BONUS We Love This - Michael Clayton
Guest:Why?
Guest:Because people are fucking incomprehensible.
Guest:That's why.
Guest:Why?
Guest:Why?
Marc:Because people are fucking incomprehensible.
Guest:That is as good a line of dialogue to kind of define our show as...
Guest:as it exists in any movie.
Guest:I feel like that is like 90% of all the questions we have and answers from guests on this show.
Marc:I think about it every day.
Marc:I think about it every day.
Marc:I don't think about Sidney Pollack saying that line, but certainly I've talked about that line with guests and with people, that moment, that I don't know what it is, but I think about...
Marc:it every day in the sense of how we generalize about people.
Marc:And then you can just be sitting somewhere, anywhere where there's people about and realize like, Oh my God, I know nothing about that person.
Marc:So there's no, there's, you know, I, we're all similar in a species way, but I don't know, like, what could that person's life look like?
Marc:Right.
Marc:For example, Argus Hamilton.
Marc:Not a day doesn't go by where I'm like, what does that guy do every day?
Guest:If Argus Hamilton was a white collar litigant, do you think that he would have at some point gone through a manic episode and stripped off all his clothes and ran through the parking lot?
Marc:Yeah, cocaine fueled.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It wouldn't have been general mania.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It would have been like, I'm not sure he hadn't done that.
Marc:Not as a litigator, but as just a comic who was having sex with Mitzi Shore in the mid 70s.
Marc:I think he was probably a lot of naked running around.
Yeah.
Marc:Perhaps outside.
Guest:Sam trying to stop him from doing it.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Well, we are here to talk about one of both Mark and my favorite movies.
Guest:It is the story of a failed bar owner whose life is saved by three horses in a Westchester field.
Guest:It is Michael Clayton that we are talking about this week.
Guest:We could talk about this movie anytime we want, but we're talking about it specifically this week because of the episode we just posted with Tony Gilroy, writer and director of Michael Clayton.
Guest:You watch it probably every time it's on, right?
Marc:Every time it's on.
Marc:I seem to watch it a couple, probably a few times a year, probably, it seems.
Marc:I don't know why, but I do.
Marc:It's one of those movies, Goodfellas is another one that's like...
Marc:Somehow it's always on somewhere.
Marc:And why not just jump in?
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:I mean, I think that there's something about Michael Clayton that despite it being, you know, it's an expertly made film, expertly acted.
Guest:Everything about it is great.
Guest:But there's also something nostalgic about it, like as in the same way that, you know, I like to watch movies that were made when I was a kid.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There's something nostalgic about the style of Michael Clayton, even just the name, calling it just Michael Clayton, the name of the movie is just this guy.
Guest:Like there's something so 70s about it in a modern setting with a modern movie star.
Guest:It feels almost like it was impossible to make this movie, like to make it the way that it's made.
Marc:Listen to the interview.
Marc:It was right.
Marc:It took a long time and I don't even know where my fascination started with it.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I feel like I saw it in the theaters and I was like, oh my God, you don't see movies like this anymore.
Marc:But I don't know when it became this kind of like obsession.
Marc:I think it must have been after the second or third watching of it where you have to ask yourself, why am I watching this again as if I've never seen it before?
Marc:So rich, so dense, so deep on a human level.
Marc:It's a great story, right?
Marc:But these characters are so formed down to the kid.
Marc:The only thing I'm now regretting I didn't ask
Marc:uh tony gilroy is why was brian koppelman in his movie so that was right there in my notes it's like one of the first things i was gonna bring up and for some reason i didn't ask him that i didn't ask it's also it's an amazing thing because he's not just in the movie he's in the first like
Guest:90 seconds out of the movie with George Clooney.
Guest:You're literally introduced to George Clooney by Brian Koppelman at this poker game.
Marc:He's doing a heavy lift.
Marc:He was good.
Marc:I'm not going to take that away from him.
Marc:He's like, I lost some weight.
Marc:He's defensive.
Marc:He was in it.
Marc:He was good.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Here's an interesting thing.
Guest:You and I talked before you spoke with Tony Gilroy.
Guest:We were just talking about the structure of this film.
Guest:And we were wondering if the decision to make it a flashback after the first 10 minutes was intentional or not.
Guest:And I went back and watched the movie again over the weekend.
Guest:And it absolutely has to be intentional.
Guest:There's no way it's not.
Guest:It is definitely structured in a way so that they can load you up with information in those first 10 minutes that will be vital to the rest of the movie...
Guest:But that if you went chronologically, you wouldn't have necessarily had all the information about the bar.
Guest:You wouldn't have had all the information about why the lawyers are all up at 12 o'clock at night, you know, trying to settle this case, like all this stuff going on.
Marc:Yeah, I asked him about that.
Marc:It was in my recollection of the conversation.
Marc:By the time they there have been so many different versions of this story in this script.
Marc:He said he's written like thousands of pages or something.
Marc:You have to listen.
Marc:This thing was evolving and being sort of created for a long time.
Marc:Before it came to pass.
Marc:But it's but because of that and in retrospect and after talking to him, that's why it is such a beautifully formed movie and why the characters are so full and perfect is because it was gestating for years.
Marc:You know, and not executed.
Marc:And, you know, different people were, you know, attached and possibilities.
