I wanted to love Motherless Brooklyn, and it is certainly true that in the beginning of the movie, I thought: this is watercolor fantasy for urban planners. Norton bought the rights to Jonathan Lethem's novel, which I haven't read, but seems to have changed the story to make it about Robert Moses.
Robert Moses is famous, and perhaps notorious figure. He had a very long career, and having worked in New York State government, became the most powerful figure in New York City development between the 1930s and the 1960s. He built parks, expressways, and bridges, and destroyed many working-class neighborhoods in order to build those structures. Jane Jacobs, famous for her influential book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, opposed him and helped turn the tide of public opinion against him. Moses represents destroying neighborhoods for the sake of providing movement for cars, prioritizing cars over public transit, and for a model of urban renewal that called for large-scale demolition for the sake of new building.
The character in the movie based on Moses is called Moses Randall (or Randolph) and is played by Alec Baldwin. The movie has a wonderful cast: Willem Dafoe, Cherry Jones, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw.
As the movie progressed, I felt that the quality of the plot, the dialogue, and the acting suffered. When the heritage of the character played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw was revealed, I found myself feeling that this had been done before, and better, in Chinatown.
A year or so ago I heard an episode of Terry Gross's Fresh Air, from National Public Radio, in which Robert Caro talked about his award-winning biography of Moses, The Power Broker. Caro said that one source of his power was his ability to dig up dirt on his political opponents:
'But all of a sudden, the key official, a lawyer for the council to Mayor [Robert] Wagner changed his mind, and wrote a letter saying Moses' route was good. So when I was talking to Moses I said, "What did you do to Henry Epstein?" And he said something like, "Oh we hit him with an ax." I said, "What do you mean?" And he said in their investigation they had found that he had a girlfriend. He was a married man but he had a longtime girlfriend. He said, "I said to Henry, you and this chum of yours. And Henry said, "She's not my chum." And Moses said, "Oh yes, Henry, she's your chum all right." So Moses said to me... "So Henry wrote his letter."'
Here's a link to that podcast: https://www.npr.org/2019/04/15/713413916/biographer-robert-caro-on-fame-power-and-working-to-uncover-the-truth
Robert Moses is famous, and perhaps notorious figure. He had a very long career, and having worked in New York State government, became the most powerful figure in New York City development between the 1930s and the 1960s. He built parks, expressways, and bridges, and destroyed many working-class neighborhoods in order to build those structures. Jane Jacobs, famous for her influential book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, opposed him and helped turn the tide of public opinion against him. Moses represents destroying neighborhoods for the sake of providing movement for cars, prioritizing cars over public transit, and for a model of urban renewal that called for large-scale demolition for the sake of new building.
The character in the movie based on Moses is called Moses Randall (or Randolph) and is played by Alec Baldwin. The movie has a wonderful cast: Willem Dafoe, Cherry Jones, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw.
As the movie progressed, I felt that the quality of the plot, the dialogue, and the acting suffered. When the heritage of the character played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw was revealed, I found myself feeling that this had been done before, and better, in Chinatown.
A year or so ago I heard an episode of Terry Gross's Fresh Air, from National Public Radio, in which Robert Caro talked about his award-winning biography of Moses, The Power Broker. Caro said that one source of his power was his ability to dig up dirt on his political opponents:
'But all of a sudden, the key official, a lawyer for the council to Mayor [Robert] Wagner changed his mind, and wrote a letter saying Moses' route was good. So when I was talking to Moses I said, "What did you do to Henry Epstein?" And he said something like, "Oh we hit him with an ax." I said, "What do you mean?" And he said in their investigation they had found that he had a girlfriend. He was a married man but he had a longtime girlfriend. He said, "I said to Henry, you and this chum of yours. And Henry said, "She's not my chum." And Moses said, "Oh yes, Henry, she's your chum all right." So Moses said to me... "So Henry wrote his letter."'
Here's a link to that podcast: https://www.npr.org/2019/04/15/713413916/biographer-robert-caro-on-fame-power-and-working-to-uncover-the-truth
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