Category: Michael Mann

THE KEEP (Dir. Michael Mann, 1983, US) – Atmospheric Exegesis

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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 3 hour plus rough-cut was eventually submitted as a 2-hour version. As a result of negative test screenings, Paramount took to cutting the film down to 96 minutes, all without Mann’s consent. One can certainly reason why Mann has sort of disowned the film. Apparent from the studio cut is the incoherence of the narrative structure and although I would argue logic is not a necessity for a narrative to function and communicate, here one can readily notice sequences have been excised purely for a cruel commercial necessity. This is no way makes the film’s narrative difficult to follow but one wonders at the logic of Mann’s greater narrative design. Nonetheless, The Keep is still an inexplicably mesmeric work as Mann’s cinema has always relied on a taut visual literacy embedded in the bold architectural aesthetics.

Primarily, what makes The Keep a point of fascinating authorial enquiry is the film’s status as a supernatural horror, the only occasion when Mann has ventured into this genre territory (although this complicates Manhunter’s genre status). But horror is only one vagary in a hybrid genre address that also draws on tropes from the war film, the holocaust sub-genre, and the thriller. However, it is the supernatural horror aspects that are resolutely vivid, tapping into a corpus of ancient European mythological folklore manifested in the archetypal signifiers such as the priest, the protector-warrior figure or talisman, the princess, the scientist or boffin and of course the demonic entity and monster. Horror archetypes of this nature offer the film a certain genre logic augmented by an expressionist design. Much more significant in terms of real world ideology is the politics of World War II and the Holocaust which forms the backdrop to the film. However, suspicion abounds if the studio did away with the so-called extraneous narrative material that probably would have helped to draw out a clearer ideological schematic between Jewish historian Dr. Cuza (Ian McKellen) and the Nazis. Instead what we are left with is a sort of crude symbolic tryst that is merely decorative and fails to serve a deeper ideological ferment.

In many ways it is instructive to treat The Keep as resolutely atmospheric work and this is where the film is at most communicative in terms of stylistic explication; Tangerine Dream’s discombobulated score, the tenebrous cinematography by Alex Thomson and the categorically ingenious production design by the altogether legendary John Box (who had also worked on The Sorcerer – Mann’s film feels like the ideal cinematic brethren to Friedkin’s now reclaimed masterpiece), synchronically create an aura of cabalistic dimensions that are played out in the appositely augural ending. I really hoped we would have seen a director’s cut by now but that may never come to fruition given Mann’s more than solid reputation. However, given the cult following The Keep has attracted over the years certainly raises hopes that one day it will be reconstituted but for now we have to be satisfied with reimagining what could have been rather than what is.

THE JERICHO MILE (Dir. Michael Mann, 1979, US) – Out of Time

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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 directed The Jericho Mile. This was a TV movie for ABC that Mann was inspired to make when he was in Folsom State Penitentiary researching to re-write Straight Time (1978) for Dustin Hoffman. Mann would spend much of the 1980s producing popular TV crimes series such as Miami Vice and Crime Story, using television as a basis to develop and test out ideas which he would in some cases return on a larger cinematic canvas. Perhaps the most notable example is L.A. Takedown (1989), a TV movie which would re-emerge as the epic crime saga Heat in 1995.

In The Jericho Mile, Larry ‘Rain’ Murphy (Peter Strauss) is the forerunner to the archetypal Mann protagonist: a male loner, habitually a professional criminal and proletariat, unyielding to the powers that be. In fact, there is something inherently spiritual and ancient in the Mann protagonist; articulating a contempt for normal life while adhering to an unbreakable, punishing moral code. Serving a life sentence in Folsom State Penitentiary Murphy has resorted to distance running in the prison yard, an act he has perfected so precisely and rigorously, the administration at the prison notify the Olympics distance running team of Murphy’s exceptionalism. Mann portrays running as a kind of expiation ritual for Murphy, explicated through a corporeal figuration in which the body, notably through slow motion and rhythmic editing, becomes magnified as both defiantly spiritual and political. If running is one of the few actions the state cannot regulate, Murphy’s refusal to stop running is a conventional manifestation of the rebellious anti-authoritarian prisoner often witnessed in the genre of the prison film.

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The Jericho Mile is a work cloaked in the repertoire of the American prison film, professing Mann’s preliminary and assiduously subversive capacity to navigate genre cinema. If the auteur theory is dead and no longer holds the validity it once had, engendering a sickening proselytisation of mostly white dead directors, then it becomes almost sacrilege in these overly testing times of film criticism to put up a reasoned defence of Mann’s authorship without being razed to the ground by a profanely persecutory tide of reactionary debate typically instigated by hack culture. The mere mention of the word auteur is certain to raise enough dread to vanquish those directors who may have been immortalised in the past. But Mann’s work does owe a substantial debt to the legacy of American genre cinema and he may in truth remain one of the handful of directors including Martin Scorsese who have continually sought to refine thematic and aesthetic preoccupations in the hope of inadvertently living up to the auteur myth.

The Jericho Mile lacks an aesthetic finesse and technical proficiency, which can be partially attributed to the relatively low budget of the production compared to Mann’s later films. Nonetheless, a considered glance points to cursory stylistic signifiers such as the classic use of an exacting asymmetrical/planimetric framing Mann would nurture exponentially into an abiding theme of transience; characters floating through the non-spaces of super-modernity and habitually sutured into urban architectural landscapes – an expressionistic totem of his crime films. But like so many of Mann’s later protagonists, Murphy is out of synch with society; he is literally moving against the grain. And it is the equation of time, usually not having enough of it, and in this case, time as a source of oppression which rings true in the final act of The Jericho Mile. When Murphy throws the stopwatch, a series of slow motion edits amplify the act of ideological resistance, thereby articulating a refusal to not only stick it to the man, the powers that be, but stressing the rule of no attachments, later emerging as a defining trait of the Mann protagonist.

One can read further into the merits of this ideological sentiment, establishing a proletariat exhortation of the outsider and the repudiation of assimilation and the surrendering of a specifically ancient notion of moral integrity. The prison board does not let Murphy run, and they were never going to, because he refuses to repudiate the social circumstances in which his crime took place. Doubly, Murphy cannot do this as it would mean having to compromise his view of the world. The sense of self worth and integrity the Mann protagonist guards against is also demonstrated in the sequence that sees Murphy burn Dr. D’s (Brian Dennehy) stash of money. The burning of the stash is in retaliation for the murder of Stiles (Richard Lawson), a black inmate, and Murphy’s sole friend. Since Mann’s next film Thief (1981) is manifestly connected to The Jericho Mile, the eponymous Frank (James Caan) is very much how Murphy would have behaved had he made it back on the street, and when Murphy burns the stash, it is another act of defiance that is played out again at the end of Thief when Frank destroys what he has built over the years. In both cases, there is a patent notion the Mann protagonist cannot be at peace until a kind of requisite equilibrium is restored and this can at times mean the neutering of materialism.

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Folsom, an intense microcosm of racial and ethnic fidelities, is the the connective glue, bringing together Mann’s crime universe, and in The Jericho Mile. In Folsom, Mann depicts an intense gang rivalry, often a key feature of the American prison genre, contested by the inter-racial friendship between Murphy and Stiles who is killed by the white gang for his refusal to become a drug mule. In some respects, and though Murphy resolutely remains a loner, he later emerges as a communal force, creating a united front amongst the varying gangs, the hispanic and black gangs eventually coming together to oppose the ruling hegemonic white prison gang. Murphy’s act of running is far more political than emotional, personal than mutual, enunciating an extraordinary catharsis which soars as Murphy races round the prison yard to the blinding guitar riffs of Sympathy for a Devil. It is a Mann refrain, one filled with a melodious, organic and beguiling cinematic sleight of hand.

