Burn After Reading

Burn After Reading (2008)

Timing: 1:36 (96 min)

6.674/10
5156

6.875/10
138418

7/10
375000

All about film

Video 10

Photo 63

Actors and characters

Release date

2008-09-05

Country

United States, United Kingdom, France

Production

Relativity Media, StudioCanal, Focus Features, Working Title Films, Mike Zoss Productions

Genre

Comedy, Drama

Budget

$37 000 000

Revenue

$163 720 069

Website

Director

Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

Actors

George Clooney, Frances McDormand, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton, Richard Jenkins, Elizabeth Marvel, David Rasche, J.K. Simmons, Olek Krupa
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

Producer

Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Robert Graf

Operator

Emmanuel Lubezki

Composer

Carter Burwell

Artist

Deborah Jensen, Nithya Shrinivasan, Jeffrey D. McDonald

Audition

Ellen Chenoweth

Editing

Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, Karen Ruth Getchell
All team (59)

• This is the first film by Ethan Coen and Joel Coen since «Miller’s Crossing» (1990) in which Roger Deakins is not the cinematographer. He is replaced by Emmanuel Lubezki.
• Although the CIA agent's house is located in Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), filming for the movie scenes took place in Brooklyn Heights, as Ethan Coen and Joel Coen wanted to stay in New York to be with their families.
• Filming began in August 2007 and ended in early November 2007.
• The word “Fuck” is used 60 times in the film.
• When Brad Pitt's character first meets John Malkovich's character, he asks to be called "Mr. Black." This is a deliberate nod to the film *Meet Joe Black* (1998), the slickness of whose protagonist Pitt was mocking here.
• The film *Meeting Daisy* with Claire Danes and Dermot Mulroney, which Linda watches in the cinema first with Alan and then with Harry, does not exist. It was invented specifically for the film.
• The film is set in 2008. The film states that Harry's wife, Sandy Farrier, hires the firm "Tacman Marsh". The same firm is hired by Judith Gopnik in the Coen brothers' next film, "A Serious Man," which takes place in 1967.
• The difference between this film and previous Coen pictures is that there isn't a single positive, sympathetic character among the main ones. This led some critics to accuse the Coens of arrogant indifference to people, a kind of Swiftian misanthropy. “There are no good guys in this film. Some are too emotional, others are crazy,” John Malkovich noted on this subject. Brad Pitt's reaction was characteristic: “When I was told the role was written specifically for me, I didn't know whether to feel flattered or offended.”
• In fact, the building used as the Russian embassy in Washington is Meister Hall – one of the buildings of the Bronx Community College campus in New York, built in 1964 to the design of architect Marcel Breuer.
• When Chad and Linda chase after Cox, Chad claims that a standard Bic ballpoint pen can open a bicycle lock. This refers to the widely publicized scandal in the American media with Kensington and Kryptonite, which were long considered the standard for bicycle locks but, as it turned out, could be opened with a cheap Bic ballpoint pen.
• In the opening scene, when Osborne Cox enters Palmer's office, he stops in front of the chair. In the next shot, when the camera films from the doorway, he is already standing behind the chair. When the camera films from Palmer's side again, he is standing in front of the chair again.
• The film contains a continuity error. In the scene in the Russian embassy, the portrait of Russian President B.N. Yeltsin on the wall of the office changes to a portrait of President V.V. Putin.
• This is the first film by Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, since “Miller’s Crossing” (1990), in which Roger Deakins is not the cinematographer. He is replaced by Emmanuel Lubezki.
• When Brad Pitt's character first meets John Malkovich's character, he asks to be called "Mr. Black." This is a deliberate nod to the film "Meet Joe Black" (1998), whose slickness Pitt parodies here.
• The film "Meeting Daisy," starring Claire Danes and Dermot Mulroney, which Linda watches in the cinema first with Alan and then with Harry, does not exist. It was invented specifically for the film.