Marc:And when it finally landed, I mean, it was well over a decade, I think, if I remember talking to him correctly.
Marc:I think that's right.
Marc:I think he said it was like in the mid-90s.
Marc:12 years or something?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So like, you know, by the time this really, you know, if you've been tinkering with something that long, you know, by the time you get to do it, it should be amazing.
Marc:Right, right.
Guest:And it was.
Guest:Well, and also when you realize that his entire aesthetic was built around like those 70s thrillers.
Guest:Of course.
Guest:And that really even even the stuff that he got famous making or I don't know if he was famous for making it, but definitely made his career was writing those Bourne movies and and generally just being a good hired hand when it came to action adventure type scripts.
Guest:I think all of his aesthetic was informed by those films of the 70s, like Three Days of the Condor, Parallax View, and he just has a real sense of what makes those type of movies tick, that it's just super clear right away in Michael Clayton that that's what you're getting.
Guest:You get that first scene of just a room full of lawyers, and they're all saying things that you are trying to pick up like...
Guest:Wait, what is this they're talking about?
Guest:I'm not really sure, but it sounds authoritative.
Marc:You're in the world.
Marc:Is that the first scene?
Marc:The first scene, isn't he at the card game and his phone rings?
Guest:The first scene of the movie.
Marc:Let's start at the very beginning and let's see if we can get- But also, let me just, before we go, Gilroy is very hung up on character and people and having that be authentic.
Guest:Which is what it seems like he wants to devote in this Star Wars series that he's making now.
Guest:He just wants it to be about the characters and not worry about the mythology of Star Wars.
Guest:He told me it was 190 speaking parts.
Guest:Yeah, Jesus.
Marc:Yeah, that's some writing.
Guest:And I'm guessing they're not like Chewbacca's.
Marc:I don't think so.
Guest:They're real people.
Guest:Well, let's start at the beginning here, and maybe if we work our way through the movie, we'll figure out exactly what it is that makes this one of our favorites.
Guest:But we come up on the voice of Arthur Edens, who's played by Tom Wilkinson, and you're hearing him...
Guest:ranting about things that you're not really sure what they are.
Guest:When you're watching a person push a cart full of folders, manila folders and papers through kind of abandoned hallways as the narration of Arthur Edens comes to a climax, they push into this room and it's just two conference rooms connected, filled with
Guest:lawyers pouring over papers, all in their button downs.
Guest:One lawyer who is played by Michael O'Keefe, the guy who played Danny in Caddyshack, which is nice to see him after all these years.
Marc:Yeah, it's one of those moments where you're like, oh, look at that guy.
Marc:He's all chubby and, you know.
Guest:less hair and he he is talking with a reporter from the wall street journal and hands that reporter off to the great sydney pollock yeah uh who is playing the head of this law firm and uh the the reporter is trying to get at some uh settlement that they're going through and he says now you don't have a story but clearly that's why they're in this room they are trying to uh reach a settlement for a company called you north which what i guess we're led to believe throughout the movie that you north is what like monsanto
Guest:right yeah yeah yeah i i very thinly veiled monsanto and then we get to the aforementioned chinatown poker game where uh podcast host and billions showrunner brian kopelman just there at the end of a table talking
Guest:Yes, this is the Brian Kopelman scene where he is playing an illegal poker game and the camera pans around to our main character, Michael Clayton, played by talk about what we talked about last week with movie stars.
Guest:Within five seconds, a movie star is on your screen and you are wrapped in attention at everything he's doing.
Guest:It's really amazing.
Guest:Like if you watch Clooney, even in just that scene, throwing a couple of chips on the table and barely trying to answer, you know, Brian Kobleman's questions.
Guest:It is so compelling.
Marc:You had to buy a bar, wasn't it?
Marc:You had to buy a bar.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:You had to buy a bar.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:And that's it.
Guest:That's again, you're getting this information up front.
Guest:OK, he's he's he had bought a bar.
Guest:It didn't go well.
Guest:There's something some reason this guy's there.
Guest:Then he gets a phone call that says he's got to go take care of something up in Westchester.
Guest:So he goes up to Westchester and there's a hit and run.
Guest:This is where we are.
Guest:It is established that Michael Clayton is a fixer of some kind, although the the the perfect line that he gives to that guy is I'm not a miracle worker.
Guest:I'm a janitor.
Marc:It's interesting right there, though, that self-effacing admitted that his life didn't pan out the way he had planned it and that for whatever reason, he had to be who he was in order to get by.
Marc:that it was not what he set out to do.
Marc:It's kind of genius.
Marc:And that guy he's playing against, that manic fuck, I forget his name, but he's always- Dennis O'Hare.
Marc:Dennis O'Hare, always great.
Guest:Yes, well, that's another great thing that this movie does is it pulls in all these New York stage actors
Guest:who uh you know are in these small bit roles that just knock them out of the park and can you know i i notice it happens a lot on succession too you'll be watching an episode of succession and there's just some guy where i'm like oh i've seen that guy in like 30 plays yeah and he's fucking great and you know dennis o'hare is in this frank wood is the guy who plays um the son's stepfather he's a great stage actor not a big
Guest:part but no it's not a big part but it's it's like these that's the thing it's like if you can put those type of people in parts that like glue the whole movie together right like uh sam watterson's daughter she's one of the like law students uh captain watterson uh uh that great actress from nurse jackie uh merit weaver she plays the the the farm girl oh yeah yeah she's great and she's whose friend is he that we interviewed she's someone's best friend oh betty gilpin
Guest:Yeah, well, that makes sense.
