Capo
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Posts: 7,847
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Post by Capo on Apr 25, 2008 23:48:29 GMT
Michael Clayton Tony Gilroy 2007 | USA
An in-house fixer for a law firm, high in gambling debts, decides to help an old colleague who is suffering from a nervous breakdown. An engrossing and intelligent character study driven by an overall, lingering feeling of understatement. Gilroy, writer of the get-on-with-it-without-patronising-the-audience Bourne trilogy, directs his own script with much confidence; it's full of alluring moments of subtlety (narrative balance and consistency help; it's certainly well-edited). Clooney's compelling central performance drives it along, surrounded too by a host of other talent (Swinton, Wilkinson and Pollack are all on top form). Elswit's cinematography is skilled and measured - a lesson in depth of field and focus-pulling, as actors are shot against blurred-out urbanscapes of distant lights and vertical building frames, gray and prison-like, as the people inhabiting them struggle to live lives beyond their ruthless and impassioned work. The case it depicts might be a chin-stroker but for how much it gains from the moments of insight Gilroy offers into Clayton as a character: a divorce, a gambling addiction, an estranged brother, the strains of fatherhood; the final image recalls Bob Hoskins at the end of The Long Good Friday, though with a much more resolved tone.
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Post by svsg on Apr 26, 2008 0:15:09 GMT
I don't know if the horse scene was something to do with his son's illustration, but it was beautiful nevertheless.
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