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In an October 2007 interview with Filmmaker Magazine, Gilroy cited Pollack’s 1970s thrillers (which include “Three Days of the Condor” and “The Yakuza”) and like-minded ’70s genre fare as a heavy influence on not just “Michael Clayton” but his love of films in general. He explained:
“’70s movies are the heart of where my moviegoing obsession really began, and they’re still the films I go back and look at the most. It was a combination of muscular filmmaking with great subject matter. And ambiguity. Muscle and ambiguity and complexity and loose ends. That’s been ghetto-ized off to the side now to the Sundance film or the super-indie film, where people are really hanging on for dear life [because] they don’t have enough money to make their movies. They have the twentieth choice of actor, and their crew’s doing everything for the first time.
“But that era of balls-out, tough, full-stop, pro moviemaking that didn’t have the chaos beaten out of it, there are so many movies that fall into that category: the [Alan J.] Pakula films, Klute was a big influence, ‘Point Blank’ was a huge influence, all the Gordon Willis films, Sidney Lumet, Hal Ashby, Frank Perry – and Sydney [Pollack].”
“Michael Clayton” very much embodies the qualities Gilroy admires most about ’70s thrillers. It’s a tense, slow-burn affair that starts with a literal bang when Michael avoids being killed by a bomb in his car through sheer luck, only to jump back in time four days and unravel the tangled web of events that led to this attempt on his life. Mind you, “Michael Clayton” did this well before opening in medias res became an overused trick that movie or TV thrillers use to quickly try and hook their audience. By comparison, the shocking prologue to Gilroy’s film is much more effective at hanging the proverbial Sword of Damocles over its lead’s head.
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