Martin Scorsese award received Academy Award for Best Director
Scorsese returned to the crime genre with the Boston-set thriller The Departed, based on the Hong Kong police drama Infernal Affairs (which is co-directed by Andrew Lau and Alan Mak). The film continued Scorsese's collaboration with Leonardo DiCaprio and was the first time he worked with Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, and Martin Sheen.
The Departed opened to widespread critical acclaim, with some proclaiming it as one of the best efforts Scorsese had brought to the screen since 1990's Goodfellas, and still others putting it at the same level as Scorsese's most celebrated classics Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. With domestic box office receipts surpassing US$129.4 million, The Departed was Scorsese's highest-grossing film (not accounting for inflation) until 2010's Shutter Island.
The Departed earned Scorsese a second Golden Globe for Best Director, as well as a Critics' Choice Award, his first Directors Guild of America Award, and the Academy Award for Best Director. Presented with the latter, Scorsese poked fun at his track record of nominations, asking, "Could you double-check the envelope?" The award was presented by his longtime friends and colleagues Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. The Departed also received the Academy Award for the Best Motion Picture of 2006, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Film Editing by longtime Scorsese editor Thelma Schoonmaker, her third win for a Scorsese film.
Shine a Light captures rock and roll band The Rolling Stones' performing at New York City's Beacon Theatre on October 29 and November 1, 2006, intercut with brief news and interview footage from throughout their career. The film was initially scheduled for release on September 21, 2007, but Paramount Classics postponed its general release until April 2008. Its world premiere was at the opening of the 58th Berlinale Film Festival on February 7, 2008. "Marty did an amazing job of making us look great…" observed drummer Charlie Watts. "It's all in the edits and the cuts. That's a movie maker rather than a guy just shooting a band onstage… It's not Casablanca, but it's a great thing to have from our point of view, not being egotistical. It's a document."In 2009, Scorsese signed a petition in support of director Roman Polanski, who had been detained while traveling to a film festival in relation to his 1977 sexual abuse charges, which the petition argued would undermine the tradition of film festivals as a place for works to be shown "freely and safely", and that arresting filmmakers traveling to neutral countries could open the door "for actions of which no-one can know the effects."
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