In most films, we’re only aware of the last shot in retrospect. The screen cuts to black, and only then do we process after the fact what image, moment, and idea the filmmaker chose to leave us with. Often when I’m watching dramas or character pieces and the film is clearly nearing its end, I try to predict which shot will be the last. I look at each shot and wonder if it will signal the onset of names scrolling up the screen. But this game doesn’t work with Michael Clayton, because the credits start rolling while the final shot is just beginning to settle in.
Whenever I see Michael Clayton, I’m reminded of a moment at the end of Kill Bill Vol. 1. Uma Thurman tells someone that not only does she want Bill to know she’s coming for him, but that she needs the psychology to go one step further. “I want him to know that I want him to know,” she adds. And so it is with Michael Clayton writer/director Tony Gilroy. When it comes to the last shot of his movie, Gilroy wants you to know that he wants you to know.
“Michael Clayton is a character piece about someone, more or less, discovering their conscience.”
Michael Clayton is a character piece about someone, more or less, discovering their conscience. That discovery happens in the climactic scene, which immediately gives way to the last shot. George Clooney (starring as the titular Michael) leaves the building after the final confrontation, gets in a cab, and the credits start to roll as the camera lingers on his face for several minutes. He looks out the window, stares off in the distance, fidgets, and takes more than one deep breath. We are watching someone not just locate their own soul, but also coming to terms with the realization (and the surprise) that they actually have one.
And again, the film wants us to know this. As Michael is finding himself and beginning to understand what he’s found, the movie is actively telling us that we’re watching its conclusion. It’s handholding, in a way; the equivalent of someone next to you nudging you and whispering, “Pay attention, this part’s important.” But the movie is just defining its own terms more proactively than we’re used to.
In starting the credits while this self-discovery is just beginning, the movie forces us to watch its ending differently, with a heightened awareness. The facial expressions take on added meaning once we know they’re the last things we’ll see. (This trick was repeated to great success two years ago, with Timothée Chalamet’s long stare into the fireplace at the end of Call Me By Your Name.)
“In starting the credits while this self-discovery is just beginning, the movie forces us to watch its ending differently, with a heightened awareness.”
This shot is the best acting of George Clooney’s career. That’s not a dig; Clooney has been outstanding in several movies, with 2009’s Up in the Air and 2011’s The Descendants also showcasing his very best. Clooney was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar for all three performances, yet he somehow lost all three. Chronologically, he was beaten by Daniel Day-Lewis (perfectly understandable), Jeff Bridges (vaguely understandable), and Jean Dujardin (fairly inexplicable). But the last shot of Michael Clayton remains his greatest moment.
In the film, Michael Clayton is a fixer for a major law firm who has just hit 30,000 billable hours in their litigation of a lawsuit against their client, an agricultural conglomerate called U-North. But the case is going south after star attorney Arthur Edens (played by Tom Wilkinson) goes off the deep end in a manic depressive episode and decides he can no longer represent a possibly evil client.
This leads the firm to send Michael to rein in Arthur and repair the situation with U-North’s counsel, Karen Crowder (played by Tilda Swinton). I won’t say too much more, except that things go poorly. Arthur ends up dead and an attempt is made on Michael’s life, all of which sets up the fateful conclusion and the mesmerizing denouement.
“And for those of us who saw Michael Clayton when it came out, the film helped us contextualize what was happening in our national politics nearly a decade later.”
If you haven’t seen the movie (or even if you have), reading the previous paragraph may tip you off to the especially weird thing about watching Michael Clayton in 2019: It is virtually impossible to not see heavy parallels to Michael Cohen. Indeed, watching Michael Clayton in 2007 was how I (and I suspect many others) actually first learned what a “fixer” even was, and when Michael Cohen first became a public figure in 2016, the way I identified his precise ilk of asshole was by remembering that great movie I’d seen nine years earlier. “Oh, he’s like a Michael Clayton that no one ever tried to kill, so he never discovered his soul in the back of a cab after making Tilda Swinton’s knees give out,” I thought to myself. (As one does when one follows both great American movies and partisan American tragedies.)
But I guess the joke’s on me because Michael Cohen may have actually discovered his soul too! (Possibly.)
Anyway, this is all a way to say that it’s fascinating how movies can evolve in meaning over time. Michael Clayton was a great film in 2007, but it likely had very little specific resonance to the lives or experiences of many of its viewers. In 2019, Michael Clayton remains a great film, but it has the added dimension of suddenly feeling eerily prescient. And for those of us who saw Michael Clayton when it came out, the film helped us contextualize what was happening in our national politics nearly a decade later.
“Michael Clayton is Gilroy’s directorial debut, but it feels more like prime Sidney Lumet than it does anyone’s first film.”
I suppose it’s possible for a film to luck into that. But generally speaking, films that retroactively feel like they predicted some version of the future have to be pretty damn good in the first place. Chief credit goes to the aforementioned writer/director Tony Gilroy, who was a double Oscar nominee for the film (and who had a pretty amazing 2007 in also writing The Bourne Ultimatum). Michael Clayton is Gilroy’s directorial debut, but it feels more like prime Sidney Lumet than it does anyone’s first film. Everything here is assured, and each of the three leads turns in arguably the finest performance of their career. (All three were nominated for Oscars, with Swinton winning).
But perhaps even more striking is the staging. Look at the moment where Tilda Swinton buckles to the floor after realizing she’s likely headed to jail for attempted murder. A lesser film would have made this moment—and Swinton’s aching, full-body delivery of it—a chief visual focus. It would have taken up the screen. But not so here. Instead we see it in the background, losing focus as the camera stays with Clooney walking out of the room.
And that, of course, sets up the final shot. I’ll spare everyone a fifth whole paragraph about one shot, but just know that it’s a unanimous, first-ballot selection for the Final Shot Hall of Fame, where it would join such films as The Third Man, The Graduate, The Godfather, and Before Sunset. That’s some heavy company, and well worthy of all the fidgeting and deep breaths George lets out in the back of that cab.
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