BLACKHAT (Dir. Michael Mann, 2015, US) – Moments, Impressions and Aesthetics

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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 as marks of distinction attributed to an auteur as formidable as Mann whose films are some of the most authentic, aesthetically striking and thematically cogent genre pieces to have emerged from the mainstream of contemporary American cinema. There are two moments in question in Mann’s latest film Blackhat that are framed outside the periphery of genre, and which would constitute as authorial slight of hand. The first is when hacker Nicholas Hathaway (Chris Hemsworth) is released from prison and pauses briefly on a runaway before boarding a jet. The second sees FBI Agent Carol Barrett (Viola Davis) gunned down by zealous paramilitary bagman Kassar on the streets of HK (Mann is one of the few directors who finds an aesthetic beauty and apotheosis from action sequences). Time and space are the two dimensions linking both moments, imbuing a transience and solemnity often affiliated with the urban universe of Mann.

The first moment framing Hathaway in a series of slow motion edits as he looks of into the distance is interspersed with a classic Mann visual trait, the asymmetrical composition, with the camera lingering slightly to the left of the urban male loner so that negative space fills the frame, creating a disruption which in this case could be viewed as Hathaway staring into the existential void or clearer still the abyss of cyberspace which is infinitesimal. Mann’s interruption of the logic of classical narrative cinema with such an authorial articulation punctuates and contorts the linearity of time so this moment becomes a defining point of reference rather than just an attempt to assert stylistic consistency. Such discontinuity is also philosophical since the very existence of Mann’s male protagonists is predicated on time: the time to think, to act, and above all, the time to live and die. What if we reframed such moments as in-between moments? Those extraneous micro details typifying realist cinema or the bits that no audience member would be interested to look at for a few fleeting seconds since it distracts from ignoble narrative pleasures. Kent Jones in his monograph (1999) on L’Argent (Money, 1983) argues the cinema of Bresson is a compendium of ‘impressions’ of life as recalled by the director and captured on film. Being impressionistic suggests something altogether deleterious these days, superficiality perhaps. Would we dare make the implication that De Sica was an impressionist, and that even the cinema of Mann is about framing impressions? Remarkably, Mann has referred to his cinema as a realist one. If authenticity, extended years of research, is proof that his films pulsate inorganically and demonstrate a noted aesthetic dexterity then it works aggressively to mask the realist argument, which inexorably gets displaced.

The second in-between moment is realised more sparingly than the first, occupying a more familiar Mann visual milieu, an urban topography, this time of late night Hong Kong. When Kassar and his men gun down Agent Barrett, Mann cuts to Barrett framed in a low angle medium close up, her body riddled with bullets and her lifeless eyes wide open. The next shot, from the POV of Barrett, is a vertiginous high angle shot of a glistening HK skyscraper reaching into the night skies. Framing Barrett’s death through the image of a tall building, Mann connects her death to that her of late husband, a victim of 9-11, and again contorts linearity so that a poetic visual metonymy surfaces. In both junctures, time is the enemy, the most ephemeral of contests in the Mann cosmos.

Blackhat is in many ways Mann’s first truly ‘global’ film, unfolding chiefly in HK and Jakarta. Both of these urban spaces are never positioned as alien environments and seem on many occasions inseparable from the American city streets of Chicago or Los Angeles. If a post-globalised urban context holds no barriers for Mann’s cops, criminals, outsiders and anti-heroes then cyberspace as a site for granting a precarious anonymity, so often craved by Mann’s urban male loners, is at stake, emerging as a contest in which Hathaway must confront his double and mirror image, the eponymous hacker. Such opposition educes Manhunter, Heat, Collateral and Public Enemies in which mirror images as an authorial preoccupation is taken to its logical conclusion, the shattering of the double and its final elimination, which in the case of Blackhat plays out with an erudite genre equivocation, hinging emotively on revenge. It could in fact be the most benign of all Mann’s endings since the world of crime is a digital one: undetectable and immeasurable unlike the tangible ‘scores’ of traditional urban crime.

This narrative departure is not a complete break from Mann’s authorial traits since time still matters. Yet in the past, Mann’s urban loners who know their time is up such as Neil McCauley in Heat or Vincent in Collateral, the doomed noir trajectory, means their existence is also hinged on adherence to a moral code that advocates a no attachments policy. But Hathaway goes the furthest to reject such an ideal since his escape at the end is with Lien (Wei Tang). Imaginably Mann’s male protagonists are that much freer in a post globalised world; that they can disappear and become invisible since time and space have become that much more fragmented. In this context Blackhat is closer to the narrative finality of Manhunter (note the parallels between Jack Crawford and Captain Dawai in terms of their roles as meditators) and The Last of the Mohicans. It is in the vagaries of transience that remains an absolute veracity about Mann’s work.

1992 and the release of The Last of the Mohicans is significant in terms of determining the point at which critics started to take Mann seriously. It was one of the few occasions that critics came to a consensus on a Mann film. Perhaps Heat is the film that brought wider mainstream acclaim and recognition but the mixed critical responses to Blackhat reiterates the fate of films like Thief, Miami Vice and most recently Public Enemies, misconstrued films that have grown in stature. The commercial failure of Blackhat lies with Universal who never pushed the film, botched the marketing and subsequently dumped the film. What makes Blackhat and every Mann film so exceptional is the exacting precision of the framing, composition and combination of shots; there is alchemy to his work, a rapturous aesthetician absent from the mainstream of American genre cinema in desperate need of resuscitation.

THIEF (Michael Mann, 1981, US) – Proletarian Politics

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Genre readings of Michael Mann’s debut feature film Thief are relatively inclined to explore both the crime film and neo noir which seem to intersect as a form of postmodern existential hybridity. Mann could have easily worked in the Hollywood studio era since he works specifically within genres. Separation for Mann from his contemporaries especially when it comes to the crime film is authorial preoccupations are lucid, intellectual and existential enough to transform the most ordinary or formulaic of situations into a kind of poetic rapture. Thief is a virtual template for Mann thematics he would regularly explore in the crime film genre. Yet in the midst of a narrative that could only be described as an urban western, Frank’s refusal to conform and to be assimilated into a much wider capitalist system of working class exploitation requires further elucidation as an early marker of Mann’s politics. 

One of the more interesting exchanges in terms of political dialogic occurs towards the end of the film between Frank, the worker in this case, and Leo, the master and boss. Having completed his final job as a high line safe cracker, Frank comes to see Leo, his new friend, for his cut. However, when Frank looks through the envelope full of cash he realises Leo’s idea of friendship is cynically unveiled as a form of ownership antithetical to Frank’s very existence. Frank’s defense of his ideological position is very revealing as it harbours a semi Marxist tone: ‘I can see my money is still in your pocket, which is from the yield of my labour’. When conflated with his ‘state raised’ background, a picture emerges of the proletariat rallying against the exploitation of labour which he must sell in order to survive and function in a capitalist American society. In many ways, this is Frank at his most political and the resistance he vigorously demonstrates to the humiliating demands of Leo, who wants to own Frank and thereby control him, is an extension of such a working class protest. Notably, Frank also furthers his argument about working class exploitation, saying: ‘You’re making big profits from my work, my risk, my sweat’. Oddly enough the tone of Frank’s criticisms concerning profits and his sweat is overly familiar in the context of corporation exploitation and most significantly the element of greed. Although Leo could be interpreted as the domineering crime boss, his conflict with Frank at this point in the film becomes an ideological one and thus can be a symbolic extension of the capitalist system attempting through initially coercion and finally violence to subjugate the consciousness of the proletariat spirit. Leo’s response to Frank is glib, condescending and politically loaded, ‘Why don’t you join a labour union?’, he says. 

Existence in the world of Mann for the male loner is defined by anonymity. By partnering with Leo, Frank realises he is jeopardising the anonymity he has struggled to protect but he is also putting at risk his belief system. Unsurprisingly, Frank’s proletarian politics become a source of ridicule. Leo feels threatened by Frank’s unwavering professionalism and deadening adherence to a strict moral code and by rubbishing his politics, Leo tries to humiliate Frank in every way possible whereby he is made into a relic in an age of corporate power. However, Frank resists. The resistance exemplified at the end appears like uncontrollable rage. Framed politically as an act of proletariat protest, the violence unleashed by Frank sees him annihilating a fragile past forged on a notion of personal integrity now tainted by Leo’s betrayal. By destroying the house, the bar and the car lot Frank’s self destruction read ideologically becomes a politicised act of symbolic resistance since he does not want Leo, the zealous corporate capitalist, to claim and exploit the ‘yield of his labour’. In fact, an indifference to conformity is what sets Frank apart but by walking away at the end sets him up as an outcast doomed to drift like the cowboy on the margins of a society that disgusts him. In other words, Frank is a worker, a stand up guy and that counts for everything in the films of Michael Mann.

