Michael Clayton

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Movie
German title Michael Clayton
Original title Michael Clayton
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 2007
length 119 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
JMK 10
Rod
Director Tony Gilroy
script Tony Gilroy
production Jennifer Fox ,
Kerry Orent ,
Sydney Pollack ,
Steve Samuels
music James Newton Howard
camera Robert Elswit
cut John Gilroy
occupation

Michael Clayton is an American thriller from 2007 . Directed by Tony Gilroy , who also wrote the script. The leading role is played by George Clooney . Tilda Swinton received an Oscar for best supporting actress.

action

Michael Clayton oversees the particularly sensitive activities of the New York City- based international law firm Kenner, Bach & Ledeen . The tough Clayton is divorced and owes $ 75,000 to a loan shark: he used to be devoted to gambling and he also invested in his brother's bankrupt restaurant, which still has residual debt after liquidation.

Karen Crowder is the successful but nervous in-house attorney for chemical giant U / North , who supplies farms with agrochemicals. It handles a class action on three billion US dollars in damages and pain and suffering . It's about the carcinogenic effect of a herbicide , the U / North has sold to farm operators worldwide.

The company is represented by Kenner, Bach & Ledeen . Arthur Edens, one of the most experienced of the firm's 600 lawyers, who has been in charge of the case for 6 years, suffers a nervous breakdown during a witness hearing when he undresses while singing loudly. The owner of the firm, Marty Bach, entrusts Clayton with the damage control, as he is also on friendly terms with Arthur Edens. Eight years ago, Clayton had already helped his older friend when he suffered a mental collapse. But Edens is now apparently crazy and unpredictable.

It turns out that Eden's extremely sensitive documents have fallen into the hands of management, which prove his client's guilt. An old memo proves that the company knew about the health risk - especially in colder vegetation zones - but did not want to jeopardize the marketing success with warnings or product changes. Arthur contacts the injured farmer's daughter Anna, arranges a conspiratorial meeting and temporarily disappears. U / North has his apartment bugged and ultimately murdered when it becomes clear that Arthur wants to use the exposing documents against the company. This is disguised as drug overdose suicide.

Clayton doubts the suicide. He gets a replacement door seal from his older brother, a detective in the New York Police Department, and breaks into Arthur's apartment, which has been sealed by the police, to look for clues. However, he is watched by Arthur Edens' two hit men, who inform Crowder of each of Clayton's steps. The two anonymously inform the police about Clayton's break-in to prevent him from snooping further into Edens' apartment. Before he is arrested, he finds the pick-up slip for an order from a printing company in a book with a red cover, which he notices because his son Henry raved about it. After his release from prison, he was handed a dossier with the memorandum at the printing plant , which clearly proves that the management of U / North wanted to cover up the dangerousness of the substance: one of those who signed off is the current CEO, Don Jeffries. Edens' print job involves several thousand copies, the boxes are there ready to be picked up, which Clayton has, except for one copy, stored for the time being.

While Clayton is participating in a game of poker , his shadowers put a bomb in his car. Clayton narrowly escapes the assassination attempt. With the help of his brother from the NYPD, Clayton, believed dead, confronts U / North lawyer Crowder at a board of directors meeting , pretending to be for sale and demanding 10 million for his silence. She promises him this. Clayton reveals to her surprise that he recorded the conversation and makes it clear to her by saying "I am Shiva , the god of death" (a quote from Eden during his nervous breakdown) that he is not for sale. Karen Crowder collapses when a large police force arrives. Crowder and her boss Jeffries are arrested. Clayton hands the recorded conversation and Arthur's memo to his brother and drives off in a cab.

Film music

James Newton Howard wrote the soundtrack.

  1. Main Titles
  2. Chinatown
  3. Drive to the field
  4. Just Another Day
  5. Meeting Karen
  6. Looking for Arthur
  7. U North
  8. Arthur & Henry
  9. Times Square
  10. Mr. Verne
  11. I'm Not The Guy You Kill
  12. Horses
  13. 25 dollars worth

Reviews

The American critic Emanuel Levy wrote that the film was a "star vehicle" for George Clooney, whose involvement made it possible to shoot the film. The cast of the thriller is "outstanding".

