Burn After Reading - Who Is Burning Their Fingers Here?

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
German title Burn After Reading - Who Is Burning Their Fingers Here?
Original title Burn After Reading
Burn after reading.svg
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 2008
length 96 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
JMK 12
Rod
Director Ethan and Joel Coen
script Ethan and Joel Coen
production Ethan and Joel Coen
Tim Bevan
Eric Fellner
music Carter Burwell
camera Emmanuel Lubezki
cut " Roderick Jaynes "
occupation

Burn After Reading - Who Is Burning Their Fingers Here? is an American crime comedy from 2008. Directed by Ethan and Joel Coen , who also wrote the script, produced the film and edited the film under their common pseudonym Roderick Jaynes .

action

The aging CIA analyst Osbourne “Ozzie” Cox resigns because he is accused of having a drinking problem and is trying to relocate him to an insignificant position . His wife Katie, who cheats on him with the former bodyguard Harry Pfarrer, then seeks a divorce. In order to collect incriminating material against her husband, she copied all kinds of data from Ozzie's computer onto a CD for her lawyer. This includes drafts for a book with his memoirs , which Ozzie has since started. The attorney's secretary loses the disk while moving at the gym. The data CD comes into the possession of the naive studio employee Chad Feldheimer, who holds the content for top secret intelligence. His colleague Linda Litzke convinces him to blackmail the ex-CIA man. In this way she hopes to get financing for several planned cosmetic operations that her health insurance does not want to pay for. However, the Cox they contacted makes it clear that he is not willing to trade under any circumstances. Linda persists and drives Chad to the Russian embassy to work on a deal. The CIA receives wind of this through a liaison man at the embassy, ​​but initially they only want to observe what is going on there and not take action. Meanwhile, Katie's lover Harry and Linda get to know each other through an Internet dating site, and he also begins an affair with her.

In a failed break-in into Cox's house, Chad is surprised by Harry while searching for further sales information and is accidentally shot. Harry makes the body disappear. Linda persuades her secretly in love boss, Ted, to look for Chad and other dates. Meanwhile, Harry learns of his wife's plans to divorce - who is also cheating on him - and turns to Linda for comfort, who in turn asks him to look for Chad, who has disappeared without a trace. But when she gives him the address to which Chad was last on his way, he believes that she is spying on him and that a whole pack is on his heels. Now that he realizes that it was this very Chad he shot, he panics and decides to leave for Venezuela. Since he was put on a watch list by the CIA, he was initially detained at Washington Dulles Airport .

Ozzie Cox has since received his divorce papers and has to spend the night on his sailing yacht . When he breaks through the locked front door of his own house, he finds Ted there at his computer. He shoots him at him, knocks the fugitive down with an ax in the street and mortally injures him. At CIA headquarters you can't figure out what's behind these entanglements: Cox is in a coma after he was shot by a CIA agent who was supposed to be just observing the murder of Ted. Linda demands payment for her cosmetic surgery for her cooperation with the CIA, which a person in charge even approves, exasperated. Even the paranoid Harry is simply let go. In the end, the two CIA department heads agree that such incidents should never happen again, although they do not even know what exactly happened there.

Reviews

The Associated Press agency described the film as a "black spy comedy" in a report.

The Empire Magazine wrote, based on a preview in February 2008, the Coen brothers were in top form ("back at their best"); in addition, the actors John Malkovich, Brad Pitt, George Clooney and Frances McDormand were praised.

The lexicon of the international film saw a “ludicrous secret service farce” that unfolded “with absurd characters, bizarre dialogues and precise situation comedy” a “sovereign game with genre patterns that shimmered into the macabre and grotesque”, “sometimes coarse, sometimes ironic-loving targeting the all-American "Pursuit of Happiness" ”.

Wolfgang Höbel wrote in the Spiegel that the film provided “a happy roar”. He is a "great, splendidly oiled comedy empire that only gets on your nerves at very rare moments" when the directors "bask too much in their own brilliance".

backgrounds

The film was u. a. Filmed in New York City and Washington, DC . Filming began on August 27, 2007 and ended on October 30, 2007, due to bad weather it had to be extended by one day. The Empire Magazine estimated the cost of production in February 2008 to about 50 million US dollars , it went from box office receipts in the amount of 50 million US dollars in the US and 180 million dollars around the world.

According to initial plans, the premiere was to take place in 2008 at the Cannes International Film Festival . However, the film was not finished at this point, and it premiered on August 27, 2008 at the opening of the 65th Venice International Film Festival . The general theatrical release in the USA was on September 12, 2008, in Germany the film was shown on October 2, 2008. By the end of 2008, the film grossed around 155 million US dollars worldwide, including around 60 million US dollars in US cinemas.

Contrary to reports, the film is not based on the memoirs of Stansfield Turner , but just bears the same title.

An acoustic image description for television broadcasts was created in 2012. It was spoken by Andreas Sparberg. The production was done by the companies Degeto and Audioskript.

Awards

Golden Globe Awards 2009 (nominations)

British Academy Film Awards 2009 (nominations)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Release certificate for Burn After Reading - Who is getting burned their fingers here? Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , October 2008 (PDF; test number: 115 255 K).
  2. Age rating for Burn After Reading - Who is burning their fingers here? Youth Media Commission .
  3. Quoted from movies.yahoo.com , accessed August 5, 2008.
  4. a b clooneystudio.com ( Memento from February 19, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on August 5, 2008.
  5. Burn After Reading - Who is Burning Their Fingers Here? In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  6. ^ Film review by Wolfgang Höbel , accessed on September 6, 2008.
  7. ^ Filming locations for Burn After Reading , accessed August 5, 2008.
  8. a b c www.clooneystudio.com ( Memento from August 22, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on August 5, 2008.
  9. a b Coen brothers open the Venice Film Festival in Der Spiegel on April 28, 2008, accessed on August 5, 2008.
  10. Release dates for Burn After Reading , accessed August 5, 2008.
  11. www.boxofficemojo.com , accessed April 8, 2009.
  12. Strikers' dilemma: to write or not in Los Angeles Times, November 21, 2007, accessed October 4, 2008.
  13. Burn After Reading - Who is Burning Their Fingers Here? in the audio film database of Hörfilm e. V.