Anatomy of a sequence: Collateral (Michael Mann)

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Tom Cruise as Vincent in Mann’s Collateral.

I was going to post an entry on Manhunter, based on my enslavement to chronological film analysis, but since Collateral is a Mann film I saw again recently on Blu-ray, I was compelled to offer a closer look at a key sequence which includes the introduction of Vincent’s character and ends with him taking Max hostage as his collateral. I have selected key shots from a sequence that lasts for around eight minutes and will attempt to weave together the way in which formal elements (also genre and narrative) interact with wider contextual considerations such as authorial traits, stardom, American culture, class and politics. Many regard Collateral as a key work in Mann’s oeuvre and can be situated alongside films like Heat in its topographical mapping of Los Angeles as a transitory urban space that both alienates and displaces asynchronous protagonists like Vincent (Tom Cruise).

 

Keys to the castle.

 

Vincent is formally introduced to us with a medium close up of his hand punching a code into a keypad of a locked door. He completes this action with an ease that underlines his professionalism and power over technology. His open access to the urban spaces through which he drifts signifies his position as both an outsider and in this case an insider makes him ruthlessly efficient and typical of Mann’s crime protagonist who is a slave to personal integrity. The power of this action is mirrored in the following shot, which frames Vincent in the centre, signposting the star power of Tom Cruise through a noticeable pause in the narrative.

Cruise is given…
…a star entrance comparable to Hanks and Crowe below.

This interruption is significant since the gesture of Cruise raising his head and seemingly looking at us reiterates his star status and is comparable to Tom Hanks’ introduction in Saving Private Ryan and Russell Crowe in Gladiator.

A notable star gesture: slowly raising the head.

The ray-ban sun-glasses were popularised by Cruise in Risky Business and interestingly given the way a film stars image is predicated on past associations, in this case, the sunglasses remind us of Cruise and his long time relationship with ray-ban. Additionally, the sunglasses are a film noir trope since by concealing his eyes not only makes him look threatening but also frames him as someone who guards his privacy and inner life. The use of space behind Vincent in this particular shot is also significant since the emptiness of such urban spaces echoes his cynical perspective on Los Angeles as sprawled and disconnected. In many ways, his alienation from the spaces around him is underlined with an explicitness maintained in much of the film. The grey hair and beard while the sunken cheekbones extenuated by the fluorescent lighting constructs a ghostly image of a man. Such ghostly imagery is anchored by the choice selection of a grey suit creating a veneer of respectability to what is a ruthlessly amoral profession. We are never explicitly told about the location from which Vincent emerges but Annie’s destination tells us what we need to know, that this is a federal building and we are meant to assume he has been meeting someone. The keypad code is about power and is later reinforced when Vincent uses a swipe card to bypass the security checkpoint.

The next set of shots sees Vincent walking confidently through the federal building. A low angle asymmetrical shot establishes Vincent as a man constantly on the go who assuredly navigates his way through urban spaces. The subsequent asymmetrical shot is one of the first of many in which Vincent’s presence creates disruption within the frame. Vincent’s stealth like movement repeatedly sees him pushing into the frame, making him altogether more threatening. In terms of the doomed male protagonist often associated with the noir genre, Vincent’s ice cool demeanour situates him as a contemporary variation of the femme fatale, the homme fatale. Vincent’s presence in the federal building is momentary since he is a transient figure who finds it impossible to forge attachments, which is yet another popular Mann thematic.

Vincent is a transient figure…
…who drifts through the urban milieu.

As Vincent exits the building, we cut to a fleeting shot of Annie (Jada Pinkett) who has just exited the taxicab driven by Max (Jamie Foxx). The early crossing of paths between Vincent and Annie establishes themes of fate and chance symptomatic of the noir idiom. In terms of classical Hollywood narrative, Annie’s presence in the periphery of Vincent’s predatory gaze confirms her wider role within the plot and final section of the film. Ideologically, the space in which Vincent and Annie’s paths cross holds potential significance since it is a federal building and a place that symbolises institutional power. The exclusion of Max from such a space at this moment of time in the narrative makes apparent the class and economic divisions that exists between Vincent/Annie and Max. We later discover that Max is somewhat ashamed of his working class aspirations and is reluctant to discuss them with Vincent.

Passing Annie on the escalator.

In terms of incongruous shots, as Vincent makes his way down the escalator, we cut to a POV shot of the lobby. Mann seems to hold on this shot briefly but given the subjective nature of the shot, it’s as if Vincent is almost daydreaming for an instance, and by dwelling on such a detail inserts a degree of banality to his character. Simultaneously this shot also foregrounds an authorial preoccupation with filming architectural spaces that interest Mann.

A rare POV shot.

As the taxi ride begins, non-diegetic sound is introduced in the form of classical music, which acts as a metaphor for the jarring sophistication associated with Vincent’s character. This is unusual because Vincent is a hit man but ‘Bach’ becomes his way of signifying his cultural status within society; we are clearly supposed to view him as part of the educated, refined elite. We can interpret further that Vincent sees killing other people as comparable to somebody who has composed a piece of music; ultimately he views himself as an artist and this complicates his status as a sociopath with whom we finds ourselves empathising with on occasions. A bird’s eye view of Los Angeles as a vast metropolis is important since by having the taxicab merge into the dense urban space accentuates their inconsequential lives and sets up the theme of aloneness that troubles Vincent.

Los Angeles as sprawled out and disconnected.

The reluctance of Max to engage in conversation with Vincent is partly to do with how Max is represented as somebody lost in self delusion and unable to communicate the essence of his dreams. The taxicab can be viewed as a metaphor that acts as a barrier between Max and the real world. In the cab he is disconnected from reality, unable to reflect on the mundane life he leads. Vincent’s dependency on technology is a continuing theme and it is repeated through the image of the electronic tablet that he carries with him. Also, his dependency on technology is exposed later in the film when Max discards the briefcase, forcing Vincent to put Max to the test of imitation and performance. Vincent’s disillusionment is awkwardly manifested in his allegorical recollection of the dead man on the MTA who nobody seems to notice. Though Vincent desires anonymity it is dying alone that he really fears. So far I have argued against a dominant reading of Vincent as the doomed noir protagonist but once he meets Max his trajectory towards death becomes altogether clearer since it is his mirror image in the shape of Max who will be the one to take his life. Most of this sequence frames both Vincent and Max behind the glass of the car windows and the city passing them by is reflected with a clarity onto the glass producing a tactile submersion of the characters into the city. Neither of them can hide from the way a city like Los Angeles renders people immaterial.

Vincent’s rage or white male angst is familiar to us from films like Taxi Driver and Falling Down and as he continues with his allegory of the dead man on the MTA, we cut to a shot from the front of the cab looking at Vincent behind a plastic/glass barrier that separates the driver from the passenger. This image acts as visual reinforcement of the animalistic qualities inherent in Vincent and momentarily he becomes almost caged behind this plastic/glass barrier. Moreover, such an image of containment reiterates the disruption Vincent brings with him.

The theme of mirror images gains momentum, resonating in the editing which matches the framing of Vincent and Max while creating a more intimate mood by moving closer to their faces. This synchronous pattern of editing is important since Vincent is also gaining the confidence of Max by getting him to ‘open up’ about his aspirations but this never happens in its totality given the way Max is embarrassed by his own shortcomings. In some ways, Vincent acts as an inadvertent force of liberation, awakening Max from his false consciousness and asking him to question his subservient position in the system. Unfortunately, it is not possible to read Vincent as a political entity since he is a sociopath motivated by an innate sense of self-loathing.

Mirror Images.

Having reached his first of many temporary pauses in his odyssey through a nocturnal Los Angeles, Vincent changes persona again and this time propositions Max. The way Vincent flashes the cash in front of Max momentarily positions him as the slimy capitalist exploiting the hapless proletariat. Max is easily lured by such opportunism, reiterating yet again the submissive nature of his character. Vincent’s seduction of Max with money seems to add weight to the argument of his status as contemporary equivalent of the femme fatale. However, his manipulation of Max is predicated on money not sex typical of the femme fatale in classical noir cinema. In the universe of Michael Mann, male protagonists, especially those shown in conflict with one another, typically seek out a mutual understanding based on professionalism, integrity and self-respect. Male bonding, which in many cases can occur without characters meeting, is another central authorial obsession that has its seeds in this first of many antagonistic conversations between Vincent and Max.

