Edward Norton on Trump the ‘Insane Clown Charlatan’ and His Big Disagreement With Spielberg
Film noir may have been born in the 1940s, but its cynicism endures because there’s always something new in America about which to feel hopeless. That fact is strikingly borne out by Motherless Brooklyn, a star-studded detective tale whose action has been relocated from the 1990s of its source material (Jonathan Lethem’s acclaimed 1999 novel) to 1957, and whose depiction of political and social treachery is deeply rooted in our present Trumpian day. The closing night selection of this year’s New York Film Festival (and in theaters Nov. 1), it’s a portrait of the old boss as the new boss as every boss, presiding over a world in which power is wielded ruthlessly, and compassion, love and justice are in dire danger of being trampled underfoot.
Ask Motherless Brooklyn’s writer/director/star Edward Norton about the parallels shared by his period piece and our current corruption-plagued circumstances, and he concedes that his latest look at the damage wrought by amoral, unchecked government elites is all too relevant. Nonetheless, any direct comparisons end there, since his film’s villain, Moses Randolph (Alec Baldwin)—inspired by real-life NYC visionary and tyrant Robert Moses—is a brilliant man, unlike the current Oval Office occupant, whom Norton refers to only as “this insane clown charlatan.”
Baldwin’s Randolph is the black heart of Motherless Brooklyn, looming large over its story about a fledgling private eye named Lionel (Norton) who, following a tragedy, finds himself drawn into a mystery involving a variety of enigmatic characters—played by the likes of Willem Dafoe, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Michael K. Williams and Bruce Willis—whose paths crisscross in a New York City undergoing radical urban-planning change. And did I mention that Lionel has Tourette’s syndrome, and is thus prone to blurting out inappropriateness in great, uncontrollable bursts?