Stylistically, the film is “located between Oliver Stone's Wall Street and Michael Mann's Insider ” and “far from crusade moralism à la Erin Brockovich ”, said Rüdiger Suchsland at Artechock , and he stated : “Everyone is addicted or insane in some way or both [...] Seldom did Clooney have better sentences. And rarely has there been a film that better shows how good this actor is. "()

Susan Vahabzadeh wrote in the Süddeutsche Zeitung on September 1, 2007 that the film was "a legacy of the legendary Three Days of the Condor ". Clayton wandered "through New York like Robert Redford once did" and showed "rousing" "the agony and pain, the despair". The thriller “never really gets going”, but George Clooney fills the played character “with so much life” that it compensates for the shortcomings.

Katja Nicodemus wrote in the time of 28 February 2008, the film looking "no morals or revival" but rather "texture and mood": "This is probably why move Gilroy's figures by a gray New York, through hotel room with pale light through leafless Autumnal landscapes. ”The“ most matter-of-fact, one could also say: most unscrupulous ”is Tilda Swinton:“ A belly ring in front of the mirror, sweat stains on the silk blouse show the people who are arming themselves here every day for a kind of war. ”The reviewer stated : "There is the type of elegant thriller that doesn't have to make a big bohei about its plot ."

Felicitas Kleiner discussed in the 5/2008 issue of the film service an “almost perfect thriller” that was “intelligently written, unobtrusively refined, brilliantly cast”.

Jens Szameit wrote for teleschau 2011 that the film was “undoubtedly” one of the “highlights” of the 2008 cinema year: “Director Gilroy does not focus on the moral distortions of the film plot. Rather, with cool aesthetics and clever assembly, he illuminates the human follow-up costs that the ruthless calculus of power brings about truth roulette. They can be read in the exhausted faces of the great duo Clooney / Swinton. Michael Clayton is a strict, precise film in the tradition of the American conspiracy thriller of the 70s. Here a sweat stain on Tilda Swinton's blouse says more than some dialogue. "()

Awards

Oscar

Tilda Swinton received the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 2008 for her portrayal of Karen Crowder . Michael Clayton was also nominated for six other Academy Awards: for Best Actor ( George Clooney ), for Best Supporting Actor (Tom Wilkinson), for Best Director , for the best original script , for the best film music and as the best film .

Golden Globe

For the 2008 Golden Globe Award , the film was nominated for Best Picture - Drama and the actors George Clooney, Tilda Swinton and Tom Wilkinson.

Others

backgrounds

The film was shot in New York City and Middletown, New York . Its production amounted to an estimated 25 million US dollars . Its world premiere took place at the 2007 Venice Film Festival , which opened on August 29th . Its widespread release began in the UK on September 28, 2007 and in the US on October 5, 2007; it started in Germany on February 28, 2008. The film grossed approx. 49 million US dollars in cinemas in the USA and around 85 million US dollars worldwide (as of March 9, 2008). In Germany, over 110,000 viewers saw the film on the opening weekend.

The scope of the film, a multi-billion dollar class action lawsuit against a manufacturer of weed killers due to health problems after use, is similar to the legal battles over glyphosate that Monsanto and Bayer are waging.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for Michael Clayton . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , September 2007 (PDF; test number: 111 482 K).
  2. ↑ Age rating for Michael Clayton . Youth Media Commission .
  3. ↑ emanuellevy.com , accessed August 31, 2007
  4. ^ Rüdiger Suchsland: Michael Clayton - suits, arrogance and rituals. In: Artechock. Retrieved August 19, 2008 .
  5. ↑ Review by Susan Vahabzadeh , accessed September 1, 2007
  6. ↑ Katja Nicodemus: Every day a war. In: The time . February 28, 2008, accessed on August 19, 2008 (ZEIT ONLINE 10/2008 p. 51).
  7. ↑ http://www.monstersandcritics.de/artikel/201129/article_192524.php/Michael-Clayton-Spielfilm-des-Tages-Do-25-08-ARD-22-45-Uhr
  8. ^ Filming locations for Michael Clayton, accessed August 31, 2007
  9. ^ Opening dates for Michael Clayton, accessed December 11, 2007
  10. ^ Box office / business for Michael Clayton, accessed March 9, 2008
  11. ↑ Dana Stevens: Michael Clayton - George Clooney anchors a solid legal thriller. In: SLATE.com. October 4, 2007, accessed August 11, 2020 .