Vincent seduces Max.

Now that Vincent has charmed Max, he asks him to park around the back and exits, leaving to meet his first target. Yet again framing is crucial as the city is extenuated, its domineering presence eclipsing their lives and attesting them to be at the mercy of the urban space. Max turns to look at the briefcase whereby its significance as a plot device is underlined and doubly objectified as a symbol of Vincent’s status as a transient figure. While Max waits for Vincent, he eats a sandwich and dreams. The want to acquire the Mercedes Benz, an elitist symbol, is a foolish aspiration since Max is a dreamer. We later discover when Max visits his mother in hospital that he has been fooling her with the notion that ‘Island Limos’ is a business reality when in fact it is an unrealised dream. The shot of the business card is particularly significant when juxtaposed to the Mercedes brochure, as it is a complicated bind of vacillation that hinders Max from elevating himself out of a disempowering social predicament.

Max settles down for the ride.

The next series of shots sees Vincent stoically making his way to the first target. As he walks past the apartments, Vincent looks into one of them through the expansive glass window and we someone lying on a bed watching television. This depicts Vincent’s gaze as omnipotent and since this level of transparency is in essence an extension of the theme of power, we also realise Vincent does not care about invading the private space of others. He does so without any sense of shame. An oppositional reading of this particular combination of shots is that Vincent’s aloofness means he regards himself to be intellectually superior to those around him. However, such aloofness merges with arrogance that problematises the morality of Vincent’s unsavoury decisions. The asymmetrical framing is particularly distinct as Vincent yet again pushes into the frame with the city this time bearing down on his resolute figure of Vincent. Next, the composition offset by the indifferent facial expression to the right of the frame is tied to the disorder that Vincent is about to unleash.

Vincent stalking his prey.

Cross cutting between Max and Vincent sustains dramatic tension and slowly builds suspense but it is also used to draw attention to the ideological differences that exists between the dynamic and imposing figure of Vincent and the passive and docile figure of Max. To reinforce such differences, Mann cuts to shots of Max munching away on a sandwich and reading his brochure, suggesting Max is duped by the trappings of a capitalist system to ever become what he wants, relegated to taking pleasure in the comforts offered to him by his safe and reassuring routine; he is not only oblivious to Vincent’s sinister character, he is oblivious to reality.

Dreaming…

 

…of a better life.


The surprise elliptical cut from Max munching on his homemade sandwich to the subjective point of view of Vincent’s first victim crashing down on the hood of the taxi cab is both startling and disorientating. The use of ellipsis is crucial in terms of withholding key narrative information from us as an audience and sustaining the enigma of Vincent’s character. One of the other motivating factors why we are not shown how Vincent kills his first victim is because Vincent does not care about the who, the how and the why, he is only interested in completing the job. It is civilians like Max who are forced to deal with the consequences of the aftermath. Therefore, Vincent’s vacant and apathetic ideological perspective is supported by the use of elliptical editing.

Ellipsis.

Max finally comes face to face with the destructive Vincent and his immediate reaction of bemusement soon turns to abject horror. He gets out of the cab, looking at the body then up to the window. Studying the demeanour of Vincent as he approaches, Max realises his predicament. Such a moment contradicts the theme of mirror images since Max and Vincent share very little, if anything, in common. In fact, this stand off between Vincent and Max is familiar to us from various film genres as it serves as a common narrative device. In this case, Vincent uses the threat of violence to coerce Max and it is the first of many times we see him raise his gun. Vincent is a prototypical Mann protagonist since he will allow nothing to come in the way of his professionalism including any sort of compromise. In terms of star image, Vincent is perhaps the one role that Cruise has played in which he refuses to elicit our sympathies yet it is one of Cruise’s fiercest performances. Playing against type for an international star such as Cruise can result in box office poison but it also means associations stars bring with them can be challenged in more openly subversive ways. Vincent is one of Cruise’s most memorable roles and it came at time in his career when he had become open to more problematic unconventional characters while being prepared to subvert his star image as he had proven in Eyes Wide Shut, Magnolia and Vanilla Sky. 

Vincent gets serious.

The only way Vincent can continue on his trajectory unhindered is by acquiring the complicity of Max in his crimes. Max becomes a witness and distant observer to the crimes perpetrated by Vincent and this is the first of many deaths he witnesses, failing to intervene. Max attempts to distance himself from what he has just witnessed but Vincent realises he is a liability. It is only much later when Vincent shots dead the detective Fanning (Mark Ruffalo) does he finally react, denouncing Vincent as nothing more than a ‘sociopath’ and crashing the cab. The title of the film needs discussing in relation to this first sequence since it could be interpreted in two ways. Firstly, and perhaps most obviously, after the first hit, Max becomes Vincent’s collateral in case anything should happen. Secondly, and more ideologically, collateral is often seen in the media in relation to the term ‘collateral damage’ which in terms of war and especially those perpetrated by the west means ‘incidental damage’ that occurs from a targeted action. In many ways, it is within the context of contemporary discourse on the notion of collateral damage that we should read the actions of Vincent and the amoral attitudes he espouses.

Max as collateral.


As the taxicab pulls away down the side street, the soundtrack changes to a more techno-synth beat which we have heard before in films such as Manhunter and Heat and which is often the heartbeat of the obsessive police detective. The trajectory of Vincent is clear now and so is his destination – death. Such a a thematic statement is counterpointed to the introduction of Detective Fanning who we assume will be the one to take down Vincent. In terms of genre coding, this narrative junction re-establishes a familiar conflict characteristic of the crime film; the cop vs the criminal. Another point to mention and which probably needs more exploration is the way Mann’s films over the years especially his most recent films have quickened in terms of editing. It would be interesting to complete some kind of look at the average shot length, comparing his recent films to earlier ones. Both Collateral and Public Enemies were co-edited by Paul Rubell who has also worked on high concept blockbusters such as Transformers which adhere to a hyper-editing rhythm. Nonetheless, given Mann’s discernible authorial stamp, he still succeeds in pausing to survey the urban milieu with such adventurous clarity. Clocking in at just 120 minutes, Collateral also makes for one of Mann’s leanest films.

PUBLIC ENEMIES (Dir. Michael Mann, 2009, US) – ‘John Dillinger’s not goin’ to no Shirley Temple movie…’

Omar Ahmed11 Comments

THE FILMS OF MICHAEL MANN

mann

With the current release of ‘Public Enemies’ and the critical interest it has ignited amongst fans and film critics, most of which has appeared on the blogosphere, it was hard not offer my own take on the films of Michael Mann. Alongside David Fincher and Paul Thomas Anderson, Michael Mann is one of my favourite film makers and also happens to be one of the few American film makers working at his peak, consistently producing an impressive range of genre films. The following are my critical thoughts on Michael Mann and why he matters so much in the narrowing field of contemporary American cinema.

When compared to many of the great filmmakers working today, the creative output of Michael Mann is relatively insubstantial for a mainstream Hollywood director who has worked within many diverse genres from the crime film to the period epic. To date, he has made just ten feature films including two television films in the space of three decades. In terms of output, Mann’s moderate work rate makes for telling comparisons with similarly revered contemporary auteurs like Terence Malick. Unlike the enigmatic Terence Malick who has never considered himself part of Hollywood or mainstream American cinema, Michael Mann regularly collaborates with major film stars, works with relatively large budgets and aims his films at a wide audience. Both his last two films; ‘Miami Vice’ and ‘Public Enemies’ opened during the summer period, hoping to offer audiences an alternative in terms of the blockbuster film.

