MICHAEL MANN WEEK: Thief

Radiator Heaven's Michael Mann week concludes today. Kudos to J.D. for hosting a successful and fascinating blogathon. I've looked forward to logging onto the internet each evening to check out the ever-growing link list. Contributions have been varied, exploring all aspects of Mann's career, and the standard of writing has been consistently high.

Three things that have emerged as a through-line in Mann's filmography:

i) his protagonists are defined by rigorous masculine codes; no matter how bad the things they do (some of Mann's finest creations are career criminals), a sense of honour underpins their actions and the worst betrayal imaginable is the betrayal of the self;

ii) he immerses himself completely in the theme, setting and psychology of each of his films; his attention to detail is precise and what other directors would consider minutaie, Mann adopts as a raison d'etre;

iii) he is more interested in the accretion of incident and the momentum of events than conventionally structured narrative or exposition.

This latter can sometimes be a weakness. I'm probably in a minority, having read so many favourable reviews of it in this blog-a-thon, but I find 'Collateral' at best an interesting failure. Yes, the high definition digital camerawork allowed for noctural scenes that were at once dreamily disconnected and poetically vivid, but other sections of the film looked flat and amateurish. Also, with DV unable to achieve of the depth of focus of conventional film, set-pieces such as the shoot-out in the nightclub lacked any sense of spatial awareness. I thought 'Miami Vice' similarly afflicted and spent two and a half hours bitterly wishing Mann had shot it on film. Another flaw in both films was that Mann's visual experimentalism (an enquiry into the aesthetics of DV in 'Collateral'; a deconstruction of narrative perameters in 'Miami Vice') seemed glaringly in opposition to the thrilleramics of the scripts, the dynamics of the character interactions and, post-'Heat', audience expectation of cool intellectualism married to visceral action in a ceremony witnessed by sumptuously gorgeous visuals.

'Thief', Mann's second feature length project (after the TV movie 'The Jericho Mile'), is a thing of wonder to revisit*. It presents you, at the very outset, with all of Mann's strengths and none of his weaknesses.

James Caan (in a joint career best with 'The Godfather') plays Frank, a career criminal who specialises in relieving safes of diamonds. He works with a small and trusted crew, uses an equally trusted fence, and keeps himself to himself. When an associate encourages him to "meet some people", Frank's response is, "I want to meet people, I'll join a fucking country club." He runs a car lot as a front and has business interests in a bar. His relationship with barmaid Jessie (a never-better Tuesday Weld) is up-and-down, while his oldest friend and mentor Okla (Willie Nelson) languishes in prison and worries that he'll never leave the joint alive. Frank has the money - evidenced by the designer suits, the silk shirts and the gold watch - but with Jessie unable to have children and the adoption system not enamoured of Frank's prior stints in jail, it's what he can't have that stings the most.

Then his fence turns up dead, $85k of Frank's money lifted from his corpse. Frank goes after the money. He gets it back, but at a price that will soon prove way too high. In one fateful meeting, Frank goes from being Mr Anonymous to his reputation proceeding him. Mob boss Leo (Robert Prosky) makes him an offer: a handful of high-profile takes, maximum risk but big money and the cops and the judges paid off if the shit hits the fan. Frank's cagey but Leo sweetens the deal: he sets Frank and Jessie up with a house, arranges an adoption, plays the father figure.

But when Leo stiffs Frank on his cut after a daring heist (prompting Frank to lose his rag and announce that he wants out), a different Leo emerges. Earlier in the film, during the heart-to-heart that stabilises Frank and Jessie's relationship, he recounts his time in prison, in particular how he survived because he had nothing to lose. That sense of nihilism communicated itself to the other inmates. Frank has continued to live by this code on the outside. "I'm the last guy in the world you want to fuck with," he tells an antagonist at one point, pulling a piece on the guy and giving every impression that he's ready to use it. Later, pissed off at Leo's duplicity, he reacts like a bull in a china shop instead of exercising caution or circumspection.

It's Leo who brutally throws into relief just how far Frank has deviated from who he truly is: "You were one of those burned-out, demolished whackos in the joint - you're scary because you don't give a fuck. But don't come on to me now with that jailhouse bullshit, 'cause you're not that guy anymore. Don't you get it, you prick? You've got a home, a car, businesses, a family. And I own the paper on your whole fucking life. I'll put your wife on the street to be fucked in the ass ... Your kid's mine because I bought it. You've got him on loan. He is leased. You are renting him."

Ultimately, with everything he's sold himself out for at risk, Frank has no choice but to throw it all away. In what plays out like Tarkovsky's 'The Sacrifice' by way of 'Mean Streets', Frank tears down the artificial construct he thought was the life he wanted and reintegrates with himself.

