The Departed - the Movie Analysis

The Departed

       The movie The Departed, directed my Martin Scorsese fits the classical paradigm, which is a certain narrative structure that is usually preferred for fiction films. Because the classical paradigm is not a strict set of rules but rather a manual, there are some differences that can be observed from movie to movie. The Departed also has some differences than what the classical paradigm states however it fits well enough to its characteristics.

     Classical Paradigm is divided into three acts . In the first act, which is called setup, the characters are introduced and the protagonist learns about the problem. The protagonist is Billy Costigan the policeman who is a rat in the gang, the antagonist is Collin Sullivan, the member of the gang who is a rat in the police. There is another important antagonist in the movie that starts the problem and builds the conflict between the main characters, Frank Costello the gang leader.  Billy is introduced to the problem that is the gang of Costello at the beginning, as it is done in classical paradigm.  Act two the Confrontation part is where protagonist recruits allies the cops that Bill work with but also this part is where the protagonist usually feels defeated and frustrated, which is the part where Billy goes to the psychiatrist and wants to end his work.  The main conflict between the characters comes up when both characters try to find each other as the traitors.  The story builds the conflict to climax as it is done in classical, Billy and Collin facing each other.

  The part where this movie differs a little with the classical paradigm is the Acts Three.  In Resolution it is said that one of the main character loses while other wins. In this movie neither the protagonist nor the antagonist wins. While the antagonist wins at the beginning with a twist at the end the antagonist also dies, therefore both of them lose eventually.  However there is a formal closure with both of them being dead which is another characteristics of classical paradigm.  The other small difference to the classical paradigm is that the story line is not linear. We see two different stories of two characters and there are some time lapses. For example when we see Billy doing his job in another scene it jumps to Collin and continues from his story. However in general the sense of a beginning, chronological development and ending is captured.