Michael Clayton

[w/o horse]

Now, I always associate together character pieces and nimble stories, as in a strong character film should result in an ending that comes directly from the protagonists who are unfolding along with the story, and the result, at its best, should be a conclusion that seems to be the desperate act of the main lead.  Why I think Michael Clayton fails for me, and why it must succeed for others, is because his character is transparent from that first scene.  What I see as a long slow and obvious burn out others see as a series of confrontations rising in dramatic relevance until that final payoff, and what I can relate to is an appreciation for the acting and an appreciation for the filmmaker whose intention was to successfully manipulate the audience, but why this whole movie is a failure for me is because I can see the hand moving the story, I can sense what is being hidden from me, all the way through, and in the end I discover not that I am a clever film viewer who has impressive foresight but that every element that was necessary to bring me to the final point was precisely what I thought it was.  I'm saying the film has huge fucking road signs telling me where it's headed and that I don't think movies like that are any fun, I don't think they're very imaginative, and I certainly don't think they're lifelike.  Why I don't think it's lifelike is because I don't think Clayton is a fully developed character (even if he is a strong character...which I also don't think he us, I think probably the characters around him are what make him seem strong) who is capable of making free choices within his story.  So what's for me to take from this?  The acting?  I remember the old joke about how Stephen King's laundry list would become a best seller.  Maybe George Clooney's would too.  If he acted it.

[Gold Trumpet]

One of the best films of last year. I can't believe I skipped it the two times it came to my theater. Originally I had little interest in the film, but it was fascinating and a lot of fun to watch. It's a great film that can stand with Alexander Revisited and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly as great works of the last year.

The plot matters very little. There are a few associations with John Grishman, but those associations are only the recognizable elements of story and plot we have come to know in legal films. The elements of right and wrong and also the matter of plot twist seem to act as understood and accepted parts of the film genre. Even if you can predict how the film will end I don't think it's that important. The film has little interest to play into those conventions. The film does not start to look like a thriller, the plot doesn't become convoluted, and the end isn't hinged on an unrealistic chase.

The greatness of the film is in how it maintains its realism through out. It is a character study of Michael Clayton. We do get a somewhat explanatory ending, but the film maintains its idea of character and story. Michael Haneke also plays with genre stories and combusts them to look like similar character studies. Haneke does so because he is interested in specific topics within the film. Tony Gilroy allows the greatness of his writing to work itself from within the story.

Unlike Haneke, he is more interested in the realism of the situation. The ideas of who Michael Clayton are and what he represents trickles through out the film. The analogy to differentiate both filmmakers is that Haneke represents a method actor's approach to the story. He starts out with his ideas of theme and allows the story to work around it. Gilroy represents classical British acting. He works from within the conventions of the story and allows the ideas to slowly come out.

Gilroy's directing is also excellent. I've noticed a lot of films have a very hard time trying to film dialogue driven stories. They don't understand whether to respect the actors and shoot the film like it was a performance or to take total liberty with all the performances. Gilroy understands his need is to separate the camera and the actors. His first job is to set up a compositional eye with his camera that will guide the rhythm and pace of the story. He allows a lot of the dialogue to be dubbed over well shots scenes of character interaction and scenery. It helps the realism in the film because we are privy to an investigative eye into the world of the characters. Then Gilroy is always logical when to bring the camera back to the actors and be quiet with the scenes.

When Lindsay Anderson made This Sporting Life, he also had a film that had large amounts of dialogue. He also had a film devoid of classical time structure. The great innovation he did is that he allowed the camera to be its own dictator of rhythm and movement. It allowed the audience to watch the film on a second level. People sometimes forget how the most interesting films of cinematography also have the most basic camera set ups in the world. It allows the audience to focus on the story and filmmaking on the same level of thinking because both predicate each other for dramatic punches.

Anderson and Gilroy allow the their filmmaking tones to be completely separate. The audience doesn't have the standard cues when to focus in on a scene. Doing this isn't always successful though either. Sometimes you run the risk of obscuring everything in the story like Paul Thomas Anderson did with There Will Be Blood, but Gilroy keeps the right balance in Michael Clayton.

[SiliasRuby]

yeah yeah yeah GT, we get it. You enjoyed it but will it beloved? J/k of course.

[pete]

spoilers everywhere.



just saw this last night, was really tired so I saw the second half again when I woke up this morning just to keep track of the film.  It had a good plot, but there were parts to the film that were pretty unconvincing.  sometimes there were specific quotes that just sounded phony and out of place, but "lawyer thriller-esque".

I could recallr two off of the top of my head, the first one was about how lawyers think he's a cop and cops think he's a lawyer.  the second one was something about the case reeks from day one, "do you need me to tell you how we pay rent around here" or something like that.    and then the ending too, how he got the bad lady to say those words outloud, and then he showed his phone.  it was a trick done 100 times and it was particularly unconvincing.  I just don't believe a cunning lawyer would talk like that.  I also didn't buy the kid.  there were all these little thriller moments like that.

it was a good mystery, but felt pretty superficial.  the weight was provided mainly by the great actors, but the script, while brilliant at connecting one discovery to the next, remained too self-contained (too concerned with delivering a good thriller) to really provide a convincing sketch of greed, desperation, temptation, or whatever other flahes that might be relevant that a Michael Mann or even a Billy Ray film would.  the ending also depended too much on one happy coincidence for me to feel completely immersed.  but I think I'm overtalking.  the film did put me in one character's head through a very entertaining length.