Changeling (film)

rdf:langString Changeling (film)

rdf:langString Changeling

rdf:langString Changeling

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rdf:langString On a white background, the top left of the poster is dominated by a woman's head looking down on a much smaller silhouette of a child in the bottom right corner. The woman is pale with prominent red lips and is wearing a brown cloche hat. Across the top of the poster are the names "Angelina Jolie" and "John Malkovich" in uppercase white. Adjacent to the child is the title "Changeling" in uppercase black. Above are the words "A true story" in uppercase red. Underneath is the tagline in uppercase black: "To find her son, she did what no one else dared."

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rdf:langString Theatrical release poster

rdf:langString United States

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rdf:langString English

rdf:langString Clint Eastwood

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rdf:langString "One day we were shooting a scene where [Collins and Briegleb] talk about her case ... We started shooting at

rdf:langString "Jolie puts on a powerful emotional display as a tenacious woman who gathers strength from the forces that oppose her. She reminds us that there is nothing so fierce as a mother protecting her cub."

rdf:langString "J. Michael Straczynski's disjointed script manages to ring false at almost every significant turn ... and Clint Eastwood's ponderous direction—a disheartening departure from his sure touch in Letters From Iwo Jima and The Bridges of Madison County—magnifies the flaws."

rdf:langString "The story is just so bizarre that you need something to remind you that I'm not making this stuff up. So it seemed important to me to put in those clippings because you reach the part of the story where you go, 'Come on he's got to have gone off the rails with this.' Turn the page and there is indeed an article confirming it, which is why, in terms of writing the script, I [hewed] very close to the facts. The story is already extraordinary enough."

rdf:langString and it was seven or eight pages, which is usually an 18-hour day. Around 2:30, [Eastwood] goes, 'That's lunch and that's a wrap.' ... I've made close to 100 films now and that's certainly a phrase I've never heard in my entire life."

rdf:langString —John Malkovich discusses Eastwood's famously economical directing style, which extended to Changelings set.

rdf:langString —Joe Morgenstern, writing for The Wall Street Journal

rdf:langString —Screenwriter J. Michael Straczynski placed newspaper clippings into physical copies of the script to remind people it was a true story.

rdf:langString —Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter

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rdf:langString Changeling is a 2008 American mystery crime drama film directed, produced, and scored by Clint Eastwood and written by J. Michael Straczynski. The story was based on real-life events, specifically the 1928 Wineville Chicken Coop murders in Mira Loma, California. It stars Angelina Jolie as a woman united with a boy who she realizes is not her missing son. When she tries to demonstrate this to the police and city authorities, she is vilified as delusional, labeled as an unfit mother and confined to a psychiatric ward. The film explores themes of child endangerment, female disempowerment, political corruption, mistreatment of mental health patients and the repercussions of violence. Working in 1983 as a special correspondent for the now defunct TV-Cable Week magazine, Straczynski first encountered the story of Christine Collins and her son from a Los Angeles City Hall contact. Over the ensuing years he kept researching the story but never felt he was ready to tackle it. Out of television writing for several years and practically blacklisted in the industry because he was considered difficult to work with, he returned to researching and then finally writing the story in 2006. Almost all of the film's script was drawn from thousands of pages of documentation. His first draft became the shooting script; it was his first film screenplay to be produced. Ron Howard had intended to direct the film, but scheduling conflicts led to his replacement by Eastwood. Howard and his Imagine Entertainment partner Brian Grazer produced Changeling alongside Malpaso Productions' Robert Lorenz and Eastwood. Universal Pictures financed and distributed the film. Several actors campaigned for the leading role; ultimately, Eastwood decided that Jolie's face would suit the 1920s period setting. The film also stars Jeffrey Donovan, Jason Butler Harner, John Malkovich, Michael Kelly and Amy Ryan. While some characters are composites, most are based on actual people. Principal photography, which began on October 15, 2007 and concluded a few weeks later in December, took place in Los Angeles and other locations in southern California. Actors and crew noted that Eastwood's low-key direction resulted in a calm set and short working days. In post production, scenes were supplemented with computer-generated skylines, backgrounds, vehicles and people. Changeling premiered to critical acclaim at the 61st Cannes Film Festival on May 20, 2008. Additional festival screenings preceded a limited release in the United States on October 24, 2008, followed by a general release in North America on October 31, 2008; in the United Kingdom on November 26, 2008; and in Australia on February 5, 2009. Critical reaction was more mixed than at Cannes. While the acting and story were generally praised, the film's "conventional staging" and "lack of nuance" were criticized. Changeling earned $113 million in box-office revenue worldwide—of which $35.7 million came from the United States and Canada—and received nominations in three Oscar and eight BAFTA Award categories.