Having graduated from the London Film School in the 60s, Mann’s first encounter with film making came with the documentary medium, but it would take Mann nearly two decades to achieve international recognition with ‘Manhunter’. Michael Mann made a reputation for himself with his involvement in producing hit television shows like ‘Crime Story’ and ‘Miami Vice’, and he was relegated to the television format for a number of years. Before ‘Heat’ became an actual cinematic reality, Michael Mann had made a little known television film, ‘LA Takedown’. Deeply dissatisfied with the final shape of this low budget television film, Mann would later return to this failed project and eventually remake it as ‘Heat’, fulfilling his vision of creating a populist crime epic with a cast that would comprise of Al Pacino and Robert De Niro.

‘Miami Vice (2006)’ as a recognisable brand should have meant the possibility of a built in audience but it failed to generate the expected box office results, undermining the film’s chance of establishing itself as a potential franchise for Universal. Nevertheless, a handful of determined critics have bravely kept alive the aesthetic, thematic and authorial values of Mann’s films, with some even labelling ‘Miami Vice’ as film of the decade. Perhaps some of the most insightful commentary on Michael Mann has emerged unsurprisingly on the blogosphere. Film critic and video essayist Matt Zoller Seitz has recently produced a series of video essays, analysing key themes and articulating the importance of Mann as a key American film auteur.

Therefore, it seems as though it is easier to make a judgement about Mann’s status as a mainstream filmmaker, but much more problematic to identify the creative tension that exists between authorial instincts and commercial demands which makes him into such an inscrutable filmmaker. Since 2006, Mann has become increasingly prolific as a producer, re teaming with Jamie Foxx in ‘The Kingdom’ (2007), a poorly received and jingoistic action thriller set in Saudi Arabia. Most recently, his name adorned the credits of the Will Smith comic book smash hit film, ‘Hancock’ (2008), another film directed by the actor turned Peter Berg who showed up in ‘Collateral’ (2004) in a minor role as a homicide detective. Though Michael Mann has shown considerable range as a filmmaker in the types of films he has directed, his reputation is inextricably tied to the contemporary Hollywood crime film (it would be just as valid to substitute crime with neo noir when situating his work in terms of genre), with many citing ‘Heat’ as one of the great recent masterworks of American cinema and perhaps the film that really helped to confirm his unparalleled place as one of the best filmmakers working anywhere in the world today.

Mann has been quick to embrace new technology and has been one of the first Hollywood filmmakers to experiment with new High Definition digital video format in ‘Collateral’, subsequently replicating such success in ‘Miami Vice’. By choosing digital over film, Mann boldly demonstrated how digital cinema could look aesthetically appealing and present a distinctively alternative approach to the visual treatment of a Hollywood feature film. The favoured choice of camera is the HD Thompson Viper, a camera that Mann has consecutively utilised on his last three films including ‘Public Enemies’. Though film makers have been slow to embrace the Viper (David Fincher is the exception – ‘Zodiac’ was beautifully shot using the Viper by Harris Savides), the camera’s capability to capture the image at night with a clarity and lucidity is perfectly suited to the age of digital home cinema. Dion Beebe’s groundbreaking cinematography on ‘Collateral’ revealed in an altogether new aesthetic possibility, which was taken yet further in the poetic imagery of ‘Miami Vice’.

Very little has been written about Mann and a serious look at his work is all but absent from film literature. The criticism that does exist about Mann is routinely directed towards his status as a visual stylist, a label that many studios feel content with as it makes his films that much easier to market. The most complete overview of his films to date is a Taschen book by F.X. Feeney titled ‘Michael Mann’. Lacking any real academic input, the book excels in providing a wealth of background information about Mann’s approach to film making and offers what is an exclusive range of images and a complete filmography. However, Amazon lists a number of forthcoming books on the films of Michael Mann so in a few years we may thankfully be in a situation in which academics and critics may struggle to say something new or revelatory about his work.

Mann has also been unfairly positioned alongside one of the most influential and prolific visual stylists working in Hollywood today, Ridley Scott. Yet to categorise him this way overlooks key thematic and ideological preoccupations that are repeated throughout his work, refuting the disingenuous and simplistic argument of ‘style over substance’. Even the most competent of filmmakers have a distinct style and approach to making films, but when style is mentioned in reference to Michael Mann it seems to suggest something superficial and unimportant. Michael Mann has personally highlighted the difficulty he has had in being taken seriously as a film maker:

‘I don’t like style. Style is what happens when form is orphaned because content is left; it’s good in commercials’

– Michael Mann (Taschen Film), F.X. Sweeney, 2006

SOLEMNITY

Beginning with ‘Manhunter’ (1986), the image of the sea has become a crucial and expressive thematic motif in the oeuvre of Michael Mann. In ‘Manhunter’, Former FBI Agent Will Graham’s (William Petersen) affinity with the sea (he is trying to rebuild his life and family at his beach house) illustrates the ideological relationship between nature and society; this co existence between man’s want to retreat to the idyllic pleasures of life and the pressure to forge an identity within contemporary urban society is an uneasy and problematic concern for both Will Graham and the antagonist of the film, Dollarhyde (The Tooth Fairy). Though Will Graham’s desire to exist on the fringes of contemporary society is purely idealistic, it perhaps suggests how the motif of the sea foregrounds the loneliness and alienation that many of Mann characters experience. In many ways the sea becomes a source of rebirth and stillness, providing an alternative to the catalogue of urban sounds that consume individuals like Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro) in ‘Heat’.

‘Mann’s films testify to a constant concern for purity and a similar fascination for the sea that brings back such a coda, carrying appeasement and serenity’

– The Aquarium Syndrome: On the Films of Michael Mann, Jean-Baptiste Thoret, 2000

http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/01/19/mann.html

[Unfortunately, last time I checked, this link has been removed from the website in question. This is perhaps one of the most astute and detailed essays that I have come across on the Internet. I’m guessing it may have something to do with copyright reasons which is a real shame as I have expanded upon a lot of the ideas and themes identified by Thoret in his analysis of Mann.]

Towards the end of Mann’s 1999 film on the American cigarette industry, ‘The Insider’, Television producer Lowell Bergman’s (Al Pacino) temporary expulsion from the CBS news organisation ends with him retreating to the ocean for a period of extended self reflection so that he can try and exorcise the guilt he feels for the personal failure towards Jeffrey Wigand (Russell Crowe), somebody who he has coerced into telling his story about the illegal practices being secretly conducted by a major American cigarette corporation. Even an urban crime film like ‘Collateral’ (2004) in which the narrative unfolds over one night in Los Angeles, the motif of the sea resurfaces, this time appearing in the figure of an island on a postcard that Max (Jamie Fox) keeps in his Taxi. On this occasion, the postcard provides Max with a premature escape from the reality of his mundane existence, but the postcard is an artifice as blank as the city in which he drives and to which he has become an unknowing victim of alienation.

Images of the Sea

1. Manhunter

2. Heat 

3. Collateral

4. Miami Vice.

THE URBAN MALE

Like Will Graham and Lowell Bergman’s secret ocean hideaways in ‘Manhunter’ and ‘The Insider’, the ethereal connection with the sea is an ultimate desire for independence from a society that has imploded and lost touch with humanity. The mourning of a way of life that is no longer possible and subject to the inevitability of historical change is brilliantly captured in the final shot of Mann’s historical epic, ‘The Last of the Mohicans’. Having overcome the formidable Magua (Wes Studi), Hawkeye (Daniel Day Lewis) stands majestically, looking out across the landscape as if their collective journey has literally taken them to the edge of the world, mourning and signalling the death of an ancient society. The sense of nostalgic yearning for a bygone age that flows out of the final sequence confirms Mann’s fascination with characters who reject the new society, one that seeks to destroy, fragment and bring death.

Both Vincent in ‘Collateral’ and Neil McCauley in ‘Heat’ are criminals but Mann does not seek to advocate how their death is crucial for reinstating some kind of status quo, but instead, says that death for those who transgress the social order is the only definitive and absolute means of ensuring their adherence to a moral code is preserved indefinitely. Both Neil and Vincent would rather choose death than become subsumed into a deeply conformist society, and by choosing death they choose to make a pessimistic statement that underlines their rejection of today’s bankrupt postmodern life. However, this rejection seems also to be a symbol of male anxiety as both Vincent and Neil are dispatched by their male counterparts. In ‘Heat’ as Neil McCauley is dying, Vincent’s touching gesture of holding his hand, squeezing it tightly, cries out as a testimony to Mann’s recurring interest in male relationships that are forged in a deeply professional context, but almost always resulting in some kind of metaphysical displacement that is strangely uplifting.

