Warning: this review contains spoilers.
For those who saw MICHAEL CLAYTON, I will try to explain why I believe this movie is a modern classic, a true redemption story, that it has all the ingredient of a contemporary myth served with the aesthetic of our time without falling into a moralising stance.
This is the story of a disillusioned hero in the modern sense. Baudelaire, considered the inventor of modern sensibility, once wished there were an artist who would depict the "modern hero" in his black uniform. George Clooney is such a hero. But unlike Batman, he is wearing a black suit with a white shirt and a dark tie as an armor. His gadgets are his blackberry and the mercedes benz sedan he drives. In a grey world where justice is not always on the side of the oppressed and the innocent, Michael Clayton tries to "fix" complicated situations guided only by his unique expertise and a relative sense of morale, which are ultimately guided by money. Clayton is lonely and this trait of character is illustrated by his addiction to gambling which, we all know, can lead to isolation and debt. He is also a divorced dad and too often an absent member of family gatherings. We learn through the movie that he has lost all his savings in a restaurant venture with his drug addicted brother, with whom he has stopped corresponding.
Another great classic story frame is character development. The hero in the beginning of the movie clearly belongs to one side (the bad guys which are represented by the law firm he works for and which heavily depends financially on the defense of a shady multi-million dollars firm – the bio-chemical firm U-North). As the movie progresses we can see the psychological conflict of the hero who eventually will opt for the other side to defend the victims of the biotech firm (justice's side). This character development is word by word what Marlon Brando's character goes through in Elia Kazan's classic ON THE WATERFRONT. I could not ignore the analogy of the taxi scene at the end of the movie when the camera frames a silent and thoughtful Clooney on the back seat of the taxi while the credits are rolling. This is almost the same shot when Brando argues with his brother that he "could have been somebody". Although Clooney's performance is not on par with Brando's one, which critics agree, belongs to the pantheon of acting.
That being said, now I would like to share the other dimension of the script which is the superb screenplay. In Gilroy's movie the viewer is almost like another character of the movie, I am tempted to say a ghost. But it doesn't have the transcendental dimension of TAXI DRIVER, in which the point of view could be the one of an angel. The ghost (the viewer) in MICHAEL CLAYTON could be alternatively all the ghosts of people the bio-chemical firm killed with their lethal product (more than 400 victims) or the spirit of the great character, Arthur Edens, played by remarkable Tom Wilkinson, the tormented lawyer who, by an almost mystical force, is struggling to get out of his body, rotten by years of remorses defending U-North. This explains why the style of filming is not so organic (shaking camera or "camera au poing" to employ a Nouvelle Vague terminology) but very still, almost floating. When we see how Gilroy films the assassination of Edens, it feels like the camera is right on the side of Edens body and when he eventually dies, it pans backwards as if the spirit has left the lifeless body, almost like a relief. The name of Edens, could be translated into "from the garden of Eden", a place where ignorance was bliss and where man lived in innocence. This mystical drive, which can be stretched to a religious one is illustrated by the tone and the temperament that Wilkinson employs: the one of a preacher, energetic and bordering insanity (as performed by Karl Malden, the priest who tries to convince Brando to make a righteous decision in ON THE WATERFRONT). In the scene where is is confronted to Clayton, he symbolically shares a loaf of bread (which represents truth) with him, probably a direct reference to Jesus Christ, a man who pays with his life for human kind's sins. Edens is indeed the only spiritual character in the movie.
What is striking is the chilling temperature of the relationships between the characters (a fact that is emphasized in that the movie was filmed in winter). The lack of humanity in the movie is beautifully expressed with the cinematography: cool, greyish with lots of diffused light. All the scenes take place in environments where modern individuals are left with anything but warmth: conference rooms, hotel rooms, empty lofts, office rooms, except when the camera shows a home – where kids enlive the atmosphere.
This is where the redemption aspect of the movie is stepping in. The only way the characters that have lost touch with their humanity (compassion, love, forgiveness…) are saving themselves is through saving what can be saved: kids, youth and family. Arthur Edens is falling in love with Anna, a girl who saw her family slowly die because of the bio-chemical product (in a fervent way like one loves the Virgin Mary), whilst Clayton is reaching out to his kid.
Ironically Clayton is saved from a car bomb when he, without apparent reasons, leaves the car to get closer to the horses he sees on the top of a hill whilst driving in the country side. A lot of people ask why does he leave the car? Maybe because Clayton feels the only humanity he can get can be given by three horses at dawn (the dawn of a new day or a new Michael Clayton) or maybe it's an illustration he saw in a book Edens was reading before he died. I am tempted to answer simply because the ghost of Edens tells him to do so. As the car is burning, Clayton throws inside his watch and his phone. We see him afterwards reaching out to his drug addicted brother to help him in his hideaway – a double redemption: Timmy the brother can get Michael's sympathy back and show him he is more worthy than his brother thinks. From that moment onwards Michael Clayton is a new man.
Overall, the cinematography used is very similar to another great classic which is Alan Pakula's ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN. In Pakula's movie a lot is happening in modern offices that become the battlefield of justice (the Washington Post's offices). A lot of the narrative also happen in both movies on the phone which is the new confessional. In both movies, modern hero, in pursuit of truth, are also wearing suits and ties. MICHAEL CLAYTON starts with a phone conversation between Sidney Pollack and a journalist who threathen to publish a story that could shatter U-North's reputation, just as Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford's characters are publishing their articles that will lead to the Watergate scandal in ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN.
All of that leads me to think MICHAEL CLAYTON belongs to the modern iconography. The same one that one can find in Christopher Nolan's THE DARK NIGHT: that modern, steel and glass urban environment, cool but inhuman.
Ultimately, MICHAEL CLAYTON also benefits from a superb cast that is right on the money. Of course Tilda Swinton deserves her oscar but all the secondary characters (Sidney Pollack as the ultimate law firm exec) are perfect in their roles.
At Bed every Monday we have CINEMA DINE nights where we show a movie during dinner. Maybe one day we can show MICHAEL CLAYTON but not without showing ON THE WATERFRONT and ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN in the preceding weeks.