Guest:They were on that show together.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, as this movie goes on, you just keep getting better and better performances out of people who are in roles that could have just been given to any old day player, and they're awesome.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's what you're talking about, the idea of being very precisely tuned to character and to humans.
Guest:And it's like that guy freaking out in his palatial Westchester mansion is so real.
Guest:And just the wife.
Marc:The wife's whole tone with a glass of wine or whatever.
Marc:She's like, you know, like more of this.
Marc:Like literally like this was, you know, of course this happened.
Marc:Right, right, right.
Marc:It was so subtle, but so, you know, without question.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, the way that character...
Marc:You knew all of it.
Marc:And she did almost nothing.
Marc:Right.
Guest:The wife is standing there.
Guest:She's just got her arms folded.
Guest:She's got a glass in her hand.
Guest:And she every now and then tries to like, you know, interject something.
Guest:He gets angry.
Guest:And then finally she whips this glass across the room, which is essentially what makes the guy shut up and listen to George Clooney.
Guest:Uh, and, uh, and that's where you get that great line about being janitor.
Marc:Oh my God.
Marc:And then you're off and running and then he gets in and it's like, no one knows why his fucking GPS isn't working.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You don't know why his GPS isn't working and you're not going to learn that till halfway through the movie.
Guest:And he gets out.
Guest:He sees some three very attractive wild horses in the field.
Guest:Goes out to it.
Guest:Car explodes.
Guest:And we get our title card four days earlier.
Guest:So this is where now we have the ticking clock of the movie.
Guest:So we don't even see him throw the watch in.
Marc:Not yet.
Guest:No, that's not until you get it replayed that we know he does anything.
Marc:Four days earlier.
Guest:You're not even sure it's a car bomb.
Guest:You just know his car exploded.
Marc:i kind of assumed it was a i assumed it was a car bomb i would think so in this in this type of legal thriller environment it's not just sort of like oh that's a bad car it just blows up when you look at horses out of envy you're getting a payback of some kind
Guest:But now you get a scene of him actually working.
Guest:And his job is, you could easily superimpose it into any industry, basically.
Guest:It could be Hollywood.
Guest:He's like the James Brolin character in Hail Caesar.
Guest:Or he's like the Harvey Keitel character in Pulp Fiction.
Guest:This is just a guy who has to get shit for people.
Marc:It's like dark HR.
Yeah, really?
Guest:deep hr yeah he's the deep hr guy yeah every and everybody's always like you're gonna keep my name out of this right yeah yeah yeah it's gonna go through me yeah yeah uh and uh and and you know we get a sense of what he does we have a scene of him uh picking up his kid bringing his kid to school uh you know there's there's the typical um early stages of setting up are we introduced to the book yet uh that first time with the kid
Guest:Well, yes, with the kid in the car, he explains that, yeah, there's this book that he wants his dad to read.
Marc:That whole thing's genius.
Marc:The whole thing with the book, and that it sort of reveals itself later to be Wilkinson's, part of Wilkinson's mania.
Marc:It's great.
Guest:And his grand plan of how to leave breadcrumbs for someone to figure out what's happening through this book.
Guest:Which the book is, I guess, supposed to seem like a kind of Lord of the Rings style fantasy novel that the kid is really into.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What I also love is that right in this early stage of setting up the Clooney character, Michael Clayton, you get the scene of him at the auction in the bar where the loan shark is coming to him, telling him, you know, you've got to get this money.
Guest:But they're like auctioning off his like pots and pans.
Guest:Like there's nothing left.
Yeah.
Guest:You know, you come to quickly learn that the problem in his life is largely stemming from his brother who has some kind of either alcohol or drug addiction.
Guest:And they have gotten in too deep on this restaurant together.
Guest:And it's the one thing he can't fix.
Guest:Mr. Fixer has this defect in his life that cannot get fixed.
Guest:And you read it on Clooney's face in every second of this scene.
Guest:It's perfect.
Marc:That his brother's out of control and blew a lot of his money.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Somehow.
Guest:And that everything has been in search of trying to fix his brother, right?
Guest:That's what I get from the implication of it.
Marc:Yeah, we're going to open a restaurant.
Marc:I'll get him set up there, you know, take care of this kid.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:A perfect, perfect character motivation.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Fully codependent.
Marc:Thinks he can fix it.
Marc:Oh, completely.
Marc:Thinks he can fix everything.
Guest:Completely.
Guest:It's actually a great codependency movie, right?
Guest:Right up to like how he actually solves everything in the end.
Guest:It's like him having to realize you've got to block people out and just do the thing.
Guest:Like he realizes I cannot rely on this firm anymore because this firm is bad.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, right at this around this time, we meet the character of Karen Crowder, which is the Oscar winning performance by Tilda Swinton, which is her like sweating.
Guest:One of the most amazing performances in a movie filled with them.
Guest:Pit stains.
Guest:That's what I remember.
Guest:Pit stains.
Guest:Oh, the pit stains.
