J. Edgar
J. Edgar | |
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Directed by | Clint Eastwood |
Written by | Dustin Lance Black |
Produced by |
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Starring |
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Cinematography | Tom Stern |
Edited by |
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Music by | Clint Eastwood |
Production companies |
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Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 137 minutes[1] |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $35 million[2] |
Box office | $84.9 million[3] |
J. Edgar is a 2011 American biographical drama film directed, produced and scored by Clint Eastwood.[4] Written by Dustin Lance Black, the film focuses on the career of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover from the Palmer Raids onward. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Armie Hammer, Naomi Watts, Josh Lucas, and Judi Dench. It marked Adam Driver's film debut.
J. Edgar opened the AFI Fest 2011 in Los Angeles on November 3, 2011, and had its limited release on November 9, 2011 followed by wide release on November 11. The film received mixed reviews from critics, although DiCaprio's performance was widely praised, and it grossed $84 million worldwide. It was chosen by the National Board of Review as one of the top ten films of 2011, while DiCaprio earned a nomination for a Golden Globe Award and both he and Hammer earned Screen Actors Guild Award nods.
Plot[]
In 1919, after anarchists fail to assassinate Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, he assigns his protégé J. Edgar Hoover to a division dedicated to purging radicals. He meets Helen Gandy, a new secretary at the Justice Department, and takes her to the Library of Congress to show her the card catalog system. While there, she rejects his awkward passes, but agrees to become his personal secretary.
Hoover finds that the Department of Labor refuses to deport anyone without evidence of a crime. Learning that Anthony Caminetti, the Commissioner General of Immigration, dislikes the anarchist Emma Goldman, Hoover arranges to make her eligible for deportation and thereby creates a precedent of deportation for radical conspiracy. Following several such raids of suspected radical groups, Palmer loses his job as Attorney General. His successor, Harlan F. Stone, appoints Hoover as director of the Justice Department's new Bureau of Investigation. Meanwhile, Hoover meets and hires lawyer Clyde Tolson.
When the Lindbergh kidnapping captures national attention, President Herbert Hoover asks the Bureau to investigate. Hoover employs several novel techniques, including the monitoring of registration numbers on ransom bills and expert analysis of the kidnapper's handwriting. When the monitored bills begin showing up in New York City, the investigators find a filling station attendant who wrote down the license plate number of the man who gave him the bill. This leads to the arrest, and eventual conviction, of Bruno Richard Hauptmann for the kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh child.
After Hoover, his mother, and Tolson see the James Cagney film G Men, Hoover and Tolson go to a club, where Hoover is seated with Anita Colby, Ginger Rogers, and Rogers' mother Lela. When Lela asks Hoover to dance, he becomes agitated and leaves with Tolson, saying they have work to do in the morning. When he arrives home, he tells his mother that he dislikes dancing with girls, and she tells him she would rather her son be dead than a "daffodil".
Hoover and Tolson visit the horse races; that evening, Hoover tells Tolson that he cares deeply for him, and Tolson tells Hoover that he loves him. Hoover panics and claims that he wants to marry Dorothy Lamour, and Tolson accosts Hoover, leading to a fight which culminates in Tolson suddenly kissing Hoover before attempting to leave. Hoover apologizes and begs him to stay, but Tolson threatens to end their association if Hoover talks about another woman again.
Years later, Hoover feels his strength begin to decline, while Tolson suffers a stroke. Hoover tries to blackmail Martin Luther King, Jr. into declining his Nobel Peace Prize, sending him a letter threatening to expose his extramarital affairs. King disregards this and accepts the prize.
Hoover tells Gandy to dispose of his secret files after his death in order to prevent President Richard Nixon from possessing them. He then visits Tolson, who urges him to retire. Hoover refuses however, claiming that Nixon would ruin the bureau he has established, and Tolson accuses Hoover of having exaggerated his involvement with key events in the Bureau.
Hoover returns home from work, with his strength rapidly declining. Shortly after Hoover goes upstairs, his housekeeper calls Tolson, who goes to the house and finds Hoover dead next to his bed. Nixon gives a televised memorial speech for Hoover, while several members of his staff enter Hoover's office and search for his rumored "confidential" files, but find nothing. Elsewhere, Gandy destroys stacks of Hoover's files.
Cast[]
- Leonardo DiCaprio as J. Edgar Hoover
- Armie Hammer as Clyde Tolson
- Naomi Watts as Helen Gandy
- Josh Lucas as Charles Lindbergh
- Judi Dench as Anna Marie Hoover, Hoover's mother
- Dermot Mulroney as Norman Schwarzkopf, Sr.
- Damon Herriman as Bruno Richard Hauptmann
- Jeffrey Donovan as Robert F. Kennedy
- Ed Westwick as Agent Smith, Hoover's biographer
- Zach Grenier as John Condon
- Ken Howard as U.S. Attorney General Harlan F. Stone
- Stephen Root as Arthur Koehler
- Denis O'Hare as Albert S. Osborn
- Adam Driver as Walter Lyle
- Geoff Pierson as A. Mitchell Palmer
- Lea Thompson as Lela Rogers
- Christopher Shyer as Richard Nixon
- Miles Fisher as Agent Garrison
- Jessica Hecht as Emma Goldman
Gunner Wright and David A. Cooper are cast as future presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower[5] and Franklin D. Roosevelt, respectively, and are seen in the group of onlookers who arrive following the bombing at A. Mitchell Palmer's house.
