• If you are trying to find films like Chinatown you could do a lot worse than Edward Norton’s Motherless Brooklyn
  • Norton is director, writer and lead actor- playing a character with Tourette syndrome and also the narrator
  • The film is set in 1957 and has a very talented cast and crew. It is shot by Dick Pope (coming off career high-water mark Mr. Turner just a few years before), a cast that includes Willem Dafoe, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Bruce Willis, Alec Baldwin, Bobby Cannavale among others. There’s even a song or two (that don’t really mesh with the period) from Radiohead’s lead man Thom Yorke
  • A few absolute jaw-droppers of the Brooklyn Bridge at night
A few absolute jaw-droppers of the Brooklyn Bridge at night
  • During the opening when Willis is accosted there is some great shadow, soft-focus and lighting work
  • Greens galore in the hand-picked set design—a clear dedication to superior visual filmmaking—from clothes on the characters to small details of a file or notebook. It is beautiful- like a Todd Haynes film
  • The development of a city, gentrification, plus the private-investigator, the rape metaphor by Baldwin’s Noah Cross-like character. You combine that with the trumpet jazz score and yep- this is Chinatown or Roget Rabbit
The development of a city, gentrification, plus the private-investigator, the rape metaphor by Baldwin’s Noah Cross-like character. You combine that with the trumpet jazz score and yep- this is Chinatown or Roget Rabbit
  • Stand-alone stunners, like the shot off the ornate ceiling in the old library or the shot off the puddle
  • I couldn’t find it here unfortunately but the best shot in the film is a dissolve at the 77 minute mark as Norton’s character uses drugs to cope with his condition and then blends his face with the Brooklyn bridge—gorgeous
  • Drops into a POV camera for some reason to take a beating in an alley- didn’t care for that change
  • The green-laden pool and tile finale setting- another inspired example of leaning on the color motif and giving us a dedication to a rich background to enjoy while an intelligent script and great speech about power is at the foreground
The green-laden pool and tile finale setting- another inspired example of leaning on the color motif and giving us a dedication to a rich background to enjoy while an intelligent script and great speech about power is at the foreground
  • Recommend but doesn’t land in my top 10-15 of 2019