Guest:Yeah, the pit stains come in the initial sequence before we flashback because she's clearly sweating it out that she's already had one guy killed and is now trying to get another guy killed.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so she's in some bathroom stall somewhere waiting to hear whether or not Michael Clayton's been blown up.
Guest:But we haven't gotten back to that yet in terms of the structure of the film of looping around right now.
Guest:We just see her sitting there next to old Ken Howard, the white shadow playing the head of you North.
Marc:What a great, boring part.
Marc:Just like, you know, just a empty corporate vessel that had sort of blamed his way to the top somehow.
Guest:Oh, totally.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And what we learn here is that old Arthur Edens, who we heard his voice earlier in the film, has cracked up and had a manic episode off his beds, stripped down to his bare ass and at a deposition and ran through the parking lot.
Guest:Now is in jail.
Guest:Michael Clayton's got to go figure that situation out.
Guest:And then we get the full-on Tom Wilkinson deal in that jail sequence.
Guest:That's our first real introduction to him.
Guest:Again, all the performances are great.
Guest:And this guy, Tom Wilkinson, let's just talk about this guy for a second.
Guest:He's been great in everything.
Guest:He's always great.
Guest:He's British.
Guest:The Brits invented acting.
Guest:They're really good at this.
Guest:That is one of the great manic performances of all time.
Marc:Like this is a guy who really he nailed it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Just to the numbers, you know, because he's he's a he's a number guy and he's a lawyer guy.
Marc:And he's like he's the billable hours part of that fucking yes.
Marc:Breakdown.
Marc:or that mania was amazing.
Marc:And how he was doing all this mathematics about how he's having this come to Jesus moment that he spent his entire life defending a company that does nothing but evil.
Marc:And he has a moral crisis.
Marc:And this was all while he was getting a blow job from prostitutes.
Marc:Oh yeah, the Ukrainian, I've got two, he says, I've got two on my dick, Michael.
Guest:And he started thinking about the numbers to try so that he could last longer.
Guest:And it drove him into a spiral because now he couldn't stop thinking about how he's wasted his life on this company.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:It's so beautiful and the pace of it is so great.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And right away, this is another thing.
Marc:This is the other thing that Michael can't control.
Marc:The fixer can't fix this.
Marc:He's had experience fixing it before.
Marc:They've clearly have a history with this.
Marc:He knows this guy.
Marc:He loves this guy.
Marc:It's about, you know, why aren't you taking your pills?
Marc:You know, people who have those people in their life know that thing.
Marc:You know, he's basically this is like another sort of like he he feels that he can fix this.
Marc:He should be able to fix this.
Marc:He should be able to talk reason to his friend.
Guest:Well, and it's because it's a person with agency, right?
Guest:That's what everything that, and Clayton realizes this by the end of the movie, that every act of him intervening and fixing something is because people have surrendered to him.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That's what he has to get that guy to do in his kitchen in the middle of the night.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Surrender your bullshit.
Guest:Stop trying to figure out what the fog lights were like and everything.
Guest:Just surrender and listen to what I'm doing.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Tom Wilkinson will not surrender.
Guest:Arthur Edens is like the last thing you want to do is make this so that we wind up in court.
Guest:You do not want to see me in court.
Guest:He says.
Marc:Do you think you've got the horses for that?
Marc:Oh, that's a great sequence.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:First of all, he encounters him on the street.
Guest:Arthur has like 20 loaves of bread.
Marc:It's so good.
Guest:You want a piece?
Guest:It's such a great detail.
Guest:It's like something your dad would have done.
Guest:Like, oh, I got to get 20 of these.
Guest:He's going back to a loft with no one else.
Guest:He's just going to have 20 loaves of bread.
Marc:He's so excited about the fresh bread.
Marc:It's amazing.
Marc:It's amazing.
Guest:And yeah, he tells him, you know, in no uncertain terms and tells him, you're working for the bad guys, basically.
Guest:You know, like, you know, Michael Clayton says, I'm not your enemy.
Guest:And he says, well, who are you then?
Oh, man.
Guest:that's a fucking great line and that's and that that again like it's this this idea that in order to be the thing he is again it's like a total codependency movie like everything has to be people surrendering and and enmeshing themselves with another person for everything to work and it's only by the end of this thing where he figures out oh no i have to i have to have a clean cut it's like
Guest:I don't know if anybody listening to this has ever had to do codependency work.
Guest:I sure have.
Guest:I'm sure Mark has.
Guest:And like one of the things that you have to learn is like there are certain toxic relationships in your life that you have to cut loose, right?
Guest:You just have to cut.
Guest:And that's ultimately what this thing is.
Guest:builds up to at the end is him saying both as a subterfuge to Tilda Swinton.
Guest:I want out.
Guest:Pay me to get out.
Guest:And then you realize that he's setting her up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And his him setting her up is so that he can get out.
Marc:And his other brother, the cop, you know, that is the one that he's that he's like, what does that guy represent?
Marc:Because he's great.
Marc:he knows what's really going on like it seems like the cop brother in terms of his brothers and he's got he's the only one with boundaries you know in this fucking movie yeah that's it's almost like the kid in a family like if you're a family from like alcoholics it's the one kid who got out early and was like i'm done with all this insanity in this family but it's
Guest:always going to get dragged back in.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Then the one time he lets his boundaries down to help his brother, he's got to, now he's got to, you know, like he owes a favor to these idiots that he hates on his force because his brother took the, yeah.