Production[]
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Charlize Theron, who was originally slated to play Helen Gandy, dropped out of the project to do Snow White and the Huntsman, and Eastwood considered Amy Adams before finally selecting Naomi Watts as Theron's replacement.[6]
Reception[]
Critical response[]
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reports an approval rating of 43% based on 243 reviews, with an average rating of 5.72/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Leonardo DiCaprio gives a predictably powerhouse performance, but J. Edgar stumbles in all other departments: cheesy makeup, poor lighting, confusing narrative, and humdrum storytelling."[7] Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating to reviews, gives the film a normalized score of 59 out of 100, based on 42 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[8] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.[9]
Roger Ebert awarded the film three-and-a-half stars (out of four) and wrote that the film is "fascinating" and "masterful". He praised DiCaprio's performance as a "fully-realized, subtle and persuasive performance, hinting at more than Hoover ever revealed, perhaps even to himself".[10] Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter gave the film a positive review, writing, "This surprising collaboration between director Clint Eastwood and Milk screenwriter Dustin Lance Black tackles its trickiest challenges with plausibility and good sense, while serving up a simmeringly caustic view of its controversial subject's behavior, public and private."[11] David Denby in The New Yorker magazine also liked the film, calling it a "nuanced account" and calling "Eastwood's touch light and sure, his judgment sound, the moments of pathos held just long enough."[12]
J. Hoberman of The Village Voice wrote: "Although hardly flawless, Eastwood's biopic is his richest, most ambitious movie since Letters from Iwo Jima and Flags of Our Fathers."[13]
Peter Debruge of Variety gave the film a mixed review: "Any movie in which the longtime FBI honcho features as the central character must supply some insight into what made him tick, or suffer from the reality that the Bureau's exploits were far more interesting than the bureaucrat who ran it – a dilemma J. Edgar never rises above."[14] David Edelstein of New York Magazine reacted negatively to the film and said: "It's too bad J. Edgar is so shapeless and turgid and ham-handed, so rich in bad lines and worse readings." He praised DiCaprio's performance: "There's something appealingly straightforward about the way he physicalizes Hoover's inner struggle, the body always slightly out of sync with the mind that vigilantly monitors every move."[15]
Box office[]
The film opened limited in 7 theaters on November 9, grossing $52,645,[16] and released wide on November 11, grossing $11.2 million in its opening weekend,[17] approximating the $12 million figure projected by the Los Angeles Times for the film's opening weekend in the United States and Canada.[2] J. Edgar went on to gross over $84.9 million worldwide and over $37.3 million at the domestic box office.[18] Breakdowns of audience demographics for the movie showed that ticket buyers were nearly 95% over the age of 25 and slightly over 50% female.
Accolades[]
Date of ceremony | Award | Category | Recipient(s) | Result |
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January 27, 2012 | AACTA Awards[19] | Best Actor – International | Leonardo DiCaprio | Nominated |
December 11, 2011 | American Film Institute[20] | Top 10 Films | J. Edgar | Won |
January 12, 2012 | Broadcast Film Critics Association[21] | Best Actor | Leonardo DiCaprio | Nominated |
January 15, 2012 | Golden Globe Awards[22] | Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama | Nominated | |
December 1, 2011 | National Board of Review[23] | Top Ten Films | J. Edgar | Won |
December 18, 2011 | Satellite Awards[24] | Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama | Leonardo DiCaprio | Nominated |
January 29, 2012 | Screen Actors Guild Awards[25] | Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role | Nominated | |
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role | Armie Hammer | Nominated |
Historical accuracy[]
In an interview on All Things Considered, Yale University history professor Beverly Gage, who is writing a biography of Hoover, stated that the film accurately conveys that Hoover came to the FBI as a reformer seeking "to clean it up, to professionalize it," and to introduce scientific methods to its investigation, eventually including such practices as fingerprinting and bloodtyping. She praises DiCaprio for conveying the tempo of Hoover's speech. However, she notes that the film's central narrative device in which Hoover dictates his memoirs to FBI agents chosen as writers, is fictitious: "He didn't ever have the sort of formal situation that you see in the movie where he was dictating a memoir to a series of young agents, and that that is the official record of the FBI."[26] Historian Aaron J. Stockham of the Waterford School, whose dissertation was on the relationship of the FBI and the US Congress during the Hoover years, wrote on the History News Network of George Mason University, "J. Edgar portrays Hoover as the man who successfully integrated scientific processes into law enforcement investigations.... There is no doubt, from the historical record, that Hoover was instrumental in creating the FBI's scientific reputation."[27] Stockham notes that Hoover probably did not write the FBI–King suicide letter to Martin Luther King, Jr., as the film portrays: "While such a letter was written, Hoover almost certainly delegated it to others within the Bureau."[27]
References[]
- ^ "J. Edgar (15)". British Board of Film Classification. November 16, 2011. Retrieved December 10, 2011.
