so this is my topic on two cinematic titans, clint eastwood and martin scorcese.
this is obviously a timely topic due to the departed and letters from iwo jima, two oscar hopefuls, and their ditectors scorcese and eastwood respectively can say the same. they both make great films from raging bull to unforgiven, mystic river to taxi driver. personally, i like marty better. anyone else's thoughts?

Hi thommy,

Its a bit of a late reply to your question. Clint & Marty have very different styles of Directing. I find Scorcese's work very unsettling, grim and violent. He definitely explores the 'underbelly' of America. His world is without hope and profane; but that is not to say he does not film it brilliantly.
Eastwood OTOH makes films which have touches of humanity, mysticism and reverence; and for those reasons I prefer him as a director. I prefer his subject matter. Westerns and Drama and Warfilms are more up my street than Thrillers, Gangster Flicks and the other Scorcese territory.
I have not seen either 'Departed' or 'Letters' so I cannot say which is the better film. But Eastwood has won oscars in the past so its more fitting that Marty won this time.

Regards, Jan.

Just to add; when Scorsese does tackle 'spiritual' territory he does it very convincingly. 'Last Temptation Of Christ' is one of my all time favorite films and 'Kundun' I'm dying to see (because I have not yet). These films seem (to me) converse to his usual films, but maybe I'm not looking deep enough.
Spirituality, Philosophy, Humanism interest me no end and I would not initialy put Scorsese in that sort of camp, but Eastwood maybe.