Guest:He took that, which is such a great thing.
Guest:The thing he needs.
Guest:is this like sticker that you put on a door so that the police will know the door has not been tampered with at a crime scene.
Guest:And I kept thinking, I thought of it several times in this movie, but specifically in that part was something that Michael Mann said when you talked to him.
Guest:And it was specifically about like heat and the characterizations around heat and everything.
Guest:And he said he learned early on the best thing you could put on film
Guest:is showing someone do their job competently.
Guest:It's such an accurate thing.
Guest:It is always fascinating to watch.
Guest:And this movie has it in spades, whether you want to watch lawyers, whether you want to watch a law firm fixer, whether you want to watch a head of legal prepare to speak to a corporate board.
Guest:Like, they show how she does that, how she gets herself hyped up.
Guest:They show how murderers...
Guest:Oh my God.
Guest:Plan of murder.
Marc:That is really the most disturbing bit of business.
Marc:Like when Tilda says, when she's talking to that guy, Vern.
Marc:Yeah, Mr. Vern.
Marc:Mr. Vern is like, well, what are we talking about here?
Marc:You remember?
Marc:Do you want to take the next step?
Guest:She hires him in the first place.
Guest:And this I didn't notice until I watched it again recently.
Guest:Is that talk about the Don Jeffries character, as you called him, like what an aggressively, perfectly boring guy.
Guest:Like he's still the one who told her to call Mr. Vern.
Marc:Because that that's what a corporate fixer looks like.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Murder people.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:The company that gives everyone cancer and is trying to hide it.
Marc:Of course, their fixer would be these assassins.
Marc:Yeah, there's no there's no.
Marc:So that's the ultimate surrender.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And again, I guess it is perfect for like such a boring guy that like his idea of here's a here's a name with a passcode.
Guest:You have to have a code to call the guy.
Marc:But he could also justify it, that there is a rationalization that comes from from corporate responsibility, especially with with ones that are that are being threatened of their sort of livelihood.
Guest:And there's obviously always plausible deniability with any of the debts, right?
Guest:They've all been made to look accidental or anything like that.
Guest:It is in this point of time, though, where Clooney and Sidney Pollack have their first scene together when Clooney goes to ask him for a bridge loan.
Guest:80 grand.
Guest:And Pollack basically lays out who Michael Clayton is, why he's doing what he's doing.
Guest:And again, it's that idea of like...
Guest:having people that you're in hock to and you can't get out, like Pollock's manipulation of him in that scene to tell him, like, I'm not going to put you back in a trial jury.
Guest:Like, your best days with you are probably behind you with that.
Guest:In your best days now, you do this thing that you're good at.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:Well, yeah, he basically is saying, you know, don't be a romantic about what that was like.
Marc:And he sort of diminishes this idea of nostalgia around actually being a lawyer that that might help somebody, you know, and says, look, this is, you know, you're very, you know, we need you.
Marc:You're the dirty guy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Which ultimately becomes true that he says to him, you have a niche and you've done what other people never get a chance to do.
Guest:And it's that find that one thing that you're great at and you be the only one who can do it.
Guest:And you have it.
Guest:And why do you want to give that up?
Guest:Which is like a bullshit manipulative thing to say to somebody.
Guest:But at the same time, it is what Clooney winds up doing at the end of this movie.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He figures out how to use his perception as a fixer to essentially orchestrate a sting operation and bring down the villains.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And free himself.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And liberate himself at the same time.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, so at this point in the movie, Arthur is suicided.
Guest:And as Mark said, it's terribly disturbing way.
Marc:Just the guy, you know, when he's checking the pulse twice.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:How much time he's got.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But then there's the Irish wake that's being held at the bar.
Guest:Which is the scene that contains the line we talked about at the beginning of this about people are incomprehensible.
Guest:That's also where we find out that the company is going to settle.
Guest:And Pollock is almost like, you hate to say this, but we got a lucky break here with this one.
Marc:Well, Pollock doesn't say that.
Marc:He says, and then Clooney says.
Guest:Clooney says it, finishes the sentence.
Marc:But Clooney knows something's wrong.
Marc:Clooney knows it.
Marc:Clooney knows something's wrong because the- He had met with Tilda Swinton, right?
Marc:With Tilda Swinton back in Minnesota, no?
Marc:In Wisconsin.
Marc:Yeah, he met with her there.
Guest:I think the thing that tips Clooney off, though, majorly, is that the farm girl that Merritt Weaver plays says she didn't talk to anybody.
Guest:And yet the firm knew that Arthur had called her.
Guest:And that, you know, gets the wheels turning.
Guest:And this is when Clooney has to break into his place and try to figure out.
Marc:The bugging the phones, right.
Marc:Because Wilkinson said that at some point before he died.
Marc:How did you know that?
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:It's in that scene with the bread.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:And this is where he finds the book that has the clues in it, essentially, and then goes and finds the photocopied memos that show Don Jeffries.
Marc:But he doesn't just find it.
Marc:It's in the book is the receipt for the printing shop.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And that's what he takes because he's about to be shot by two cops for being there.
