"Blood Diamond" and "The Departed": Boyz To Men

By Lucia Bozzola, Dec 12, 2006
It’s been nine years since Leonardo DiCaprio stood on the bow of that boat and declared himself king of the world, i.e. teenyboppers’ hearts. Quite a burden that title was. How on earth could he be taken seriously as an Ahc-tor when he was most renowned for single-handedly inspiring millions of blushing girls to part with hundreds of millions of dollars at the multiplex? He had certainly worked hard pre-Titanic to establish the thespian cred that lay behind the very pretty face. Getting abused by Robert De Niro in This Boy’s Life.

Playing a mentally challenged teen with dubious personal hygiene in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? Getting down and dirty and strung-out in The Basketball Diaries. And when he did go the heartthrob route, hey, he did it with Shakespeare in postmodern style. This was no Corey Haim, people. DiCaprio meant business. Beauty be damned. Or rather, youthful delicate beauty be damned. Then Titanic chugged into the record books and Leo became that most dreaded symbol of immature, unserious masculinity: a teen idol (oh, the horror). After that, he practically disappeared from the movies for several years. Smart boy. He needed time to finish adolescence.

Still, it hasn’t been a smooth transition to adulthood. DiCaprio made a sporting first effort with Gangs of New York (let’s all forget The Beach, shall we?). When you’re still more convincing as a teenager in Catch Me If You Can, though, it’s rather hard to claim full-blown screen manhood even if you’re in your late twenties. In this regard, his choice to do The Aviator next was inspired, and not just because he brought Martin Scorsese on board for another collaboration. Not only did he get to strut his actorly stuff as the legendarily neurotic (and priapic) Howard Hughes, but DiCaprio also got to age. On screen. He got to evolve from the boyishly enthusiastic, Jack Dawson-esque Hughes who shot Hell’s Angels in the 1920s to the tortured genius who could get it together long enough to manfully tell the Senate to go stuff it in the 1940s. The nervous breakdown interlude in between—you know, the one with all the urine bottles and the cave man hair—was like a prolonged fuck-you to the Dawson/Titanic prettiness. The adult Ahc-tor had at long last arrived.

Indeed, DiCaprio’s current turns in The Departed and especially Blood Diamond are primers on how much he is not that boy anymore. Physically, he’s no longer so wispy, and all the years of smoking and carousing have finally paid off in a few rough edges on his face. But it’s more than just looks. He’s a man, man, and don’t any of you forget it. Herewith, then, is Leonardo DiCaprio’s Guide to Achieving On-Screen Mandom in Five Easy Steps (as illustrated in The Departed and Blood Diamond):

1. Shoot Guns. As undercover cop Billy Costigan, DiCaprio packs some mean weaponry in The Departed. I mean, really, how else could he fully take over as Scorsese’s new De Niro if he doesn’t excel in one of Scorsese’s bloody mobster ballets? His facility with guns is even more impressive in Blood Diamond. Not only do we learn that smuggler Danny Archer was trained as a soldier in Angola, but we also get to see DiCaprio’s Danny in action. A lot. He manages to escape the massive rebel attack on the Sierra Leone capital, and save Djimon Hounsou’s Solomon, with the aid of only his training and a pistol. He also uses a big-ass machine gun with equal adeptness—and he never seems to waste any bullets. Yes, he can drive like hell, fight with his fists, and handle a knife, but above all, Danny possesses that one supreme movie machismo skill: he has the best aim.

2. Be a Fighter, Not a Lover. If you’re trying to overcome an image as a heartthrob, this one’s a no-brainer. Yes, DiCaprio has love interests in both films in the figures of Vera Farmiga’s Madolyn and Jennifer Connelly’s Maddy (are they mad, mad, mad to love DiCaprio?). And both play the kind of women who have no problem standing up to DiCaprio’s men before succumbing to emotion and sex. But these relationships are strictly secondary to the main conflicts (and both are neatly tucked away to the sidelines before the final showdowns). Madolyn knows that Billy suffers as a fake mobster under Jack Nicholson’s whacko boss man thumb, but he isn’t going to stop until he brings down Nicholson and/or captures Matt Damon’s fake cop Colin. Journalist Maddy gets Danny to rediscover his nearly non-existent conscience, but he isn’t going to stop until he finds that friggin’ pink J. Lo special, regardless of how many rebels armed with AK-47s and machetes he has to kill. A man’s gotta do what a, oh, you know. Nevertheless, that privileging of fighting over loving leads to…

3. Have Mental Anguish, But for God’s Sake, Don’t Dwell On It. This is interesting, because in a recent interview, DiCaprio revealed that the scenes in which he thought he did the best acting in each film were the ones in which this rule came into play. His men have emotional depth, which makes them interesting. His men don’t like to talk about it too much, which makes them men. Billy and Danny also don’t shut themselves up in dark rooms, grow their hair and nails to freakish lengths, and pee into rows of milk bottles like Howard Hughes. In The Departed, Billy visits police psychiatrist Madolyn (who knows her job is something of a paradox) because he has to, and proceeds to tell her in no uncertain terms why she should give him Valium instead of making him talk. Then he leaves and does his best to get on with his work. In Blood Diamond, Danny chokes back a few tears as he confesses to Maddy that he thinks God left humanity behind to slaughter each other long ago. Then he bucks up, gets himself together the next day, and does his best to get on with his work. Of course, since DiCaprio’s men have emotional depth, they only have one end in store.

4. Die a Noble Death (but not before nailing the bad guy). Okay, so Billy’s death in The Departed is more sudden and appalling than noble. But the motivations that got him into that sorry position were noble. Yes, he wants to catch the mole and he has to return to that dreaded rooftop because he has to continue playing his undercover part. But he’s out for blood and justice because his good paternal figure Queenan was just eliminated, and there’s no way he can let that go by. Danny’s end in Blood Diamond, though, is larded with far more golden-lit nobility. He sacrifices himself so family man Solomon and his son Dia can live. He calls Maddy to say goodbye and to tell her to publish her story. He gazes at the African soil he’ll never leave. And why can he have such closure? Because he just shot the bad daddy who made him into a venal soldier and smuggler—the kind of man who keeps the blood diamond trade going—a few moments before. Mission accomplished.

5. Use Accents. This is why this list is Leonardo DiCaprio’s Guide to Mandom, and not simply A Guide to Mandom. Whether by design or accident, Leo’s been talking funny a lot since Titanic—far more than he did before. Billy has quite the Bahston brogue, while Rhodesian-born Danny educates Maddy about “bleeng bleeng” and “bleeng baang.” Indeed, DiCaprio’s taste for accents inspired a New York Times writer to describe him as the “Meryl Streep” of his generation. Granted, being likened to a female actor may not seem like an obvious route to screen manhood. But that leaves out the full meaning of that comparison: Meryl Streep does accents and she’s really good at it. She has the ability to make you forget about the technique and focus on the character. If DiCaprio is a male Streep, then he can do that too. He’s talented and skillful enough to make Billy’s and Danny’s vocal styles a mere fact of their beings. That’s the final sign that DiCaprio has succeeded in his long transition from boy to man. He gives great performances in all senses of the word in both The Departed and Blood Diamond. He’s getting better at his craft as he gets older.

If that’s not a sign of maturity, I don’t know what is. Now let’s all hope he doesn’t age into knee-jerk hamminess like, um, Nicholson and De Niro.