Willem Dafoe Joins Edward Norton’s ‘Motherless Brooklyn’

Wow... looks better than Chinatown!

Holy shit, I don't think I realized how insane this cast is beyond just Norton and Dafoe. Norton's performance looks like it could veer on the side of high cringe if he doesn't 100% pull it off ... but in general I'm stoked. 

umm yes please

how in god's name does this look even less subtle than The Goldfinch?

I saw this very early in post, so I’m not going to make any declarations about it’s quality. But I left feeling like they’d really have their work cut out for them to make the Tourette’s thing work, and based on what I’m seeing here, I’m not sure.

I want this to be better than I’m thinking it will be though, because I’m still fond of Norton.

It's crucial to the book - in fact, it's the entire basis for the themes the book explores related to thought and thought process. That's the problem with adapting a novel though because what you read on the page and plays as almost mathematically complicated can come across different on screen.

I would say that trailer as much as I am looking forward to it, didn't evoke the book to me - which can be fine of course but I expected it to look and feel different.

I can already tell that I'll prefer Keeping the Faith.

I think for me that Chinatown/LA Confidential thing stands out from the trailer because the book is not set in the past like that.

When I saw set photos I guess I was just stupid and thought they were for flashbacks only or something - so that's a pretty big change that sort of makes it look like Norton's reaching a bit to evoke those films.

wtf is ed norton doing with this performance, haha. looks like a potential shitfest.

What's odd is people are saying Chinatown, LA Confidential especially and (the fine but lesser) Devil In A Blue Dress - when all of those pieces were written in period from the start. The important thing here though is Norton took a piece that very specifically was in the now - or the now of whenever that book came out - where people were acting or speaking like it was the past - almost like Brick but not as stylized.

That's a huge risk because it's immediately going to play very much like "this is how bad things were then" and we're so much better off now - which is not the point of any of those films.

Even the Tourette's takes on a different context "then" than it does in more recent times where people are more aware of it but can still be cruel - it's less "forgivable" in the current setting to mock it .......of course that makes it fun to watch - he may have made the film harder to pull off than necessary.