{"id":116917,"date":"2017-09-09T02:42:31","date_gmt":"2017-09-09T06:42:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=116917"},"modified":"2017-09-09T02:42:31","modified_gmt":"2017-09-09T06:42:31","slug":"george-clooney-says-suburbicon-comes-at-a-frustrating-time-for-the-u-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/09\/09\/george-clooney-says-suburbicon-comes-at-a-frustrating-time-for-the-u-s\/","title":{"rendered":"George Clooney says ‘Suburbicon’ comes at a ‘frustrating time’ for the U.S."},"content":{"rendered":"
\"FILE:<\/a>
FILE: Clooney directed the dark satire and co-wrote it with Grant Heslov and the Coen brothers. (Photo By Georges Biard, CC BY-SA 3.0)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

TORONTO \u2014 As George Clooney unveils his new film \u201cSuburbicon,\u201d about racial tensions in an American town in 1950, he says he feels a great sense of frustration and shame that the subject matter is so timely and that the U.S. is in a state of political upheaval.<\/p>\n

Now screening at the Toronto International Film Festival, the dark satire stars Matt Damon, Julianne Moore, and Oscar Isaac in a tale of a home invasion that unfolds alongside a white town’s vicious attack on an innocent black family that just moved into the neighbourhood.<\/p>\n

Clooney directed the dark satire and co-wrote it with Grant Heslov and the Coen brothers.<\/p>\n

The film that’s due in theatres Oct. 27 feels eerily reminiscent of last month’s deadly violence at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., to which U.S. President Donald Trump responded that \u201cboth sides\u201d were to blame.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s a frustrating time and I feel as if everyone, even the people on (Trump’s) side, feel that there’s this black cloud hanging over all of us, mostly shame,\u201d Clooney told a group of journalists Friday evening in an interview at TIFF.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m ashamed of us for electing this man and I’m ashamed of the things I hear coming out of his mouth. And I can’t believe that this is the same White House that had Washington and Jefferson and Kennedy and FDR and Barack Obama. I can’t believe it. I’m so ashamed of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clooney said he welcomes accusations of Hollywood liberalism, noting he was raised a liberal growing up in Lexington, Ky. \u2014 not Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like picking fights,\u201d said the two-time Oscar\u2014winning actor, producer, writer, and director, whose other filmmaking credits include \u201cGood Night, and Good Luck\u201d and \u201cThe Ides of March.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you really aren’t engaged if you’re not in it and picking some fights. I like that Breitbart News wants to have my head. I’d be ashamed 10 years from now if I wasn’t. I really would.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clooney pointed to Hollywood’s relationship with the current U.S. administration, noting former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon is a failed screenwriter and \u201cTrump pays $100,000 a year to the Screen Actors Guild and has a star on Hollywood Boulevard.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t have a star on Hollywood Boulevard \u2014 Donald Trump does,\u201d said Clooney. \u201cYou go down the list of these people \u2014 Steve Mnuchin was a financier in Hollywood.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel as if Hollywood is being quite well represented right now in the West Wing somehow.\u201d<\/p>\n

For those who accuse Clooney of being \u201cout of touch\u201d with his views, he points to his roots.<\/p>\n

\u201cI sold lady shoes, I sold insurance door to door, I worked in an all-night liquor store, I cut tobacco for a living, I can change a fan belt on my car,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up in that world in Kentucky. I’m not separate from it in any way, shape or form. I know every bit about it and I know my friends and I know what they believe.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I also know that this is not a moment that we will be proud of when we look back in our history. If I’m not standing on the side that I believe to be right, I’d be ashamed. So if that’s liberal Hollywood, bring it on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some critics have remarked on the fact that \u201cSuburbicon\u201d doesn’t show much from the perspective of the black family.<\/p>\n

Clooney said he feels \u201cthere are a lot of people better qualified to make the African-American story in suburbia in 1950.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThose are those things that polarize a film that there’s nothing I can do about it and I really don’t worry about that,\u201d he said. \u201cYou just go, ‘Well that’s not the film we were making. That’s not the story.’<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were telling a story about … white angst and that version, which I actually know something about having grown up through the civil rights movement in the ’60s and ’70s.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before flying to Toronto, Clooney had an emotionally charged week.<\/p>\n

After being at the Venice International Film Festival for the film’s premiere on Sept. 2, he flew to Kentucky to see his parents with wife Amal and their twins.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy father hadn’t seen the kids yet, because he had pneumonia, so I had to take them and show up there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He also had to fly to Los Angeles for a much sadder occasion.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy dog died. My dog Einstein. I had to put him asleep,\u201d said Clooney. \u201cHe had a rough time. He was an old Cocker Spaniel. I’ve had him for a long time and he was a rescue.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TORONTO \u2014 As George Clooney unveils his new film \u201cSuburbicon,\u201d about racial tensions in an American town in 1950, he …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":115675,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,106],"tags":[2668,22725],"class_list":["post-116917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","category-hollywood","tag-george-clooney","tag-suburbicon","mauthors-victoria-ahearn","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}