- ^ Jump up to: a b Kaufman, Amy (November 10, 2011). "Movie Projector: 'Immortals' poised to conquer box office". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved November 10, 2011.
- ^ "J. Edgar (2011)". Box Office Mojo. IMDb. Retrieved March 9, 2012.
- ^ Ford, Alan (March 15, 2010). "Clint Eastwood to Direct J. Edgar Hoover Biopic". FilmoFilia.com. Retrieved December 26, 2010.
- ^ "An Interview With Gunner Wright". The Gaming Liberty. April 23, 2011. Archived from the original on April 25, 2011. Retrieved July 19, 2011.
- ^ Schwartz, Terri (January 11, 2011). "Ed Westwick In, Charlize Theron Out Of Clint Eastwood's 'J. Edgar'" Archived January 12, 2011, at the Wayback Machine. MTV.com. Retrieved 2011-01-12.
- ^ "J. Edgar (2011)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved March 5, 2018.
- ^ "J. Edgar Reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved March 5, 2018.
- ^ "J. Edgar". CinemaScore. Retrieved January 28, 2018.
- ^ https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/j-edgar-2011
- ^ McCarthy, Todd (November 3, 2011). "J. Edgar: Film Review". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved November 7, 2011.
- ^ Denby, David (November 14, 2011). "The Man in Charge". The New Yorker. Retrieved August 7, 2012.
- ^ Hoberman, J. (November 9, 2011). "Great Man Theories: Clint Eastwood on J. Edgar". Village Voice. Retrieved November 9, 2011.
- ^ Debruge, Peter (November 4, 2011). "J. Edgar - Film Review". Variety. Retrieved November 7, 2011.
- ^ Edelstein, David (November 6, 2011). "First Word Problems". New York Magazine. Retrieved November 8, 2011.
- ^ "Daily Box Office Results for November 9, 2011". Box Office Mojo. IMDb. Retrieved November 17, 2011.
- ^ "Weekend Box Office Results for November 11–13, 2011". Box Office Mojo. IMDb. Retrieved November 17, 2011.
- ^ "J. Edgar (2011) - Box Office Mojo". www.boxofficemojo.com.
- ^ "AACTA - Winners and Nominees - 2011". Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA). Retrieved April 1, 2012.
- ^ "'Bridesmaids,' 'Tree of Life,' 'Hugo' in AFI's top 10 films of 2011". LATimes.com. December 11, 2011. Retrieved December 11, 2011.
- ^ (2011-12-13). "2012 Critics' Choice Movie Awards Noms: Hugo And The Artist Dominate The Field" Archived January 19, 2012, at the Wayback Machine. TheFabLife.com. Retrieved December 13, 2011.
- ^ "69th Annual Golden Globe Awards — Full List Of Nominees". HollywoodLife.com. Retrieved December 15, 2011.
- ^ "National Board of Review Announces 2011 Awards; HUGO Takes Top Prize". WeAreMovieGeeks.com. Retrieved December 6, 2011.
- ^ "From WAR HORSE to THE MYSTERIES OF LISBON: Satellite Award Nominations 2011". Alt Film Guide. Retrieved December 6, 2011.
- ^ O'Connell, Sean (December 14, 2011). "Screen Actors Guild nominations revealed". HollywoodNews.com. Retrieved 2011-12-14.
- ^ "Fact-Checking Clint Eastwood's 'J. Edgar' Biopic". All Things Considered. December 8, 2011. Retrieved March 25, 2012.
- ^ Jump up to: a b Stockham, Aaron J. (December 12, 2011). ""J. Edgar" Fails to Deliver the Historical Goods". History News Network. Archived from the original on March 8, 2012. Retrieved March 25, 2012.
External links[]
- Official website
- J. Edgar at IMDb
- J. Edgar at AllMovie
- J. Edgar at Box Office Mojo
- J. Edgar at Rotten Tomatoes
- J. Edgar at Metacritic
- 2011 films
- English-language films
- 2011 biographical drama films
- American films
- American biographical drama films
- American LGBT-related films
- Drama films based on actual events
- Films about the Federal Bureau of Investigation
- Cultural depictions of J. Edgar Hoover
- Cultural depictions of Robert F. Kennedy
- Cultural depictions of Dwight D. Eisenhower
- Cultural depictions of Richard Nixon
- Films about sexual repression
- Films about terrorism
- Films set in the 1910s
- Films set in the 1920s
- Films set in the 1930s
- Films set in the 1940s
- Films set in the 1950s
- Films set in the 1960s
- Films set in the 1970s
- Films set in Washington, D.C.
- Films shot in Los Angeles
- Films shot in Virginia
- Imagine Entertainment films
- Malpaso Productions films
- Warner Bros. films
- Films directed by Clint Eastwood
- Films produced by Clint Eastwood
- Films produced by Brian Grazer
- Films with screenplays by Dustin Lance Black
- Films scored by Lennie Niehaus
- Gay-related films
- 2011 drama films
- Films about anti-LGBT sentiment