Neil McCauley: ‘That’s the discipline’

Vincent Hanna: ‘That’s pretty vacant, you know’

This primarily male instinct of mutual appreciation that is repeatedly reciprocated in the crime films of Mann manifests itself once more in the ending to Mann’s most recent feature, ‘Public Enemies’. Dillinger’s death unfolds in a Zen like state of expiation and his slaying is a necessary means of reinstating social order. However, Dillinger’s decision to choose the time and place of his death is acknowledged by the character of Charles Winstead (Stephen Lang in what is a scene stealing role as an out of town law enforcer and traditional male symbol of the old west). The obligation that compels Winstead to inform Billie Frechette (Marion Cottilard) of Dillinger’s poignant last words is a confirmation of the respect he secretly harbours for men like Dillinger, men who refuse to sell out and simply abandon their sense of identity. Perhaps it is much more than just respect but an admiration for being able to choose a position in society rather than have it dictated by those around you.

Running on Empty: Johnny Depp as Dillinger in ‘Public Enemies’.


‘In Mann’s films…his world is of crystalline waters, freeways and skylines, empty warehouses and airports. In these spaces, man is forever in transit, somewhere between an absent origin and a non existent tomorrow’

– The Aquarium Syndrome: On the Films of Michael Mann, Jean-Baptiste Thoret, 2000

http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/01/19/mann.html

MORAL CODES

Contemporary urban male identity is another theme that fascinates Michael Mann. Whether his protagonists are criminals or detectives, they adhere to an ancient moral code and are sworn to a professionalism that is manifested in their unwillingness to sell out or compromise their ideological philosophy in any way. The masculine moral code is taken to its extremes in ‘Collateral’ (2004). Vincent (Tom Cruise) is a man unto himself; a modern day, existential warrior indebted to a moral code of such brutality that he must inevitability succumb to death. Vincent’s fear of both assimilation into mainstream everyday society and anonymity is vividly illustrated in his allegorical recollection of the anecdote of the dead man on a subway train who nobody seems to notice.

‘Guy gets on the subway and dies. Think anybody’ll notice?’

– Vincent (Tom Cruise) in ‘Collateral’.

Like Neil McCauley in ‘Heat’, dying alone and anonymously is secretly what Vincent fears the most. If we take into consideration the generic context of neo noir then Vincent’s death is inevitable as his journey mirrors that of the traditional doomed noir protagonist. Death seems to be the only resolution and outcome for empathetic characters like Vincent in ‘Collateral’ and Dollarhyde in ‘Manhunter’ as their presence seems to threaten the legitimacy of a supposedly civilised society. Many of the characters that occupy the ambient, still landscapes of Michael Mann would prefer to remain outsiders but the price they must pay for such isolationist mentality is expulsion and marginalisation. ‘The Insider’ finishes with the image of Lowell Bergman, quitting his job as producer of 60 minutes and disappearing into the crowded, anonymous mass of New Yorkers. He would rather be an outsider, a nobody, then become just another extension of the corrupt corporate establishment, an attitude in part shared by both Neil and Vincent but for arguably alternate reasons. Survival becomes not about existence but about preserving an integrity that no one can question as being false.

Al Pacino as Lowell Bergman, producer of ’60 minutes’ and a man of his word.

The same can be said about Dillinger’s refusal to listen to the demands of Frank Nitti and Phil D’Andrea (John Ortiz) who eventually severe all ties with him and his gang. This plea to abandon the idea of robbing banks is also reinforced by Dillinger’s best friend, ‘Red’ Hamilton (Jason Clarke), but Dillinger similarly interprets such compromise as a form of humiliation and attack on his manhood. It may be a harsh way of looking at the world but for Mann’s male protagonists, it is the only way. To consider another option would mean social integration, but the preference to exist on the margins of a society is the ultimate symbol of a personal kind of political resistance.

POSTMODERN ANXIETIES

In ‘Collateral’, Vincent underlines Middle American western guilt and complicity in international war crimes. After the first contract ‘hit’, when Vincent is provoked by the defensive questioning of Max, he explicitly invokes the atrocities of Rwanda so that he can placate any sentiments of emotional liberalism. What Vincent is in essence talking about is the apathetic nature of a contemporary society that has rejected all meta-narratives in favour of individualism, the sole characteristic of today’s capitalist-consumerist state, and the arrogant attitude he adopts is emblematic of a culture of victimisation that is common place in all walks of life. One of the conditions underpinning postmodernism today is the loss of identity, the loss of self. Nothing is stable. No absolute truths exist. It is the media that determines our self image and shapes who we are, what we do and what we believe, constructing for us an artificial identity that is continually in flux, underlining an age of uncertainty.

Vincent is critical of postmodernism and feelings that we associate with such a cultural lifestyle like feelings of inertia, numbness and social apathy that keep people apart from one another – what he identifies as a condition is that of insular and isolationist ideology that reflects contemporary American political attitudes and which characterises how Europeans view and position America today. Though he frowns upon loneliness as a sociological disease, it is only because he recognises it within himself unlike Max who is oblivious to the existence of postmodern constraints.

Mann’s characters have a strong sense of personal identity and it is the one characteristic that makes them exceptionally sympathetic. It is their self identity which they are trying to protect and preserve from what they feel are the negative influences of postmodern culture, but integrity, morality and identity are considered by Mann to be primitive values that symbolise an old tradition which holds little, if any, currency in society anymore.

FILMING THE SPACE

German expressionism externalised the mental state of mind of a character and projected it onto the mise en scene, creating a new aesthetic out of sets, lighting and costumes. Though the German expressionists were creatively involved in the production design of a film, such a tradition is still identifiable in many filmmakers approach to cinema. In 60s post war Italian cinema, artistically inclined filmmakers like Antonioni demonstrated how contemporary architecture – buildings, spaces, glass, metal – could be used to embody and reflect the psychological, sociological and sexual attitudes of certain characters and describe with great intelligence relationships between estranged people without having to resort to reams of pointlessly inert dialogue. Such a manipulation of architecture exists in the work of Mann, and beginning with ‘Thief’ (1981), Mann continues to use the image and context of the city especially Los Angeles as an appropriate visual metaphor for the mental state of his tough, lonely and acutely anonymous noir protagonists.

‘Mann builds his narrative around Downtown Los Angeles, selecting one space after another that allows him to shoot the space…indeed, the whole of Mann’s works should be thought about the filming of this type of landscape’

– Before Sunrise, or Los Angeles Plays Itself In a Lonely Place, Michael J. Anderson, 2004

http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/04/33/collateral.html

Images of the City

1. The neonesque shadow of Los Angeles.

 

2. The city becomes a character, dominating the framing.

3. The imposing skyscrapers of Los Angeles.

4. Disjointed and interconnected freeways.

Like the best film noirs, ‘Collateral’, is a film about the city. Max and Vincent’s journey through down town Los Angeles seems like the perfect excuse for Mann to revisit his favourite architectural locations, many of which he had first photographed in ‘Heat’, and to use them as a backdrop that is not simply subordinate to the narrative, but aesthetically enriching and intellectually alive. Mann’s loose crime trilogy of ‘Thief’, ‘Heat’ and ‘Collateral’ has become a striking visual map of contemporary American architecture, immortalising the magnetic and disjointed metropolis through an equal appreciation of love and contempt for the surrounding urban landscape.

‘Whenever I’m here I can’t wait to leave. It’s too sprawled out, disconnected…17 million people. This has got to be the fifth biggest economy in the world and nobody knows each other’

– Vincent (Tom Cruise) in ‘Collateral’

THE DOUBLE

The expressionistic use of urban architecture (the foregrounding of glass, steel, concrete) illustrates the estrangement and fragmentation postmodernism creates between people, but also defines another key Mann theme, that of ‘mirror images’, as pointed out crucially by Jean-Baptiste Thoret. In ‘Manhunter’, Will Graham apprehends the notorious tooth fairy serial killer because he shares similar psychological instincts, struggling to control, suppress and contain an inner self that is perverse and unnatural. Dr. Lecktor whom Will Graham visits frequently, tries to undermine Will’s predatory instincts in their first encounter at the state hospital for the criminally insane.