Marc:And he slips.
Marc:Right.
Marc:He slips the the pickup, the invoice for the pickup at the copy shop.
Marc:He doesn't know what it is.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And and that is the document that indicts the company.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Well, first and first he goes to Arthur, not Arthur.
Guest:He goes to what is what is Sidney Potts name in this?
Guest:Marty.
Guest:Marty Bach.
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Guest:Marty Bach.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So first he goes to Marty to show him the memo.
Guest:And this to me is like the key scene in the movie that Pollock is like, don't you know, we do 15 years.
Guest:I got to tell you how to pay the how we pay the rent.
Marc:He's so good at that character.
Marc:He's so good at that character.
Marc:He did it again in Changing Lanes.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Changing Lanes.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:I love that movie.
Marc:I got a real soft spot for it.
Marc:But he plays another morally compromised corporate lawyer.
Marc:And it's great.
Guest:Right.
Guest:but a guy who when you hear him say it you yourself as an audience member don't necessarily disagree right like that's his gift that's what they do that's what they that's what these guys do exactly uh i do love too in that scene he's telling uh uh michael clayton that you know if they if this gets fucked like you know they're gonna get sued for for legal malpractice because of arthur's as he calls it his flash dance everyone's gonna
Guest:be out of work right and then their merger is going to fall through because they're trying to merge with some british company and he says but we won't even have any money left we'll be selling off the goddamn furniture which is what the movie opened yeah with michael clinton doing in his bar yeah
Guest:So it's like this kind of cycle of like, oh, yeah, this is how it all ends for people who are over leveraged.
Guest:They wind up getting to a point where they have to sell off shitty assets because they put themselves in too deep.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:It's just different levels of it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then this is when Danny from Caddyshack comes back in and kind of threatens him with.
Marc:Is this you talking or is this him?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And he says, look, he's an asshole, but he knows it.
Marc:So he's like, but yeah, so it is Pollock.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yes, exactly.
Guest:He's basically telling him in that moment, I use this guy to do the shitty things and I'm just going to pretend that none of this is happening right now and you're going to walk away with this check.
Guest:And then he's leaving the room and he says, you're welcome, by the way.
Marc:Yeah, that's the cunt line of the year.
Marc:Do you know what I mean?
Marc:You surrender to me.
Marc:It's an interesting idea about surrendering.
Marc:That's what that's about.
Marc:Whatever Michael Clayton, it all trickles down.
Marc:Whatever Clayton's doing to the people he's trying to help with what you talked about is like, okay, all of that's fine, but this is what we're going to do.
Marc:He's cucked by fucking...
Marc:Pollock totally in the same way.
Guest:It's like you got no choice you bitch You know you this is this is how this you know, this is what this is Yes, and this is the moment where where Clayton Finally figures that out all this calculus that's been going on through the whole movie of yeah, the the moral Conundrum of this this is where he figures it out and this is where he then goes and starts gambling
Guest:Right.
Guest:So if you go back to the now we're back at the beginning of the movie.
Marc:OK, so he's got the bread and this is going to get him out of the hole.
Marc:But like, you know, he pays off the loan.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But he's really got this is where he loses control with his one his addiction.
Marc:Like, this is where he goes back to, you know, like, fuck it.
Marc:Right.
Guest:You figure he had to pay off $75,000 and he got $80,000, so he's just going to go gamble that other $5,000 at the Brian Kopelman game.
Guest:And that's his sickness.
Marc:He's what you call a double winner in the racket, which he's like a full codependent, but he's also got a horrendous problem.
Marc:So he's got an addiction and he's fucking codependent.
Marc:So now the only thing he can resort to in that moment is to go back to the chaos of having the one thing he has no control over, which is gambling and do it.
Marc:Because that's the other thing we didn't talk about at the beginning is that he's got a gambling problem.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Well, they intimate that he had one and he fixed it or he, you know, he's recovered because there's the first moment when he goes to Marty to ask for the loan.
Guest:Sidney Pollack says, like, are you back into that shit again?
Guest:And he's like, no, come on.
Guest:You know, I haven't been for a long time.
Guest:He thinks he started gambling and he hasn't.
Marc:What part did the gambling play in the bar?
Marc:Do we even know that?
Marc:Was he trying to win back money?
Marc:Whose fault was all the money in the bar?
Marc:How did that get all lost?
Guest:We don't ever hear that.
Guest:I got the sense from re-watching it that it was just a bad investment.
Guest:That they, again, over-leveraged themselves to a situation that they were never going to meet their nut.
Guest:I got the feeling that somehow the brother had fucked it up.
Guest:Well, that was it, too.
Guest:They kept having to they kept having to take out money on top of money because of the brother.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like it was like he had to set him up with a different house and living somewhere else.
Guest:And I just got the sense that, like, it was a money waitress or something.
Marc:Yeah, that was his he was gambling on his brother.
Marc:He was gambling on all of it.
Marc:All of this is a gamble.
Marc:Even up to the very end, that rolling of the dice with Tilda Swinton, how's that gonna go?
Marc:That's the gambler.
Marc:He's a gambler.
Guest:The interesting idea is this is a covert gambling addiction movie.
Marc:But also a codependent movie.
Marc:It's two sides of the same coin.
