Daily Dialogue — April 24, 2019

Michael: Really. You think your judgement is state-of-the-art right now? They’re putting everything on the table here. You need to stop and think this through. I will help you think this through. I will find someone to help you think his through. Don’t do this. You’re gonna make it easy for them.

Arthur draws himself up. We saw a glimpse of this in Milwaukee. The teeth. The shark beneath the bread loaves.

Arthur: I have great affection for you, Michael, and you lead a very rich and interesting life, but you’re a bagman, not an attorney. If your intention was to have me committed, you should’ve kept me in Wisconsin where the arrest record, videotape, and eyewitness accounts of my inappropriate behavior had jurisdictional relevance. I have no criminal record in the State of New York and the crucial determining criteria for involuntary commitment is danger: ‘Is the defendant a danger to himself or others.’ You think you’ve got the horses for that? Good luck and God bless. But I’ll tell you this, the last place you want to see me is in court..

Arthur muscles up his bread. He’s leaving.

Michael: I’m not the enemy.
Arthur: Then who are you?

And he’s walking. Michael almost calling after him. Then nothing. Standing on the sidewalk with a baguette in his hand and a great variety of failures arranging themselves around his heart.

— Michael Clayton (2007), written by Tony Gilroy

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Lawyer. Today’s suggestion by Mark Furney.

Trivia: Committed to a fully developed back story, director Tony Gilroy spent a good deal of time establishing the details of “Realm and Conquest” with production designer Kevin Thompson. Gilroy explained that right from the beginning, when he first read the script, he could tell “Realm and Conquest” was going to be a key prop. In the movie, it’s a metaphor for truth and justice. To create the details of the fictional novel, Thompson generated original visuals inspired by German Expressionistic images cut from wood blocks, and Tony Gilroy wrote the first two pages for three chapters of the book. They even designed a “Realm and Conquest” card game for a scene between Henry and Michael. Thompson said, “This detail was important to Tony because, in his own life, novels and games similar to ‘Realm and Conquest’ allow him to connect with his son in a meaningful way.”

Dialogue On Dialogue: We see this question — “Who are you? / Who am I?” — over and over again in movies. Why? Because at a base level, movies are about self-identity, specifically the Protagonist. You can look at Story — everything that happens, all the events, each of the characters with whom the Protagonist intersects — as facilitating the process whereby this central character is forced to confront their True Self. It’s the essence of the Protagonist’s journey.