Rewatched The Departed, first time in years. Thought it was Scorsese doing Scorsese the first time, and it *kind* of is. But it's brilliantly crafted & fits perfectly into his crime oeuvre (cops as Boston's largest gang) and his anthropological epics about cities (GoNY, BotD, Age of Innocence).

This is just beautiful. Sincere but understated. You can feel the ache of loss. Scorsese is as good a writer as he is a director and actor. My house is full of books that he contributed essays, forewords, and introductions to, and every one is a gem.

Like Scorsese, Spielberg should be uncredited co-author of every movie, IMO. He's intimately involved in architecture of the story, either from the ground up or during rewrites, and finally on set, where he improvises entire setpieces on the fly.

Definitely. For instance (as per Richard Martin et al), Achilles talks like a poet - and he's born of both divine and mortal parents. Conversely, multiple, poly Odysseus is also in some ways single-minded; the epithet "polytlas", much-enduring/ resilient/ patient, speaks to that goal-oriented focus.