Marc:The one thing that ruined his life because he had no control over it is sort of, he's about bluffing.
Marc:That's what law is about.
Marc:Is that like Wilkinson had given up the bluff.
Marc:You know, he couldn't live in it anymore, right?
Guest:And it's weird because his mental illness is what allows him the clarity of it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And the illness that Clooney has makes him perpetuate the bluff.
Marc:All he can do is hope that he can bluff, you know?
Marc:Huh.
Marc:That's interesting.
Marc:Because that's poker, man.
Guest:Yeah, well, and even if you think about it from Tilda Swinton's standpoint, like Karen is bluffing to the shareholders in that last scene.
Guest:It's like she has to practice it in front of a mirror and then she has to go and tell them that this is the best possible fiduciary terms that they can get in this moment and it's what she recommends.
Marc:Because it's gotten under control.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:They're about to get, you know.
Marc:They have to do it.
Marc:There's no choice.
Marc:It's so fascinating that, you know, we're just talking about this and you kind of realize these different depths
Marc:of not just character, but what the movie is about.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Well, and here is where we get back to the very first thing we said.
Guest:Why do we watch this all the time?
Guest:This is exactly why.
Guest:Because each time you're watching it, these things are buried like so far under the crust.
Guest:That all the surface pleasures of the movie are there every time you watch it.
Guest:But it's almost like as you get older and start to experience more, like this movie is now 15 years old as of this year.
Guest:I think it might have even come out like, hang on a sec, we're going to find something out right here.
Guest:This movie was released on September 24th, 2007.
Guest:So we just literally the other day passed the 15th anniversary of this movie.
Guest:And
Guest:I can tell you for sure, and I'm sure that's the same thing for you, within those last 15 years, I've had stuff happen in my life.
Marc:Well, that's right.
Marc:But I think that's like a signifier of a real work of art is something that evolves with you, that you return to it and you get different things from it.
Marc:You see it in a different way every time you go back to it.
Marc:And that's not just about what's in the movie.
Marc:It's about who you are when you watch it.
Marc:And as we change and go through life and things become more, our understanding of both tragedy, pain, and also the joys of life become deeper.
Marc:So you're gonna engage with things that have integrity and real artistic value differently every time you watch them as you get older.
Guest:Well, and I would say that is probably why I find that every, I don't know if you're the same way, but every time I watch this movie, you know, like there's plenty of movies where they come on, you want to, you were talking about Goodfellas.
Guest:You want to watch it, just watch it to the end.
Guest:I do that with this movie, but I am compelled every time to watch that full shot of him in the cab.
Guest:Oh yeah, all the way through.
Guest:Without interruption.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Every time.
Guest:And it's like, it's not like that shot does anything.
Guest:It's not dynamic.
Guest:It doesn't, but there is such a kind of, it's not even a catharsis.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's like a moment of church, of like...
Guest:of prayer.
Guest:You get to sit with this guy and go like, I get it, buddy.
Guest:I got to do this too.
Guest:I got to look straight ahead and drive around for $50 worth and just kind of figure out some shit in my life.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, in that moment, as he's walking out and his brother goes, you okay?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Remember?
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right before that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, like, he hands him the tape recorder.
Marc:You okay?
Marc:Like, you know, and that, and also, like, they're even.
Marc:You know, you don't even, you know, that there was, he had caused friction, you know, with his brother, but now his brother's gonna deliver a huge case.
Guest:Of all the wonderful things that Tony Gilroy did as a director in this movie, to me, the very, very best and most, you know, in command of what he was doing as a filmmaker is his decision to allow everything that happens to Tilda Swinton at the very end of that film happen out of focus and then out of sight.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:When she drops to her knees.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Like that is so perfect to be like, Michael Clayton is the story.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Not what happens there, which is what would happen in an action movie.
Guest:You'd see cops descending on this person and they'd have a moment.
Marc:You just see like, you know, fucking fat Ken Howard going, hey, stop him.
Marc:Stop that guy.
Marc:What's happening?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It is so.
Guest:Such a great, great moment to let that happen in the background.
Guest:And I guarantee, had he not been a guy responsible for making people tons of money with the Bourne movies, someone would have interfered at some point and been like, but shouldn't you have something at the end where the cops rush in and handcuff that woman?
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, that's the weird thing is, in thinking about it, you don't really know what kind of cop his brother is.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You don't know why is that his case?
Marc:And also what happens now?
Marc:Do you know where does that go?
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:It's like none of that matters.
Marc:All that matters is that once Cooney hands him the tape recorder, he's done.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:He's free.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And when he gets into that car, not unlike the end of any of those 70s movies, you're not completely, you know, you're relieved and, you know, it's great closure, but you're not sitting with this character thinking everything's okay.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:It's like the end of The Graduate.
Marc:You know, he finally gets that, you know, he slides that cross through those doors and they get on that bus.
Marc:And, you know, like that look, you know, when they realize what they've done is not like, you know, we win.
Guest:I think Michael Clayton is less bleak than The Graduate.
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure.
Marc:Right.
Marc:No, no.
Marc:Oh, it's totally less bleak, but it is provocative.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, it's not you know, there's a hero's journey to it, but you still have all these unresolved sort of like, you know, you know who Michael Clayton is.
