USA
MAD CITY
1997 – 35mm – c - 115’
Direction: Constantin Costa Gavras
Screenplay: Tom Matthews
Cinematography: Patrick Blossier
Editing: Françoise Bonnot
Set design: Catherine Hardwicke
Music: Thomas Newman
Costumes: Denise Cronenberg, Deborah Nadoolman
Cast: Dustin Hoffman, Alan Alda, Mia Kirshner, John Travolta, Bill Nunn
Produzione Production: Warner Bros., Arnold Kopelson, Punch Productions
SYNOPSIS
Max Brackett, a TV journalist, has been degraded from the national television to a local channel in Madeline, California. One day, Max and his assistant Laurie go to the natural history museum to interview the director Mrs Banks. When they get there Sam, an employee at the museum, just dismissed for reductions to the budget, has come back to ask for the repeal of the dismissal, in the name of his wife and the two children. But the lady is firm and then Sam suddenly gets out a gun. Hidden in the toilet, Max watches the scene and realises that, if he makes his move, this could be the opportunity he was waiting.
CRITICAL NOTE
“(…) With the flawless Costa Gavras’s direction, this is a film of Brechtian quality for the clearness with which it disassembles and assembles again the mechanisms mystifying the news, and another quality is that of emphasising through the environment, the fact that it’s not this or that to be blamed: we all sit, alas!, at the bar of the accused in today’s civilisation of information-entertainment.” (Alessandra Levantesi)
