THE PEOPLE'S PRINCES

In Hollywood's golden age, studios turned regular men into secular gods: changing their names, hiding their flaws. But now, writes OTTESSA MOSHFEGH, the era of the remote matinee idol is over-and the dawn of the almost approachable, appealingly authentic modern actor is in full swing. Meet the new class of leading men

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There's a scene in the 2006 Martin Scorsese film The Departed that acts as a hinge in the story of modern masculinity onscreen. It goes like this:

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Billy Costigan, an undercover cop in Boston who has infiltrated the Mob. He's skinny but strong, impulsive but elegant, gaunt, tired, and smarter than everyone else. What drives him is not a hamstrung instinct to conquer or do the right thingfor him, it's personal. He is, like many of us, fueled by the fumes of his own trauma. Halfway through the film, he finds himself in over his head, his true identity under threat of total erasure.

In search of refuge, he runs in the rain to the home of Madolyn Madden, a clinical psychiatrist played by a luminous Vera Farmiga. Billy can't explain who he really is. Instead, his body tells his story. He keeps his distance, tense, lonely, aroused, unmoored.

Madolyn makes him a cup of tea, then studies him, unnerved. "I have to say, your vulnerability is really freaking me out right now," she says. "Is it real?"

Billy pauses for a second, checks himself, then answers, "I think so."

DiCaprio delivers the line with quiet surprise. We see that he has been illuminated, and so we trust that we are seeing the true man now. We recognize real vulnerability. It looks just like this. And it drives Billy toward Madolyn, his body moving like a slow whip across her kitchen. When they kiss, we nearly die. It's better than a normal kiss because Billy has been converted into a new cinematic archetype, a guy we can now recognize as the prototype of the "evolved" male star.