The Departed: Must-See Scorsese

THIS WAS WRITTEN LAST FALL

Come February, some tear-filled actress or emotional actor or on-top-of-the-world director are going to accept Academy Awards for their work in the motion picture industry.

It's a feeling that Martin Scorsese wouldn't know. He has never won.

Not for Goodfellas: Dancing With Wolves won in 1990, with Kevin Costner nabbing best picture and director Oscars.

Nor for Raging Bull: Another actor-director, Robert Redford, won in 1980 for Ordinary People.

And Scorsese wasn't recognized, either, for one of the all-time great comedies, The King of Comedy, a satire about media and celebrity that remains as relevant (and probably moreso) than the day it was released in 1983.

He also hasn't been honored for great work in recent years for The Aviator and Gangs of New York.

That he has never won for best director or best picture -- and yet movies such as The Greatest Show on Earth and Terms of Endearment have -- kind of cheapens the Oscar a little, don't you think?


Does anybody still care two bits about Dances With Wolves? Who wants to sit through this movie again?

Yeah, didn't think so.

That's one of the key things about his movies: Like a work of Shakespeare, Scorsese's films stand the test of time and multiple viewings. Sometimes, and I suspect this may be true of his new movie The Departed, they're even better the second time.

So when Ellen DeGeneres hosts the Oscars next year, and when a winner starts gushing a la Halle Berry or Sally Field, just remember: The work of Martin Scorcese has never been honored. Nor has the directing of Alfred Hitchcock, Robert Altman, Charlie Chaplin, Orson Welles and Stanley Kubrick.

And this, my friends, cheapens the value of the Academy Award itself.

Pick up a cell phone, call a friend and go see The Departed. It's in the same league as ScorSese's all-time best.

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