A nicely put David Poland/MCN copy link — “a Bosley Crowther moment?” — went up a while ago regarding this John Patterson Guardian piece about Martin Scorsese and The Departed . Patterson trashes the film and harumphs that “after an enormously fulfilling relationship of nearly 30 years, it may be all over for me and Scorsese [since] I cannot decently call The Departed ‘a return to form’, which seems to be the prevailing opinion.” It’s perfectly fine to roll with your own opinion in whatever direction, but that’s what Crowther was doing when he (a) praised Cleopatra, (b) questioned the appropriateness of mocking the defense estab- lishment in Dr. Strangelove and then (c) trashed Bonnie and Clyde.
