The Departed: New Yorker Films

• New Yorker Films, 1965-2009.

Founded in 1965 by Dan Talbot, New Yorker has a legendary legacy, boasting a long-standing track record in international film distribution, bringing a staggering number of international auteurs to this country’s movie theaters over more than four decades. The company’s crucial role in establishing a lasting film culture in this country cannot be underestimated. A New York Times profile in 1987, marking a 14-week salute to the company at New York’s Public Theater, listed an illustrious roster of filmmakers whose films were released by the company: Ackerman, Bertolucci, Bresson, Chabrol, Fassbinder, Fellini, Godard, Herzog, Kieslowski, Malle, Rohmer, Rossellini, Sembene, Wenders, Schlondorff, and many others.

The Departed: James Whitmore

• James Whitmore, 1921-2009.

The frame capture below is from Them! [1955], a seminal example of 1950s science fiction at its finest. It's also an object lesson in Whitmore's onscreen appeal: generous, reliable, and never less than watchable.

Mr. Whitmore’s acting career spanned six decades and included dozens of films, countless television shows and a handful of Broadway credits, including his solo efforts.

Besides the one in “Battleground,” his film roles included a hunchback diner owner and sometime criminal in John Huston’s “Asphalt Jungle” (1950); a lightfooted thug who, with Keenan Wynn, dances and sings his way through “Brush Up Your Shakespeare” in “Kiss Me Kate” (1953); a white journalist who disguises himself as a black man in "Black Like Me" (1964); a police inspector who may be up to no good in “Madigan” (1968); Admiral William F. Halsey in “Tora! Tora! Tora!” (1970), and an elderly convict and prison librarian in “The Shawshank Redemption” (1994).

The Departed: Kim Manners

• Kim Manners, 1950-2009.

Manners was a fixture of The X-Files, particularly in its earlier, stronger seasons. He was the inspiration for a foulmouthed sheriff in the Darin Morgan-scripted episode "Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'", which has my vote for the show's finest hour.

Manners, always one to take a weird angle on the obvious, had decided to shoot the scene at shoelace level — literally. He lied down in a puddle of cold, dank water on the cold, hard cement floor of the parking garage floor and arranged the camera dolly track so that the camera would tilt up from Davis' shoes as the Cigarette-Smoking Man dropped a lit cigarette down toward the camera and then angrily stubbed it out of his toe. Manners laughed easily, and he could curse a blue streak that would put Gordon Ramsay to shame.

He could be demanding to work for — David Duchovny once told me it took him a long time to warm to Manners, who joined The X-Files in its second, some say best season, just as the genre-bending drama was finding its feet and starting to really push the boundaries of what thriller TV could do, in the same way Rod Serling's Twilight Zone did a generation earlier.

Manners' IMDB credits.

The Departed: Laserdisc

• Laserdisc, 1978-2009.

It was a good run while it lasted.

Originally known as DiscoVision and LaserVision, the 12-inch optical videodisc format was developed by MCA and Philips. The first consumer player wore the Magnavox logo, though Pioneer eventually became the format's champion, giving it the proprietary name LaserDisc, which became the generic format name laserdisc.

Laserdisc output an analog NTSC signal, and is therefore as obsolete as the doomed analog broadcast standard. It was never a high-def format. There were two subformats, the higher-quality CAV, which held 30 minutes per side, and the more capacious and prevalent CLV, which held an hour per side. Two-hour, two-sided discs in CLV became the norm. Most discs were released with audio in a pretty decent two-channel FM-carrier format, which carried matrixed Dolby Surround, and was eventually upgraded to PCM digital. This allowed LD/CD combi players to be marketed. In the format's waning years, Dolby Digital and DTS were added.

The laserdisc won a three-way format war with two other major disc formats, both of which, incredibly, were stylus-read like an LP. CED was invented and promoted by RCA, then an independent company, and the loss of the format war—along with tens of millions of dollars—was a major factor in turning RCA from an independent company to a TV brand that got passed around like a shopping bag. There was also a VHD format from JVC, which also went nowhere, but did so less expensively. Laserdisc won because consumers perceived greater performance and value in an optical-disc format.

The Departed: Ricardo Montalbán

• Ricardo Montalban, 1920-2009.

I was genuinely saddened to hear of Montalban's passing. What an extraordinary career this man had. Just look at his credits. And by all accounts, he seemed to be every bit the class act he appeared.

Harry Knowles' moving reminiscence of meeting Montalban during the production of Spy Kids 2 is a must-read.

Pauline Kael's appreciation of Montalban in her review of Star Trek II:

Montalban is unquestionably a star in "The Wrath of Khan" (and his grand manner seems to send a little electric charge through Shatner). As a graying superman who, when foiled, cries out to Kirk, "From Hell's heart I stab at thee"," Montalban may be the most romantic smoothie of all sci-fi villains. Khan's penchant for quoting Melville, and Milton (which goes back to "Space Seed"), doesn't hurt. And that great chest of Montalban's is reassuring -- he looks like an Inca priest -- and he's still champing at the bit, eager to act; he plays his villany to the hilt, smiling grimly as he does the dirty. (He and his blond-barbarian followers are dressed like pirates or a six-ties motorcycle gang.) Montalban's performance doesn't show a trace of "Fantasy Island." It's all panache; if he isn't wearing feathers in his hair you see them there anyway. You know how you always want to laugh at the flourishes that punctuate the end of a flamenco dance and the dancers don't let you? Montalban does. His bravado is grandly comic. Khan feels he was born a prince, and in all the uears that he was denied his due (because of Kirk, in his thinking) his feelings of rage have grown enormous. They're manias now; nothing can stop him from giving in to them. His words and gestures are one long sigh of relief -- he's letting out his hatred. This man, who believes that his search for vengeance is like Ahab's, makes poor pompous Kirk even more self-conscious. Kirk is Khan's white whale, and he knows he can't live up to it -- he's not worthy of Khan's wrath. [From The New Yorker, June 28, 1982.]

The Departed: Claude Berri

• Claude Berri, 1934-2008.

Berri got a good number of worthy films off the ground as a producer (Tess, The Bear, Queen Margot), as well as racking up a respectable list of credits as an actor (he popped up in Rivette's Va savoir? as a librarian) and director (Germinal, Jean de Florette, Manon of the Spring).

From the Variety obit:

Known in France for his commercial instincts, Berri produced films including Roman Polanski’s “Tess” and Milos Forman’s “Valmont,” as well as films by Eric Rohmer, Jean-Jacques Annaud and Costa-Gavra.

As a director, his films included “Jean de Florette” in 1986 and “Manon des Sources” (“Manon of the Spring”), both adapted from Marcel Pagnol’s vision of the French countryside. Other directing credits include “Lucie Aubrac,” “Germinal” and “Tchao Pantin.”

A producer for more than 60 films, Berri had two major box office successes in his later years. “Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis” (Welcome to the Sticks) was 2008’s box office phenomenon in Gaul. The comedy starring Dany Boon and Kad Merad sold over 20.4 million tickets in France -- the most ever for a French film.