Edward Norton Unravels a Mystery in First ‘Motherless Brooklyn’ Trailer
Edward Norton has shared the first trailer for Motherless Brooklyn, the actor/director/screenwriter’s upcoming adaptation of Jonathan Lethem’s acclaimed novel.
On Wednesday, Rolling Stone premiered Thom Yorke’s “Daily Battles,” the musical centerpiece of Motherless Brooklyn; Wynton Marsalis also contributes a jazz arrangement of the Radiohead singer’s new song for the film. Yorke’s rendition soundtracks the first trailer, which finds Norton’s private eye unraveling a mystery following the death of his mentor.
“Set against the backdrop of 1950s New York, Motherless Brooklyn follows Lionel Essrog (Edward Norton), a lonely private detective living with Tourette Syndrome, as he ventures to solve the murder of his mentor and only friend, Frank Minna (Bruce Willis),” the film’s synopsis states.
“Armed only with a few clues and the engine of his obsessive mind, Lionel unravels closely-guarded secrets that hold the fate of the whole city in the balance. In a mystery that carries him from gin-soaked jazz clubs in Harlem to the hard-edged slums of Brooklyn and, finally, into the gilded halls of New York’s power brokers, Lionel contends with thugs, corruption and the most dangerous man in the city to honor his friend and save the woman who might be his own salvation.”
Following its premiere at the 2019 Toronto Film Festival and closing slot at the 2019 New York Film Festival, Motherless Brooklyn will open in theaters November 1st.
“To have [Yorke] write a song for the movie in response to absorbing what the movie and the character are aiming at is a very different thing,” Norton told Rolling Stone. “It’s like Barbra Streisand and ‘Memories’ for The Way We Were; sometimes it can define a thing. Like Lady Gaga, what those guys did with ‘Shallow’ in [A Star Is Born], that’s a stunning song that rises up in the film and out of the film. It rises organically out of the story of the film and it gives you shivers, it’s really a special thing when that happens.”