This is one of the films I've been most looking forward to seeing this year. I bought a copy in the HMV sale but have not had a chance to watch it yet.
Over the holiday I caught up with In Bruges (brilliant), David Tennant's final performance inDoctor Who (alas) as well as his RSC Hamlet (to be able to purchase tickets for the first night was brilliant and for the RSC to open it on Susan's birthday was even better). After being snowed in this weekend we caught up with Goodnight and Good Luck, an excellent story about the fight against McCarthy with George Clooney, as star, director and co-writer.
Which brings me back to the notes for this week's film:
Burn After Reading
USA 2008 (96 minutes)
Director: Ethan Coen and Joel Coen
Starring: George Clooney, Frances McDormand, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich and Tilda Swinton
Awards and Nominations
Nominated for two Golden Globes (Best Picture and Frances McDormand as Best Actress)
A further 10 nominations including BAFTA for Best Original Screenplay
When Osborne Cox (John Malkovich) is fired from the CIA he begins to write his memoirs. Katie Cox (Tilda Swinton) wants a divorce and at her lawyer’s request copies many of Osborne’s personal files on to a CD which Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt) and Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand) find at a local gym. Litzke is planning cosmetic surgery and decides to blackmail Osborne Cox in order to finance it. Meanwhile Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney) is having affairs with both Katie Cox and Linda Litzke.
The summary of the plot reads like a classic farce, but it leads to mayhem on a huge scale that starts with a broken nose and ends finally with execution by CIA gunmen. The Coens described the film as “our version of a Tony Scott/Jason Bourne movie” and they wrote the screenplay while working on their adaptation of No Country for Old Men (2007). The brothers created characters with George Clooney, Frances McDormand, Brad Pitt and John Malkovich in mind, and the script derived from their desire to involve the actors “in a fun story”. Tilda Swinton was the only main character who did not have a part written specifically for her, and the Coens struggled to develop a common filming schedule for their A-list cast.
The Coens identified idiocy as a major them of the film and described Clooney and Pitt’s characters as “duelling idiots”. Clooney had worked with the Coens twice before and acknowledged that he usually played a fool in their movies:
“I’ve done three films for them and they call it my trilogy of idiots”.
The Coens told Pitt that they had written his role specifically for him and he did not know whether to fell flattered or insulted; he told them that he did not know how to play the part as the character was such an idiot:
“There was a long pause and then Joel goes...”You’ll be fine.””
In a career of nearly 25 years the Coens have produced a series of brilliant films that have been successful with both festival and multiplex audiences. In recent years they have reached new heights of success: No Country for Old Men won four Oscars, including Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Film, and their most recent film A Serious Man (2009) opened to rave reviews at the London Film Festival.
