Two Movie Scenes

1. The scene in "The Departed" when Jack Nicholson as the gangster Costello sits down beside Leonardo DiCaprio as the deep undercover agent William Costagin for the first time. It is at a lunch counter in a corner store in South Boston. One of the most melancholy yet joyful songs ever written, "Let It Loose," by the Rolling Stones plays -- the ragged sounding electric guitar wavers through an effects pedal like a prizefighter bloodied but not beaten. The piano engages the guitar almost as a dance partner – a step forward, one backward, locking arms, an embrace, a release. We feel, at this moment, all the longing of these two men crystallized to a point. Each has pursued his own truth by means of a lie.

2. The scene in "Heat," directed by Michael Mann, when the criminal Robert De Niro sits down to speak with the detective Al Pacino for the first and only time. They share a cup of coffee at a large roadside diner outside of Los Angeles. We sense that there is, somehow, love and respect between these two men. It is tragic they will never be able to become friends; their destiny is to live as enemies and, we sense, to pursue the logical end of this enmity: the death of the other. Their contrasting destinies are shown in their exchange --

Pacino: Don't you want to live a normal type life?

DeNiro: What do you mean by a normal type life? Ballgames and barbecues?

Pacino: Yeah. Ballgames and barbecues.

DeNiro: No. No.