DEPARTED Takes Top Oscar Honors

Martin Scorcese's crime thriller THE DEPARTED walked away from the 79th Academy Awards with 4 Oscars including BEST PICTURE, BEST DIRECTOR, BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY, and BEST EDITING. The win for Scorcese was his first ever, after a career 6 nominations to date (RAGING BULL - 1980, THE LAST TEMPATION OF THE CHRIST - 1988, GOODFELLAS - 1990, GANGS OF NEW YORK - 2002, AVIATOR - 2004, THE DEPARTED - 2006). In 2002, he lost the award to Roman Polanski's direction in THE PIANIST, and in 2004 he lost to Clint Eastwood's direction in MILLION DOLLAR BABY. Coming into this years awards season, and with 5 losses under his belt, there was no doubt in any ones mind that this would finally be the year that the Academy honored one of its finest. Scorcese, recognized as one of the most prominent directors working in Hollywood today, has been nominated in the area of BEST DIRECTOR and BEST PICTURE on his last 3 films (GANGS OF NEW YORK - 2002, AVIATOR - 2004, THE DEPARTED - 2006), and he is not showing any signs of slowing down. His next film SILENCE is already in the pipeline, and will arive in 2008; I have included the plot summing from IMDB below (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0490215/)...

"Two Jesuit priests, Sebastião Rodrigues and Francis Garrpe, travel to seventeenth century Japan under the Shogunate regime (which has isolated itself from all foreign contact) to see how the evangelical mission is going. There they witness the persecution of Japanese Christians at the hands of their own government, which wishes to purge Japan of all western influence. Eventually the priests separate and Rodrigues travels the countryside, wondering why God remains silent while His children suffer."

It definately seems like an intriguing story, especially being directed from a man that once considered a calling to the Catholic priesthood.