Edward Norton filming 'Motherless Brooklyn' in NYC

Feb. 6 (UPI) -- Writer-director Edward Norton has begun principal photography in New York City on the noir thriller Motherless Brooklyn.

Norton stars in the 1950s-set film with Bruce Willis, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Willem Dafoe, Alec Baldwin, Cherry Jones, Ethan Suplee, Leslie Mann, Josh Pais, Fisher Stevens, Michael K. Williams and Robert Wisdom. The movie was inspired by Jonathan Lethem's novel by the same name.

"Motherless Brooklyn follows Lionel Essrog, a lonely private detective afflicted with Tourette's Syndrome, as he ventures to solve the murder of his mentor and only friend, Frank Minna," a Warner Bros. Pictures synopsis said.

"Armed only with a few clues and the powerful 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."