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the hyperimpulsive yet hyperprecise collage assembly of The Departed, so nervy it infiltrates into some sloppy post-production ADR, from the constant parallel editing, to constant sudden music cues that repeat, cut out, cut in out of nowhere, feels *radical* as the years go by
there was a period of years where it turned me off but i've come back around on it & it's truly something to behold, i can't think of anything else quite like it.....except maybe a couple of other scorseses
the man cues up gimme shelter, cues it up again an hour later....and then RESTARTS the cue IN THE SAME SCENE for no discernable reason, it's such a mad approach
one scene will play out over a 20 minute period while 5 or 6 other scenes and/or like 50 cutaways will play out between. time is constantly juggled, but you'd never describe the film that way bc it's all always moving forward
damon's life is constantly juxtaposed against dicaprio's, heightening how alone, dire, & isolated theatter is while making us loathe damon even more. dicaprio is so alone & internalized in his predicament that these cuts speak volumes about him
basically i cannot wrap my mind around how schoonmaker did this bc it's all so insanely intricate & off-the-wall that even seeing it like a hundred times it's still hard to grasp the complexities of its assembly
some other scorsese operates like this (bringing out the dead, wolf of wall street, etc) in intricate construction & stylistic free-for-all but they all have some kind of rhythm. the departed's rhythm is that it has none, just a love for abrupt recycling
is2g nicholson walks out of the shadows 4 goddamn times in those 1st 10 minutes. he'll start to say something, dramatic pause, step out of the shadows (it's nicholson!), finish the line. this movie is out of its gourd
i saw this 3 times in theaters and, like the aviator, i put it on so much i just started falling asleep to it om the regular. it's another really fun one to have an ongoing & evolving relationship with
that final shot is SO CLEARLY not matt damon, he's not even the same build or hair color! The Departed has so much energy & piecemeal bits to burn that it's like it literally took on a life of its own, got away from the filmmakers at the finish line, & shit like this got through 
again, all of this is NOT UNIQUE within scorsese's filmography, but it maxes out in such interesting, & imo great, ways here
one last thing i'll say is that i'll never really like the nicholson performance, clearly given free rein to go as crude as he wanted with it. BUT this kind of carefully calibrated anything-goes film is exactly the place to house the sloven bluntness that jack went with
