‘Michael Clayton’
‘I am Shiva, the god of death,’ goes the key line in Michael Clayton, a movie about amoral corporate malfeasance which echoes A Civil Action and All My Sons. It’s said once by an unhinged prophet who’s clearly up on his Oppenheimer, and once later by the good guy. Nataraja rivals only Kali in the Western imagination.
Tony Gilroy, the screenwriter for the Bourne movies, makes his directorial debut here, and for once he’s gotten George Clooney to stop doing the Indian head shake. The actor tilts his head to and fro when he’s trying to charm, but in Clayton he’s back in the everything-is-fucked genre (Syriana, Good Night, and Good Luck) and pitching for an Oscar.
This is a fine film, and a hell of a downer. Tilda Swinton is far more terrifying as corporate counsel than as the evil queen in Narnia, and breathes life into the trope that the weakest are the most treacherous. A man is assassinated in gentleness and silence, babied by hard-faced men dressed like nurses. They slide around his large frame with the fluidity of lemurs, doing an invisible hit on a brilliant inconvenience. In a year of bloody, marquee killing scenes (Lust, Caution, Eastern Promises), this one is by far the most chilling.
Gilroy’s hero is the anti-Bourne, pushed around by colleagues and circumstance, a cop’s son from St. John’s. He’s a bag man, a janitor, the kind of guy who’s Jason Bourne’s prey; he’s faced down on points of law by the alpha dog (Tom Wilkinson) whom he’s trying to help. Eventually the fixer gets cleaned, and pushes back in anger.
In between are very many stagey, Arthur Miller-like rants. The movie is smart and subtle, but I can’t stand this bloodless aesthetic, the idea that to make a Serious Movie one must film in a monotone, and the score may be no more than three slow strikes of a piano hammer in a cold field. This funereal æsthetic almost drove me out of Capote. But Clooney is selecting great roles. Like Kay Kay Menon, he’s turning into a national treasure.
The New Yorker has more. Here’s the trailer:
on Wednesday, October 10th, 2007, 8:14 am in Film › 
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I thought Yama was the god of death.
Nice touch, poetic almost!
“I am Yama–god of death!” (correct version)… Hoi hoi hoi. Won’t they ever learn?
Well..Shiva is the God of destruction and to them…destruction = death.
That scene where Clooney says the words is seriously bad ass!
It is - as MSICHANA stated - a very LITERAL translation.
Shiva is the one is part of the Destruction process. He is part of the Trinity - Creation, Preservation and Destruction. Yama, in many texts, reports to Shiva. Death is not only PHYSICAL death, Shiva is also known as the destroyer of evil - bad habits.. etc.
The interesting thing to me is the hints of South Asian sub-culture in many movies - The line “I am Shiva, the god of Death” was not only in the film but EVERY promo made for Michael Clayton. 27 Dresses had Katherine Heigl in a “sari” (Costume design should have gotten some one who know how to put a sari on to help Katherine out). The Bucket list had Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson at the Taj Mahal … to name a FEW!
There has been a noted decrease in the bad heavy accents and stereotypical roles - and thank God for that! We are now getting to the point were actors of south Asian backgrounds can just BE part of a commercial film - Juno’s Vijay was played by Aman Johal and Maulik Pancholy is best friends with James Marsden character in 27 dresses - to name TWO that come to mind.
Before I go further south from the original thread topic, let me stop now :)
I have a question of those who saw this (excellent) film. Why, when most everything about it was so good, would they have the hitmen use a car bomb, of all methods, to try to kill off Clayton? It was so disappointing that for me it actually kept the film from being a masterpiece. Then on top of that, they detonate the car bomb out of visual range for verification, AND just to top off the mistake, while the car is no longer moving (even though they have tracking equipment?), which strongly suggests that the intended kill may very well not be in the car? It was so dumb, in such an otherwise smart film. It just screamed “plot mechanism artifice”. Killing him with a car bomb, if successful, would have had the cops and the feds crawling all over that law firm, and it would have led them to question the earlier “suicide” (two deaths at the same firm in a week, with both mean knee deep in the same case?) They would have “overdosed” Clayton too, or made it appear he’d been the victim of a carjacking, a robbery victim, sabotaged his brakes, anything they possibly could have to avoid the blatant exposure of murder, and a professional hit at that? It would have drawn the feds and the cops right to the firm, and they would have been crawling all over the place - the last thing the firm wanted. The only reason on earth I can think of why the hitmen used a car bomb, was plot contrivance to keep Clayton alive..so DUMB!