Pride and Can't Remember

But in any case it's Ed Norton's new movie I'm thinking of. I might sneak off to see it tomorrow, although if there isn't much work to do and I'm paid by the hour, I'm not sure sneaking off is really accurate. In any case, I thought he had few interesting things to say in an interview he did about the film with Movies Online. Here goes:

Sometimes people talk about genre as though that’s a simplistic thing or a
bad thing but the flip of that is genre is something I think we go back to again
and again because there’s something in it that we’re fascinated by. The trick
with the cop corruption genre is at best not just to do it with quality, not
just to find an aesthetic quality to it which I think Gavin did, but also to
maybe look for a way that you make it reflect your generation’s version of that
genre and so I do think in part it’s about saying what’s our generation
experiencing that can refract through this and make it something that’s not just
a cop corruption drama but ends up echoing that cultural moment whether on a
local level in New York like the Abner Louima scandal where there was a torture
incident at play or on a broader level in terms of what’s going on nationally or
globally. The way Gavin and Joe Carnahan had structured this in the script, I
look at it and felt like this has questions in it. This is questioning dynamics
that our whole country is sorting through right now and maybe that makes it
special to our moment. I think that’s the best you can hope for is that in some
way you’re dealing with what’s difficult about the way we’re living right now
and that’s how you separate it from what’s come before.Sometimes people talk
about genre as though that’s a simplistic thing or a bad thing but the flip of
that is genre is something I think we go back to again and again because there’s
something in it that we’re fascinated by. The trick with the cop corruption
genre is at best not just to do it with quality, not just to find an aesthetic
quality to it which I think Gavin did, but also to maybe look for a way that you
make it reflect your generation’s version of that genre and so I do think in
part it’s about saying what’s our generation experiencing that can refract
through this and make it something that’s not just a cop corruption drama but
ends up echoing that cultural moment whether on a local level in New York like
the Abner Louima scandal where there was a torture incident at play or on a
broader level in terms of what’s going on nationally or globally. The way Gavin
and Joe Carnahan had structured this in the script, I look at it and felt like
this has questions in it. This is questioning dynamics that our whole country is
sorting through right now and maybe that makes it special to our moment. I think
that’s the best you can hope for is that in some way you’re dealing with what’s
difficult about the way we’re living right now and that’s how you separate it
from what’s come before.

And another little bit that caught my eye:

I think it’s fair to say that almost every actor likes the idea of
complexity in a character. I think we’re all trying to find something meaty to
work with or frankly that’s hard. It’s like you get into this because you want
to try to pin down things that are complicated or hard about people so on some
level I just think people are paradoxical. People are all paradoxical. I think
everybody is grey. I don’t think anybody’s ultimately very easily reducible but
I like any character that’s got contradictory impulses or shades of ambiguity
about them. It’s fun because it’s hard. It’s just hard.
In this case, Gavin
and Joe Carnahan’s script is really interesting because the characters… He
actually doesn’t say a lot in the beginning. He’s referred to a lot. Like one of
the things I noted when I read it was for a long time you learn more about him
from other people talking about him than from the things he says. It’s just very
mysterious. I found myself reading along and going “Huh? I wonder what the deal
is with this guy.” That’s unusual sometimes in a script because a lot of times
people will telegraph, you know, make sure you understand the character. To
leave a lot of empty space in a character is kind of interesting on a writing
level because you end up reading it and you say “Oh…” You’re going to have to
communicate a lot without a lot of words to work with. That was a particular
thing that interested me in this film.