New York. Renovation

Why is it worth watching the new film by Edward Norton "Orphan Brooklyn"

The intellectual Norton, behind which the image of the most resultant and fertilized Hollywood actor is assigned (his argument with Marvel about the final version of the “incredible Hulk” became the property of the media), created an atmospheric neo -neoar, a criminal drama in the spirit of the “Chinese quarter”.

It can be said that this is the author’s cinema: Norton dreamed of making it 20 years, he wrote the script himself, became a producer, director, played a major role. The film is based on the novel by Jonathan Poyem, only Norton transfers events from the 90s in the 50s-a significant time for New York.

Lyonel Essrog (Norton) is a detective of a private agency suffering from a tourist syndrome. His boss Frank (Bruce Willis) asks his assistants to cover him during secret negotiations, which unexpectedly ended with the murder of Frank. Then Lionel has to take up the investigation himself. To grope for traces leading to the highest circles of society, to get with their capricious head into corrupt schemes, including related to renovation, and in fact the New York's Department. To participate in shares against the authorities, but the main thing is to look for the guilty of the death of Frank, the only person in the world who showed the child of evil streets to him, attention.

Lionel Gift, he has a rare talent for memorizing details. But the state of the nervous system makes it twitch uncontrollably from time to time, screaming likely, repeat it out loud what I would like to hide. Moreover, in rhymes.

His body is an anarchist who is not obeying the owner. For a fight with gangsters and corrupt officials - an alarming diagnosis. For cinema - a plus that allows you to mix the drama with irony.

So he found a girl in one of the bars, almost ready to testify. Lionel gallantly brings a match to her cigarette and ... immediately involuntarily blows her. After the third faded match, the indignant sofa disappears.

Norton creates a special world. He is not interested in a detailed reconstruction of the past. He even stylizes New York himself at a historical intersection as the image of the city, reflected in the cinema of the middle of the century. Harlem vintage cars, smoky jazz clubs of Harlem, dark slums of Brooklyn with passers-by-trees, felt hats and long raincoats. And even the elegant Pennsylvania railway station-the disappeared the guiding palace (it was demolished in 1966). This is the cinema space.

"Orphan Brooklyn" sends hello to several classic nuars at once. The “deep dream” with Humphrey Bogart will remind the confusing plot with a rapid denouement and tenacious attention to the little things. “Double Insurance” will be remembered in connection with the fraud of officials, in this film Billy Wilder was also talking about how to conduct a dialogue with the system if it deceives you. And of course, the main support in the new construction of Norton is the unfading “Chinese quarter” of Roman Polanski, in which Detective (Jack Nicholson) also finds himself in the center of a confusing ball of corruption, scandals, fraud. The mosaic action of "Orphan Brooklyn", as in the "Chinese quarter ", floats in jazz improvisations. And sometimes it seems that the solo on the saxophone intercepts the camera, withdrawing from the chaos of sounds and images the topic of the birth of the city of the future from the torment of the present.

For Norton in the origin of modern New York, as in the history of many famous cities in the world, many secrets, crimes, human tragedies are hidden. In this city, power acts in harmony and silent unity with street gangs, they are useful to each other. Topics of not only corruption, but also racism and segregation are woven into the detective plot.

Among the advantages of the film are an accurate casting. Alec Baldwin plays the antagonist Lionel-the policy of Moses Randolf, the developer, which rebels New York. The conductor of corruption symphonies, the initiator of the mass destruction of entire regions for the sake of wide highways and parks (by the way, the famous central park has just been broken in the place of residential quarters, which no one will remember after some decades). Latent xenophobe, cleansing the city from slums along with their inhabitants. According to his own characterization, a true American.

In his monologues, it is not difficult to guess quotes from Robert Moshes, an outstanding urban planner, who was called an architect-dictation, which largely formed the appearance of modern New York. Like Moses, Randolph builds highweights and parks, destroying the living space that bothers him. Like Moses, he repeats about the greatness of America and that the cook must break eggs, and the urban planner should destroy the stiffing areas and ghetto. But Baldwin goes further and mixes to the character of his conceited proud of Trump's features, with pleasure repeating the famous “trumpisms”.

Baldwin filled his hand in parody of the president of America in the popular program "Saturday Night". They say that these parodies are truly infuriated by Trump.

Unexpected by Willem, Defoe, who plays a talented person who is confused between the parties to the conflict, affecting the fate of hundreds of thousands of people. The watercolor version of the Fam-Fatal is performed by Guga Mbata Row, her black activist hovers in the clouds of jazz clubs at night, and during the day he fights with ruthless buildings.

If the film was shorter, he would not have prices. 144 minutes. This, of course, works on the atmosphere of a viscous noir story. But in the middle the film freezes, as if thinking whether it is worth continuing.

At the same time, the picture of Edward Norton has the most important quality - cinema. In addition, the story told is directly related to many cities of the current world. For example, to Moscow with its insatiable, reckless, in places criminal renovation.