Impressively constructed, tightly directed, atmospherically shot and crafted with perhaps the strongest sense of narrative evidenced anywhere on Mann's CV, 'Thief' manages to be, in its shattering denouement, a morality tale, a work of bleak existentialism and a fuck-off good action thriller all rolled into one.

*Although not necessarily in the director's cut. Tim's review at Antagony & Ecstacy will tell you why.

MICHAEL MANN WEEK: PERSONAL FAVES: Manhunter

Posted as part of Radiator Heaven's Michael Mann Week

While it's impossible to overstate the importance of 'Manhunter' in Michael Mann's filmography, something happened five years after its release that has forever left it overshadowed. As Tim Brayton acutely puts it in a recent Antagony & Ecstacy article, "Post-1991, there's a big elephant in the room whenever anyone wants to talk about 'Manhunter', of course: Jonathan's Demme's Oscar-winning 'The Silence of the Lambs'."

Demme's film wasn't just an award winner, wasn't just a sequel to 'Red Dragon' (the Thomas Harris novel 'Manhunter' is adapted from), wasn't just hugely popular and wasn't just populated by a cast of (mainly) better and (certainly) better-known actors ... it also had a performance by Anthony Hopkins that renewed his career and defined, for a generation of film-goers, the character of Hannibal Lecter. Its stratospheric success led to three more Lecter outings: the sequel 'Hannibal', Ridley Scott's thankless take on Harris's least interesting novel; the redundant prequel 'Hannibal Rising', directed by Peter Webber, with Gaspard Ulliel disrespecting Hopkins's characterisation in scene after scene; and an even more redundant remake of 'Manhunter' (here reverting to the original 'Red Dragon' title), which was directed by Brett Ratner. And if the words "a film by Brett Ratner" aren't enough to strike fear into your heart, you are either dead or have questionable taste in cinema.

So: 'The Silence of the Lambs'. Anthony Hopkins redux, Jodie Foster at possibly the peak of her career, an amazing switcheroo wrong-address set-piece, and five golden statues in the bag on Oscar night. Some elephant.

Good job I've got my elephant gun, a fuckload of buckshot and no compunction about spitting on an icon, then.

Because I'm going to say it once and say it proud. I'm going to put on the mantle of the loneliest film blogger on the internet, I'm going to step out of the closet. 'Manhunter' is a more interesting film than 'The Silence of the Lambs'.

Anyone still reading? Anyone out there I haven't pissed off yet? Okay, I've got one more hawk-a-loogie-on-the-icon bit of business left to attend to. Ready? Here goes. Brian Cox's portrayal of Lecter, while different, is every bit as good as Hopkins's - which is a hell of an achievement since he had considerably less screen time in which to make an impression.

(Parenthetically, Lecter is inexplicably credited as "Lecktor" in 'Manhunter'. Since it's Lecter in the novels and the other films - and because I can't be bothered with that keyboard-unfriendly C-K-T combination, I'm using the Lecter spelling throughout this article.)

Not - hastily trotting out the caveat here - that I'm dismissing 'The Silence of the Lambs'. In many respects it has the edge on 'Manhunter' - it's plot-driven where Mann's film tips in favour of stylistic flourishes; it has a gutsy lead performance by Jodie Foster where 'Manhunter' has a rather stilted turn from William Peterson, and it has the smarts to realise that Lecter was the most interesting character on offer and focuses on his unique blend of charm and sociopathic amorality. 'Manhunter' also loses points for its very '80s power-ballad soundtrack and luminous green opening credits that look like Mann handed a work print to some subway graffiti artists and told them which frames to go to town on.

So it's just as well that I didn't start a my-Lecter-could-eat-your-Lecter's-liver kind of pissing contest by claiming that one of these films was better than the other. I do, however, stand by my original claim: 'Manhunter' is the more interesting film. Visually, it's more interesting. As a stylistic exercise in framing, composition and aesthetics, it's more interesting (remember how everyone gassed about the use of the bars between Clarice Starling and Lecter as framing device in 'Silence'? 'Manhunter' uses much more intricate and effective camera angles and movements). As an experiment in editing designed to accentuate fractured/disturbed mindsets and perceptions, it's one hell of a lot more interesting.

'Silence' is a bloody good, deservedly popular mainstream entertainment. But it never really stretches itself beyond that. And much as this blog is probably being logged off in droves and deleted from link lists, I have to say it: 'Silence' is ever-so-slightly overrated.

