Edward Norton, Willem Dafoe and the film ‘Motherless Brooklyn’

The film Motherless Brooklyn (2019) sets itself against the backdrop of 1950s New York City with a puzzle for lead character and private detective Lionel Essrog, as played by film director Edward Norton, in the starring role. Essrog battles Tourette’s Syndrome, and as a result is taken under the wing of Frank Minna, as played by Bruce Willis, from childhood.

(Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Laura Rose, left, and Edward Norton as Lionel Essrog in the film Motherless Brooklyn).

Frank Minna sets the story in motion with a shady proposition to extort more payment for his business from businessmen whose background Minna keeps deliberately vague. Using the photographic memory of Essrog to plant puzzles for a crime solving plan for the private detective, things turning sideways for that deal reveals a story that offers a degree of potential character depth that isn’t present in many contemporary movies.

(Bruce Willis as Frank Minna, left, Willem Dafoe as Paul, center, and Alec Baldwin as Moses Randolph in the film Motherless Brooklyn).

The pieces suggest involvement by characters Paul, as played by Willem Dafoe, Laura Rose as played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and Moses Randolph as played by Alec Baldwin. Randolph, a character written into the book Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem, resembles power broker Robert Moses as described in the book The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert Caro. The intrigue within the movie, a project brought to the movies due to Norton, includes intrigue that in part includes character Tony Vermonte as played by Bobby Cannavale.

(Bobby Cannavale as Tony Vermonte in the film Motherless Brooklyn).

The Rotten Tomatoes listing for the film Motherless Brooklyn rightly mentions the film takes the story from the “gin-soaked jazz clubs in Harlem to the hard-edged slums of Brooklyn”. The film aims for setting a mood, a place, and a feeling of corruption fighting that works if understood through the lens of those constructs, some of which Norton seems to have added into the film’s screenplay. The film largely worked for me due to this, which leads me to my rating of 3.75-stars on a scale of one-to-five.

Matt – Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Working: Researching, Interviewing, Writing by Robert Caro

Robert Caro won numerous book awards for his extensive biographies of the lives and power politics of New York city public official Robert Moses and Texas politician/United States president Lyndon Johnson.

(Robert Caro wrote Working: Researching, Interviewing, Writing in addition to books that won the Pulitzer Prize).

Included in those awards were the Pulitzer Prizes for The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York and Master Of The Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson. During the writing of his four of five planned volumes on Lyndon Johnson, Caro took the time to write the book that is the subject of this examination, namely the memoir Working: Researching, Interviewing, Writing.

(Robert Caro is known for covering the acquisition and exercise of power through reviews of public figures Robert Moses and Lyndon Johnson).

The interest that Working: Researching, Interviewing, Writing had for me is to understand the process, means, and meaning that Robert Caro experienced in the way that he went about his researching and writing process. For this interest I was rewarded quite well in getting those things as well as a cursory glimpse into what the process was like for Caro and his wife, authority on medieval and modern French history Ina Caro. Ina Caro proved to be an immense if understated support system for Robert Caro, the man, during what were some lean years for the couple.

(Robert Caro won the Pulitzer Prize for his books The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York and Master Of The Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson).

The book Working: Researching, Interviewing, Writing offers much value in terms of feeling the first person experience of interviewing public figures, running into roadblocks along the way, and filling in gaps through exhaustive research to the point of compelling folks who would otherwise stonewall access to allow for some form of access. Even with compelling research, sensitive findings and the outcomes these brought from Robert Moses or the family of Lyndon Johnson proved interesting.

(Robert Caro as a younger man).

As stated earlier, my desire for reading Working: Researching, Interviewing, Writing was to understand the process, means, and meaning that Robert Caro experienced. I was not disappointed, which leads me to my rating of 3.75-stars on a scale of one-to-five for the book.

Matt – Saturday, September 07, 2019