you know you’re in ScorseseWorld and that there’s still nowhere on planet cinema quite like it.
(Jason Solomons) I General re/ease from Fri 6 Oct.
’3— "9 Q'.’ 2710‘; THE LIST 39