'Manhunter', though, improves and continues to intrigue with repeated viewings. Plotwise, 'Manhunter' and 'Silence' follow similar lines (substitute "rookie FBI agent" for "former FBI agent" and "Buffalo Bill" for "Tooth Fairy" and you've essentially got the set-up for Demme's opus): former FBI agent Will Graham (William Peterson) is brought back from early retirement by Bureau head honcho Jack Crawford (Dennis Farina) to track down a serial killer nicknamed the Tooth Fairy, who is operating to a lunar cycle. With only three weeks till the next full moon, ergo the next killing, Graham reluctantly enlists the help of intellectually brilliant psychopath Dr Hannibal Lecter (Brian Cox).

Whereas 'Silence' (and, even more explicitly so, 'Hannibal') then veered off into a darkly romantic treatment of the relationship between Lecter and Starling, there is nothing between Lecter and Graham but antagonism. It was Graham who put Lecter away. But not before Lecter attacked Graham viciously. Result: physical and mental scars for Graham; a clinically white cell and a lot more time to catch up on his reading for Lecter. A lot more time to plan his revenge, too. So when Graham comes to Lecter for help, the not-so-good doctor plots his revenge from behind bars, concocting a manipulative scheme to send the Tooth Fairy in Graham's direction.

It is Lecter around whom the two most suspenseful showpieces occur. In one, a fan letter from the Tooth Fairy is found secreted in Lecter's cell during a routine search; Crawford, Graham and Lecter's shrink/jailer Dr Chiltern (Benjamin Hendrickson), realising that a line of communication between the two psychopaths is their only solid lead on the Tooth Fairy, race against the clock to effect a forensic analysis of the letter and return it to Lecter's cell before his suspicions are aroused. Here, style and substance achieve equilibrium: Mann directs the procedural scenes with urgency and precise attention to detail. The other scene has Lecter get the information he needs to sic the Tooth Fairy on Graham using only a telephone and a soupcon of down-home charm. Whereas the charm is the raison d'etre of Lecter according to Hopkins, Cox shows us Lecter putting it on and taking it off like a mask. He also shows us the icily impenetrable face behind the mask. That, for me, makes his Lecter the more chilling, the more unpredictable, the more dangerous.

I started this article off, over 1,000 words ago, by claiming that it's impossible to overstate the importance of 'Manhunter' in Michael Mann's filmography. In it, the cohesion of his overarching theme of men driven by what they have to do (shades of Peckinpah in his aesthetic) never mind that they endanger themselves (the alternative - being untrue to the self - is far worse)*. In it, his talent for the double narrative; the Graham/Lecter plot is thrown into sharp relief by the surprising, unexpected scenes between the Tooth Fairy (Tom Noonan) and Reba (Joan Allen), the blind woman who almost taps into his humanity. Both performances are superb. 'Manhunter' also marked the first collaboration between Mann and cinematographer Dante Spinotti. Here, an already mature statement of the awe-spiring visuals that would characterise 'Last of the Mohicans', 'Heat' and - most exquisitely - 'The Insider'. The forthcoming 'Public Enemies' reunites them. Here, too, in 'Manhunter', the visceral staging of action, pulsatingly edited, that tears up the screen in 'Heat'.

But beyond this, there's a weirdness to 'Manhunter', a feeling of wrongness, something off-kilter and slightly surreal. It's in the scene between the Tooth Fairy and hack journo Freddy Lounds (Stephen Lang); it's in what happens to Lounds afterwards. It's in the scene with the sleeping tiger. It's in the disorientating slo-mo and lurching editing of the final shoot-out. As 'The Keep' had intimated before 'Manhunter', there's a touch of David Lynch about Michael Mann's worldview; apart from a few surrealist touches in 'The Insider' (I'm thinking of the abstract intro to the golf range sequence), Mann has yet fully to explore this tendency in his work. I'd like to think the man has a fucking great cerebral/psychological horror movie gestating inside him and when he gives it to the world it could be the rival of 'Blue Velvet' or 'The Shining'.

*A tip of the hat to Mark Steensland, whose 'Pocket Essential Michael Mann' perfectly distills the themes and preoccupations of Mann's filmography and remains one of the best titles in that series.

PERSONAL FAVES: The Insider

Following on from his sumptuous, critically acclaimed adaptation ‘The Last of the Mohicans’, Michael Mann’s epic 1995 drama ‘Heat’ cemented his position as one of America’s finest directors. A visceral, moody existential re-examination of the crime movie, it teamed him with Robert de Niro, Al Pacino and a who’s who of dynamic actors. It was a hard act to follow.