 

‘The reason you caught me, Will, is: we’re just alike. You want the scent? Smell yourself…’

– Dr. Lecktor (Brian Cox) in ‘Manhunter’

The theme of mirror images is also present in ‘Collateral’. Though Vincent’s roots may be similar to those of Max (we are told he never got on with his father and is a product of foster homes) he seems to be intellectually and ideologically more aware of the political and social context in which he does his killings. The moment Max is forced to confront his boss about exploiting him as though he was just another worker is politically significant in terms of understanding the contempt Vincent holds for authority and power in general. Max wants to get rid of Vincent because he reminds him of his failure to take appropriate action. Vincent’s mere presence makes Max aware of his shortcomings as an individual who seems totally at the mercy of social forces which he is unable to negotiate with unlike Vincent who by adopting such a marginalised position, a hit man, has the capacity for detachment and distancing that is equally empowering in terms of identifying his male identity as something he has constructed.

One of the strange peculiarities with an auteur is the increasing regularity with which they begin to reference their own films. A discernible pattern emerges that can eventually be traced through the complex fabric of intertextuality. In ‘Public Enemies’, having captured and imprisoned Dillinger, Purvis pays him a brief visit and the two warmly exchange glances and dialogue. This stand off or should I say moment of close scrutiny and mutual appreciation echoes the first meeting that takes place between Will Graham and Dr Lecktor in Mann’s 1986 film, ‘Manhunter’. A similar meeting also surfaces most famously in ‘Heat’ between cop and criminal whilst in a film like ‘Collateral’, the antagonism is continuous. As Dillinger and Purvis size up one another through the stillness of the prison bars, one cannot help but be reminded of the frightening similarities between Graham and Lecktor as extenuated through the identical symmetrical framing and juxtaposition of shots. However, no such similarity exists between Dillinger and Purvis; the reflection of Dillinger finds its clearest and most tangible affinity in the peripheral character of Winstead as it becomes evident through the film’s narrative that Purvis’s undying loyalty to the establishment and in particular J Edgar Hoover marks him out as slightly effeminate and as an uncomplicated symbol of conformity.

One of the fleeting moments of intimacy between Purvis and Dillinger.
ASSIMILATION, ANONYMITY, INTEGRITY

In ‘Collateral’, Max is an unknowing victim of the American dream, a notion invoked for noble purposes but that has been corrupted and is now wielded as a tool of coercion and to provide the masses like Max with a false sense of equality – his interest in superficial consumer objects like the Mercedes Benz epitomises his false sense of reality which has been determined and shaped by a new age media of simulacra and simulations, directly serving the pathological interests of a corporate state that Vincent both openly criticises and endorses as being an inadequate substitute for human relations. Max is a working class drone who has been conditioned – he is the pacified worker as he does not question his position within society.

Max (Jamie Foxx) dreams of a better life but is he simply another slave to capitalism?

Max’s desire to transcend the limitations of his working class identity are cautiously inscribed in a reluctance to face the reality of his subordinate position in opposition to his boss who’s harassment of Max is viewed by Vincent as a reflection of a jilted system. Max represents the working class stiff who is ideologically unaware and ignorant of his status within society, complete with out of reach aspirations of starting up his own business, a limo company. It is only when he meets Vincent is he challenged ideologically in any way, forced to reconsider just why he has been driving a taxi for the last 12 years of his life.

If Vincent educates Max in knowing how to confront authority and hierarchy, he also teaches him in the art of performance exemplified to great effect in the scene in which Max confronts the shady crime boss Felix (Javier Bardem) in the ‘El Rodeo’ LA nightclub. Max imitates Vincent’s chameleon like nature, metamorphosing and being able to assume multiple roles. If performance leads to social empowerment for Max it ultimately and ironically provides him with the will to shoot Vincent and claim back his monosyllabic and banal working class identity.

Vincent’s inability to convert Max into identifying his social position within the system is a reflection of the failure of ideology within postmodern society. Unlike Vincent who refuses to be assimilated into the system, Max is oblivious to Vincent’s ambivalence towards the concept of anonymity as described in his allegorical recollection of a dead man on an LA commuter train that nobody seems to notice. Though it could be simplistic to interpret Vincent as a liberating force that attempts to politicise Max, he can also be viewed as another form of social oppression and hegemonic capitalist control. From Max’s point of view, his reluctance to let Vincent into his working class world is a mechanism that parallels and mimics the ideological defence Vincent expresses when asked why he kills people.

A similar and parallel transformation occurs in ‘The Insider’. Lowell Bergman’s position as an honest producer and articulate transmitter of media information provides Jeffrey Wigand with the confidence to not only blow the whistle on the cigarette industry but to accept the sacrifices he has to make in order to preserve his moral integrity. However, it is important to point out the void that separates Lowell Bergman from somebody like Vincent in ‘Collateral’ is a deeply ideological one as both see the faults with today’s society, but only one of them wants to use their voice to articulate the truth about corporate culture today and how it has effectively colonised the minds of a society that is rarely offered any kind of real choices anymore.

Lowell Bergman (Al Pacino) and Jeffrey Wigand (Russell Crowe) in ‘The Insider’ (1999).

Any sympathies we do hold for Vincent are terminated when he shoots dead the pursuing police detective Fanning (Mark Ruffalo) outside a nightclub so that he can protect his identity, and continue being anonymous, but Max’s denunciation of Vincent as a ‘sociopath’ is frustratingly counter productive as it is a reductive and simplistic categorisation that somehow overlooks the complex edges of Vincent’s contradictory persona. However, Max’s crude stereotyping seems like an act of self appeasement for the extreme actions he must take against Vincent so that he can disassociate himself from an image that he secretly wishes he could aspire to and imitate without having to show any degree of remorse.

Such distancing and disassociation that exists within the universe of Michael Mann’s films repeats itself with great operatic intensity towards the final moments of ‘Miami Vice’. Isabella’s (Gong Li) discovery of Crockett’s (Colin Farrell) status as a police detective not only complicates their already entangled relationship yet further, it also immediately signals a dissociation between them that cannot be bridged by the fragile emotional cord which has been developed and nurtured by Crockett for ulterior motives. Their parting and separation occurs out of an authorial need from Mann as a filmmaker who maintains the continuity with which he fanatically pursues the thematic motif of emotional detachment that manifests itself most clearly in the figure of the male.

Chinese actress and icon of Asian cinema Gong Li was originally pursued by Mann for his film ‘Heat’.

Crockett and Isabella may realistically have found some sort of a compromise but their separation at the end is largely motivated and shaped by Crockett’s unflinching quest for loneliness and a dedication to his job that reeks of over eager professionalism. Sonny Crockett is in many ways similar to the character of Max in ‘Collateral’, as they both see the possibilities of an alternative reality, but their submission to mundane civilian society and the confirmation of its superiority prevents them from transcending their subordinate positions that has permanently paralysed any notion of ideological reawakening.

FRAMING THE SHOT

The pictorial elegance of Mann’s images can never really be overstated enough. Image is king in the morally duplicitous universe of Michael Mann. Yet should such a subjective observation necessarily imply a criticism concerning the aesthetic demands of American film making today? Michael Mann is perhaps the nearest American cinema have to a modernist film maker like Michelangelo Antonioni, inheriting from the Italian master a similar longing with capturing the space that his characters inhabit. Aesthetically, Mann tends to favour asymmetrical framing – this is when a character is positioned to either to the far left or right of the frame, thus the resulting image not only accommodates and extenuates the thematic motif of loneliness through the composition of dead space, but it generates a sense of disruption within the frame that is quite attractive to the spectator. The use of asymmetrical framing is not solely limited to his crime films; it is a visual trait that is consistently evident throughout his work and one that could argue has become his signature shot. Here are some examples of asymmetrical framing from his films:

1. MANHUNTER – Opening Sequence; Will Graham and FBI Agent Crawford

Though Dollarhyde’s character (The Tooth Fairy) has been established in the opening minute of the film with a startling and empowering subjective point of view, this master shot at the beach actually counts as the second opening to the film and the point at which narrative exposition begins in earnest. Though I have identified asymmetrical framing as a key signature shot, this perfectly composed symmetrical shot is another favourite Mann image. Especially noticeable is the graphic composition and width of the frame which makes significant use of the sea’s horizon and the driftwood, anchoring the perfectly balanced shot. The relationship between Will Graham and Agent Crawford is established through the self explanatory positioning of the characters on opposite ends of the frame, using the physical distance to underline the sense of estrangement and ideological differences that exist between the two. This is reinforced by the use of costumes which act as a further signifier of separation. Such an aesthetically executed symmetrical composition crops up time and time again in ‘Manhunter’ and subsequent Mann films.

