Comments on: On "The Departed:" Honor, Identity & Dignity

By: thag

thag — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 05:04:30 +0000

And believe me, being a neo-con makes the good/evil conflict tougher than ever to deal with and justify!

By: thag

thag — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 05:03:00 +0000

Ashok:

As you know I recently wrote on this movie, and just ran across this…I wanted to ask you about a couple things.

The French Revolution dealt with, maybe not the idea of pure evil, but guys like Robespierre certainly felt that aristocratic members of the regime ancienne couldn’t live in the new society because they were corrupted (this leads to the mass killings of the Terror to ‘purify’ France). I think that we as Americans tend to reject this idea and believe that men can rise from evil to goodness. As I tried to show, Costello’s gripe with the civil rights movement at the very start of the film seems at least ostensibly to indicate some sort of motivation to simply ‘survive,’ as you point out — we all hope this is true, not wanting to face the ugly truth. Does my idea run into problems? You do sort of get the idea that Costello feels law is unjust — until you find out hes an FBI guy…

By: Observations from Missy’s Window » Movie Monday “The Twisted Adventures…”

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 16:02:56 +0000

[...] presents On “The Departed:” Honor, Identity & Dignity posted at Rethink.. “*spoiler alert* Our modern tendency is to think a cop is the exact same [...]

By: amanda

amanda — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 23:20:00 +0000

I'm going to agree with Gracchi. I'm glad that you wrote out the analysis from this perspective. It may have been apparant at some subconscious level, but the space between honor and self-identity was certainly nowhere near the front of my thoughts when I saw this movie.

Honor has always seemed a particularly strange and foreign concept to me. Who cares what others think of you when you know that you've been right- says I. Maybe that stems from having had a few too many enemies and lies spread.

So, having no honor myself, but a health does of dignity, and an only sometimes confused sense of self... I just never "got" honor.

It doesn't really matter, though. That's got little to do with the movie, does it?

By: Daniel Owen

Daniel Owen — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 01:50:00 +0000

I didn’t like that movie.

By: Gracchi

Gracchi — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 13:36:00 +0000

Good review. I’m glad you cast this in these terms because it made the film more interesting for me.

By: Josh

Josh — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 23:25:00 +0000

Dear Hellen Keller,
I would have sent this with a sound bite but I have recently realized that you are blind, def, and unable to type with thoes club hands. Perhaps, you have gotten yourself placed in that room with many door nobs.

By: Josh

Josh — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 23:29:00 +0000

Ashok,
All of the protests at Gallaudet University will fall on def ears!