Four years later, re-teaming with Pacino – and harnessing the talents of a post-‘L.A. Confidential’, pre-global-stardom Russell Crowe – Mann didn’t just follow it. He surpassed it. ‘The Insider’, one of the most intelligent and precisely directed mainstream films of the ’90s, boasts the gripping, compelling narrative and powerhouse acting performances of its iconic predecessor, as well as the same slow-burn intensity played out across a two-and-a-half hour running time, but does so without recourse to heists, shoot-outs and chases.

‘Heat’ is cerebral, suspenseful and packs in a goodly number of shit-hot action scenes. ‘The Insider’ is quite simply cerebral. It’s about corporate power, freedom of speech, the strictures of the law, the necessity of conscience, the pull of family, and the integrity of the serious journalist vs the machinations of big business. And that’s just for starters. On a human level, it’s also about one man trying to keep his word and another man coming to a decision about the wrongdoings of his employer and the public’s right to know, even though the imperatives for keeping his mouth shut are very real and freighted with heavy consequences.

Big, dramatic stuff. Now factor in the factual basis of the story, and ‘The Insider’ really takes off. The starting point was Marie Brenner’s 1996 article for Vanity Fair, ‘The Man Who Knew Too Much’. A suitably Hitchcockian title for the story of an inside man, a corporate whistle-blower, a man whose family life disintegrates under the weight of potential financial desuetude, pervasive media scrutiny and death threats. Apposite, then, that it was expanded and adapted into a movie whose most tense scenes – an unspoken threat at a golf range, a piranha-like lawyer trying to silence a key witness even as he attempts to give a deposition – achieve a level of cinematic frisson that Hitch himself would have been proud of.

Brenner’s article focuses almost exclusively on former Brown & Williamson employee (that’s employee as in high-ranking senior management type on six-figures and a fuckload of benefits a year, as opposed to how the rest of us understand it) Jeffrey Wigand, and how he went public with information pertaining to the deliberate manipulation of tobacco products for maximum addiction potential. His story was featured on the influential and high-rating public affairs show ‘60 Minutes’, produced by Lowell Bergman for the CBS network.

Mann’s film expands on Brenner’s article and counterpoints Wigand’s struggle against the legal shenanigans of his former employers with Bergman’s internal stand-off against the corporate and legal departments of CBS who balk at the possibility of litigation from Brown & Williamson, particularly with a buy-out in the offing that would net big dividends for the top brass. It’s in a lot of people’s interest to keep Bergman’s section, if not off the screen entirely, then certainly edited and self-censored.

The screenplay – co-written by Mann and Eric Roth, whose then still-unproduced script ‘The Good Shepherd’ Mann had admired – finds a tense through-line and ties together what could easily have been discursive, digressive and rambling. It gives a high-quality cast – Pacino and Crowe are supported by Christopher Plummer, Diane Venora, Bruce McGill, Colm Feore, Gina Gershon, Stephen Toblowsky, Lindsay Crouse and Michael Gambon – the opportunity to engage in the dialogue equivalent of swordplay which intermittently erupts into some of the most verbally volcanic explosions this side of ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’.

Pacino’s performance recalls the glory days of the ’70s, when he appeared in one masterpiece after another. Crowe’s is quite simply the best work he’s done onscreen, more than confirming the promise inherent in ‘L.A. Confidential’. It’s a crying bloody shame that he went on to become so famous so quickly and has essentially not been called upon to deliver acting of this calibre since.

Mann’s direction, too, represents his highest professional achievement thus far. Subsequently, ‘Ali’ proved incredibly well-made but perhaps a shade too reverent; ‘Collateral’ fell foul of an occasionally clichéd script and a stilted performance from Tom Cruise, while ‘Miami Vice’ was an exercise in the visual potential of digital film-making which offered a jargon-heavy script and zero chemistry between its leads. (Having said all that, the forthcoming ‘Public Enemies’ with Johnny Depp and Christian Bale has got me authentically excited.)

‘The Insider’ is a gem … and that’s not a lapse into cliché. Like a gem, it’s multi-faceted. It reflects and refracts and dazzles. It provides essays on the quality of light. In terms of recent American films, I can only think of Alexander Payne’s ‘Sideways’ that infuses the screen with the quality of light so effectively. Mann conjures images that are haunting, sometimes surreal (the sequence of images that open the golf range sequence are astounding), and effortlessly poetic.

‘The Last of the Mohicans’ is more romantic and audience friendly, ‘Heat’ more exciting, and I have no doubt that ‘Public Enemies’ will positively ooze cool from its every frame. But ‘The Insider’ is peerless. I am convinced it is the film Michael Mann will be remembered for.