As Agent Crawford begins his attempt to coerce Graham back to the FBI so that he can help track down the notorious tooth fairy serial killer, Mann uses a series of wide angle shots, framing the characters so their heads are virtually cut off, and reinforcing their detachment from one another.

The following shot is one of the final shots of this sequence at the beach. Another bold and articulate symmetrical composition, the physical distance between Agent Crawford and Graham’s wife is far greater than in the shot that opens the sequence. This shot can also be viewed as an extension of the first shot with the chair positioned in the centre of the frame, providing the anchor and balance to the composition. Yet again, the horizon gives an added depth and sense of perspective, but perhaps more significantly; this is one of the first shots in the oeuvre of Mann which shows a fascination with filming nature and the outside world through architecture especially glass.

 2. COLLATERAL – Vincent’s disruption

The disruptive nature of Vincent’s killing spree and wholly apathetic sociopath is anchored in the asymmetrical framing used in this sequence. It also seems to illustrate the alienation Vincent feels in relation to the ‘disconnected‘ identity of Los Angeles.

This next shot is used just before Vincent carries out his first hit. The asymmetrical framing reinforces the city as an iconographic element of film noir. The composition offset by the focused facial expression of Tom Cruise to the right of the frame is tied to the theme of disorder and chaos that Vincent is about to unleash.

3. MIAMI VICE – Offscreen Space

Though this is not an unusual shot in terms of thematic imagery for Mann, its placement in the sequence where we find Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs interrogating an ex con for his links to drug Lord Jose Yero is discontinuous in terms of narrative. Once again, such a shot is asymmetrically framed with Sonny positioned to the far left whilst echoing both ‘Manhunter’ and ‘Heat’ in which we also find characters gazing at the sea through glass. As the coercion continues in the background, for a brief moment, Sonny unexpectedly glances off screen. Mann cuts to the above shot of the horizon and sea in perfect symmetry, repeating this idea of nature acting as a force of reflection and escape for a loner like Sonny. I have labelled it as discontinuous (so perhaps it would be continuous when contextualised in terms of Michael Mann the auteur) as it seems more of an expression of authorial intent than anything to do with narrative or genre.

4. HEAT – Night Hawks

In this example from the film ‘Heat’, the idea of asymmetrical framing is used to elaborate upon the theme of mirror images. In the lead up to the famous sit down between De Niro and Pacino in a coffee shop, Vincent’s highway pursuit of Neil McCauley to the cosmic strains of Moby leads to a series of closely inter cut shots in which both characters are positioned to the right of the frame. The near match in terms of framing and editing suggests that these two men are very much alike even though they stand firmly on opposite sides of society. It also toys with expectations as genre dictates that typically when the cop pursues the criminal it means arrest and interrogation – however, Mann reverses such conventions with Vincent’s polite invitation to Neil for a ‘cup of coffee’.

WOMEN OF THE NIGHT

The male dominated genres which have come to be associated with Mann’s oeuvre means that he is conveniently criticised for his representation of women. Given the nature of the crime and noir genres, a valid critical position could be sought by explaining the lack of underwritten female characters as one of gender bias that is inherent in genre conventions. Yet I am not entirely convinced if such a criticism concerning Mann’s depiction of women holds any merit especially when one takes a closer and analytical examination of key female characters from his films. Be they peripheral or central to the narrative, women in the films of Mann exist as individuals who are fiercely independent, highly articulate and relatively uncomplicated. Though they stereotypically demand some form of emotional commitment from their male partner, it is the physical presence that the men are unable to provide which leads to an inevitable estrangement.

 Mann’s female characters; Jada Pinkett as ‘Annie’ and Marion Cotillard as ‘Billie Frechette’.

Arguably, ‘Collateral’ features one of Mann’s weakest female characters in the figure of Annie, the Lawyer played by actress Jada Pinkett. Not only is Annie one dimensional in many ways, her relevance to the narrative is purely in terms of plot. Her appearance at the beginning of the film sets up the theme of chance which the film will return to and question at the end when Max realises that Annie is the last name on Vincent’s list of contracts. Starkly contrast this with the representation of Billie Frechette in ‘Public Enemies’, and what becomes apparent is perhaps the inconsistency with which Mann situates the female characters in his films. Though Frechette is allowed time to breathe as a character, this idea of an inner life is somewhat absent in this case. I think this is an area of Mann’s work that demands further study in terms of the wider context in which many of these female characters have been represented as it is likely to elucidate a clearer ideological explanation.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Mann’s latest film, ‘Public Enemies’, is set in the depression of the 1930s and retells the notorious exploits of John Dillinger who made a living from robbing banks. The man chosen to restore the public’s faith in law and order falls upon the steely figure of Melvin Purvis, a dedicated FBI Agent who more than meets his match in the charisma of Dillinger’s sympathetic outlaw. With ‘Public Enemies’ and ‘Miami Vice’, Mann’s work has been somewhat surprisingly undermined by mediocre actors like Colin Farrell and Johnny Depp. However, there was a time when Johnny Depp actually cared about the kinds of films he was making but ever since the Pirates films blurred the line between Johnny Depp, the actor and Jack Sparrow, the character, I have really struggled to take him seriously anymore. Depp brings a lot of baggage with him to the role of Dillinger and an older, more mature actor would have helped Mann get over the tricky hurdle of convincing audiences.

Christian Bale as the stoic G Man Melvin Purvis.
Warren Oates was perfectly cast as Dillinger in the under rated 1973 film directed by John Milius as his face simply had character to it, a quality which Depp is unable to convey. However, it is a beautifully elegant film that is crowded with some stunning moments and typical Mann like pauses to reflect upon the voids which haunt all eras and societies. Re-teaming with Mann regular, Dante Spinotti’s cinematography is nothing but superlative in both its rendering of colour and framing. I do feel that at times the film works quite brilliantly as an all out genre piece and though Mann as auteur is visible throughout including the elongated death of Dillinger, it still falls short of capturing the compelling nature of films like ‘Heat’ and ‘Collateral’.

Nevertheless, like with all Mann films, a second viewing always seems to bring about a different judgement – a similar fate has befallen ‘Miami Vice’ in this case. Mann works within the constraints of the mainstream, so invariably the content of his films are to an extent determined by generic conventions. I think the difficulty Mann continues to face in maintaining his auteur credentials is no better illustrated in his last two films including ‘Public Enemies’. Both of these films rework many of the preoccupations of his best films but slightly dilute them for a much younger audience. Trying to find the right balance between personal, creative aspirations and commercial necessities is a tough one for any film maker working with relatively big budgets and a bankable cast, especially for someone like Mann who doesn’t want to perceived as another director who sold out to Hollywood so he could simply continue making films for the rest of his life.

Michael Mann confers with Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx on the set of ‘Collateral’.
Part of me suspects that this is what lay behind the decision to direct ‘Ali’ with Will Smith in 2001 but similarly like ‘Public Enemies’, the compromise with having to cast Will Smith in the lead role led to a film that was flawed from the outset. Negatives aside, I still think Michael Mann is somewhat of an under rated cinematic genius, so it’s only right to let him have the last say on his own brilliance as a film maker, this time in relation to the realism that marks his films:

‘I always try to find something that makes a scene feel real, and what makes things feel true to me is usually something anomalous, a component you would never expect to find, so it doesn’t look manicured or perfect. This can be a location, a gesture, an expression, a thought in somebody’s head – if you look at life, that’s what it’s like’.

– Michael Mann (Taschen Film), F.X. Sweeney, 2006

© Copyright 2009 Omar Ahmed.