What is Clooney saying? A sentence he began sparklingly with Ocean’s 11 (2001) , which stumbled at intolerable cruelty (2003), and grew lamentable at oceanstwelve (2004 ), having seemed almost to make sense with confessions of adangerous mind (2002,) now reaches its conclusion with the impressive goodnight and good luck and the rigorous Syriana . I judged too quickly, thinking him one of those actors who prideshimself on making the big bad boys in order to fund the small good ones — a kind of vanity tax uponthe audience, whereby the pointless shoot –em- up is the prize we supposedlypay for the chilly little chamber piece about divorce. Clooney is not that actor. He doesn’t make sterile,unlovable vanity projects . In an cultural climate that ridicules and is repulsed by intellectual and moral commitment, in his way he pursues what with this lawless executive producer and the front-of-the- shop ‘face’ of syriana , he has now created an unprecedented scenario: the most popular actor in Hollywood is also the man whowants us to agitate the most . Something like this has happened only oncebefore , with Marlon Brando, an actor whose personal feelings and self regard overran all his most serious ambitions . Clooney appears to have no such tragic flaw. He is making real American films instead of american products; he ishelping real American films to get made. Zadie Smith on George Clooney
Zadie on Clooney
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