Marc:And now, you know, that, you know, he's untethered from it all, but you don't really know what happens next.
Marc:And I think that's what resonated with you is that that's the feeling you're sitting with in that cab.
Marc:Yeah, totally.
Marc:You've got this time and we're just going to drive around for a while.
Guest:Did Tony Gilroy tell you the secret about that cabbie?
Marc:No.
Guest:That was him.
Guest:Oh, what?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, he's the cabbie.
Marc:See, I missed that.
Marc:I should have known more.
Marc:We should have this conversation before I talk to him.
Guest:Well, I also think that it shouldn't go unnoticed that this movie came out at the exact same time as No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, and Zodiac, which, again, when you talk about standing the test of time, those are...
Guest:Three other movies that right on this level, like I could watch them all at any time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's just very rare for some of the really tremendous filmmaking of like the last several decades to all come out at around the same time.
Marc:That's true.
Marc:You know, in all those movies, yeah, I can watch.
Marc:I don't think I'm trying to think when the last time I saw Zodiac was.
Marc:I'm going to see it this week.
Marc:You are?
Marc:Yeah, it's literally playing at the movie theater by my house.
Guest:I'm going to go see it again.
Guest:You got a revival house by your house?
Guest:I do.
Guest:Sometimes I think they're conspiring to keep me away from my family.
Guest:I see what they're showing and I'm like, what are you doing?
Marc:Tarantino's New Beverly does that, but it's always like those grindhouse things and those weirdo B movies.
Marc:I don't go in for that shit.
Guest:Yeah, no.
Guest:I like seeing a really nice print of something that I haven't seen in a long time.
Guest:I went and saw Escape from New York a couple weeks ago, and it was fucking great.
Guest:Was it?
Guest:It was better than I remembered it.
Guest:I'm like, oh my God, this is so good.
Guest:Kurt Russell was the man.
Guest:Talk about movie star role.
Guest:That was a movie star.
Guest:Why haven't we interviewed that guy?
Guest:Yeah, I don't know.
Guest:He'd be a great guy to talk to.
Guest:Yeah, we should reach out to him.
Guest:Well, I think we've done a great job here with Michael Clayton.
Guest:And it's interesting.
Guest:It's like, I don't know that there's another filmmaker that really makes this movie in the way Gilroy made it, which honors the films of the 70s, but also made something that was kind of contemporary and psychologically relevant to the era in which it was made.
Guest:And as you and I have pointed out, like resonant today.
Right.
Marc:Really, what wins this movie is, like you were saying before, is that every role is handled with such, you know, shape and professionalism and, you know, with actors who that's what they do.
Marc:They act.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:You know, and each character is so fully formed.
Marc:Every fucking one of them in this movie.
Marc:Even the two cops that, you know, almost shoot Clooney.
Right.
Yeah.
Marc:Where he's like, no, no, you don't get it.
Marc:I'm like, drop it.
Marc:It's like everybody is written perfectly and acted thoroughly.
Marc:And there's not a bad performance in the movie down to one line.
Guest:parts that's right that's right and that's astounding that's the kind of thing that keeps the keeps the thing it holds the thing together it gives any movie that has that uh level of commitment from all the performances gives the whole thing an integrity that prevents you from from from slipping through the cracks right and that's what makes you return to it time and again even the old man with the with his emphysema machine the father at the birthday party yeah
Marc:I mean, like, it's all there.
Marc:Are you leaving already?
Marc:Like, the codependency, the Irish family, the whole, you know, all of it.
Marc:Well, I will say this, though.
Guest:As much props as we're giving to Tony Gilroy, I do not think it's the same movie with anybody but Clooney.
Marc:Yeah, and you'll listen to the interview, and there were other people in mind.
Marc:Big, big names.
Marc:Denzel, for Christ's sake.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:And Wilkinson, too.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Like, you know, that's the thing about when people when you hear about things about, you know, casting ideas that didn't happen where you realize, like, I can't see anybody doing this because they were that person.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:You know, there's no you can't even because once it's done, it's done.
Marc:You really can't recast if the movie is amazing.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, because any other actor is going to do it some other way.
Guest:Well, Michael Clayton, we will watch you again soon, I'm sure.
Marc:Yes, that's for sure.
Guest:It's not going to go away.
Marc:I've got to watch it now.
Marc:I've got to watch it now, I think.
Guest:I've got to watch it on my phone in the car.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, the next time one of these comes up, I'm sure it'll present itself very clearly, just the same way this did, that you and I say, well, that's one that we watch all the time.
Guest:Let's talk about it.
Guest:And I think it's fun.
Guest:I actually think I...
Marc:learned some stuff about the movie and my consideration of it that i hadn't thought about before yeah me too for sure we've never talked this in depth about it we should get uh uh what's his name david o russell on oh yeah he's got that new thing coming out but like he's the guy like like three kings is another one i just watched it the other day oh my god three kings i just watched it the best right
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Let's make that our next movie.
Guest:We should do that.
Guest:We should watch it again and talk about it because that is so good.
Guest:It's so good.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Another Clooney.
Guest:Maybe we're just doing Clooney movies forever because he is literally that guy you were talking about last week where you're like, I can watch him do anything.
Guest:No, I could.
Guest:I could watch George Clooney do anything.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He's great.
Marc:All right.
Good.