Michael Mann
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FERRARI (Dir. Michael Mann, 2023, US) – Time & time again
* * * A project on Enzo Ferrari seems so natural for someone like Mann who is pretty much the most stylish filmmaker of the past thirty years or so. His films ooze an unwavering stylish elegance. A trawl back through his films and it becomes evident how well so many of his characters dress, Continue reading
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STRAIGHT TIME (1978, Ulu Grosbard, US) – Mann before Mann
Michael Mann worked on the script for Straight Time (based on Eddie Bunker’s novel) before his departure from the project in the late 1970s. A year later Mann would go on to make Jericho Mile, and which would see him port over some of the original ideas from Straight Time expressly the thread of the Continue reading
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THE KEEP (Dir. Michael Mann, 1983, US) – Atmospheric Exegesis
Given Mann’s consolidation as perhaps American cinema’s greatest film auteur does a film like The Keep hold any bearing on his reputation today? What can the film tell us about Mann that we don’t already know? The Keep is the film that Mann has rarely acknowledged. It had a troubled production history and Mann’s original Continue reading
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THE JERICHO MILE (Dir. Michael Mann, 1979, US) – Out of Time
Mann’s exceptional staging of action sequences often amount to an orgasmic visual and sensory poetry. Mann’s action is not dirty but graceful. It has a kind of scholarly attention to detail made implicit in the micro gestures of his characters that amplify a grand psychological schemata. In 1979 Michael Mann was 36 when he co-wrote and Continue reading
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BLACKHAT (Dir. Michael Mann, 2015, US) – Moments, Impressions and Aesthetics
Defining moments in films can go unnoticed since the visual expressionism of most filmmakers is relatively provincial, acquiescing to broader commercial empathies. It is not right to reduce or distil the essence of Mann’s films to mere moments, as this would make the claim his films work fleetingly and intermittently. Moments can also be interpreted Continue reading
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