Michael Mann

[petoluk]

The Keep is little more than a ridiculously misguided attempt to cash in on the success of Raiders of the Lost Ark, as it transparently apes the latter film's Nazi/archaeology imagery and supernatural mumbo jumbo.

Um, I may have misunderstood your comment, but the "Nazi/archaeology imagery and supernatural mumbo jumbo" are all part of F. Paul Wilson's book the film is based on, and while it's true that Raiders had been released 2 months before the book was published, I don't believe Wilson was that quick to ape / try to cash in on the success of the film.

[George Drooly]

The Keep is little more than a ridiculously misguided attempt to cash in on the success of Raiders of the Lost Ark, as it transparently apes the latter film's Nazi/archaeology imagery and supernatural mumbo jumbo.

Um, I may have misunderstood your comment, but the "Nazi/archaeology imagery and supernatural mumbo jumbo" are all part of F. Paul Wilson's book the film is based on, and while it's true that Raiders had been released 2 months before the book was published, I don't believe Wilson was that quick to ape / try to cash in on the success of the film.

You don't think studios greenlight projects that follow successful trends? I'm not suggesting the source material's author was derivative, but certainly the studio was, at that moment, more inclined to fund this story, than, say, something else. And the result suffers from lack of personal vision and idiosyncrasy on Mann's part.

[oh yeah]

Call it Mann's Zabriskie Point -- it's not as great as that film, but quite similar in that it's a very maligned work, a critical and financial disaster by a great director which I nonetheless love, and which prizes aesthetic immersion over traditional narrative storytelling.

I think it's garbage, and his second worst film after the atrocious Blackhat. At least Zabriskie is, as far as I know, original; The Keep is little more than a ridiculously misguided attempt to cash in on the success of Raiders of the Lost Ark, as it transparently apes the latter film's Nazi/archaeology imagery and supernatural mumbo jumbo.

I'm wondering about the supposed "science fiction" film he spoke of making a few years ago. I certainly hope it wasn't Blackhat, and I hope he lives long enough to make whatever it might be.

Ah, well I loved Blackhat, too -- albeit not quite as much as Miami Vice and Public Enemies, which strike me as more substantive and fully-formed works whereas Blackhat is more of an auteur piece/"fans only" exercise in digital luminosity. So we'll have to agree to disagree. I certainly would have seconded your thoughts before my second viewing of The Keep recently, but I just find there's so much to admire in it even if it doesn't quite all coalesce into a "successful" whole. Sure, it's trying to cash in on all kinds of trends -- it kind of plays like if Murnau made a glossy Tangerine Dream music video in the early 80s on a gigantic budget -- but it's so batshit insane, so rivetingly weird and hypnotic, that I think it leaves most of its more superficial influences, like Raiders and the like, in the dust. And though it's not as obviously personal a project as Thief or Heat or Miami Vice, I still think it comes from the heart. Like I said before, it's basically Mann channeling his love for German Expressionism as well as fairy-tales (as read by guys like Bettelheim) into an entire film. In that respect it's a key step in his evolution as an artist. You can see the influence of Lang and Murnau and the rest in Manhunter and in Thief, but by Heat and certainly Ali Mann had basically made the move from Expressionism to Impressionism -- a career-long evolution shared by many other directors, e.g. Lynch. And as far as the film not being idiosyncratic, I'd say it's easily the weirdest of his films. The bits of more standard 80s blockbuster filmmaking that are in there only make it all seem weirder for being so otherwise full of oddities.

It's one of those films I love but that I can't really put together a cogent defense for it objectively being a great film -- again, similar to Zabriskie Point as well as Ferrara's New Rose Hotel and Mann's own theatrical adaptation of Miami Vice, though those are all much greater films whose merits I'd much more easily defend.

[flyonthewall2983]

I've been watching the Collateral Blu-ray on and off for most of the week now. It's that rarest of movies, in that it has a commercial feeling to it, but still manages to have a depth that only he can bring to what he does. There are bits and pieces of everything else he's done, but the movie it reminds me the most of (at least in the beginning anyway) tonally is the first Die Hard. The first 15-20 minutes are all about setting up the characters, while establishing some sense of geography that the action takes place in. It's more stricter in McTiernan's case because it's just one building and not the several locations of Los Angeles that Mann used.

[oh yeah]

I'm actually currently visiting Los Angeles, and as far as I'm concerned one of the great achievements of Collateral is the way its images forever recur in my mind whenever I come to this city -- especially at night (the more recent Nightcrawler accomplished precisely the same thing, though for an eerily fluorescent-lit, post-halogen streetlight LA). Oddly, although I think Heat is a far better film, it somehow doesn't embody this certain visual archetype of the city nearly as much.

The Mann film I'm most interested in at the moment, though, is Ali, which remains infinitely re-watchable and which I'm convinced is one of Mann's finest. My girlfriend said recently after seeing it for the first time that it was her favorite of all his films (she has unusual taste: her other favorites are Blackhat, Last of the Mohicans and Public Enemies, while she disliked Heat, Collateral and Miami Vice). And for the first time I could actually really understand that viewpoint; the film no longer strikes me as being nearly as "flawed" as it used to, and its virtues only become more luminous and poetic with time.

[flyonthewall2983]

Do you have the director's cut which came out in 2004? That's my preferred version though I'd probably need to see them back to back to confirm this. I recently read he's working on a new cut of it that includes some scenes that were aired when the film was on CBS, but didn't make it on to the '04 disc.

It's a wonderful film and would agree that it's one of his finest as well. It captures the period with as little rose-tinted nostalgia as possible, giving it more of a documentary feel in places. It was actually the film I thought of most when I watched Public Enemies, as it had that similar off-kilter approach to the period piece.

[Drucker]

Brooklyn Academy of Music just tweeted out that there will be a full Mann retrospective this February.

[oh yeah]

Do you have the director's cut which came out in 2004? That's my preferred version though I'd probably need to see them back to back to confirm this. I recently read he's working on a new cut of it that includes some scenes that were aired when the film was on CBS, but didn't make it on to the '04 disc.

It's a wonderful film and would agree that it's one of his finest as well. It captures the period with as little rose-tinted nostalgia as possible, giving it more of a documentary feel in places. It was actually the film I thought of most when I watched Public Enemies, as it had that similar off-kilter approach to the period piece.

I have the director's cut, but I haven't watched it yet. I'm interested to see it; from what I've read, the differences are fairly minimal but big for Mann who typically just makes a few tiny little changes. I think I read that it mostly emphasizes or fleshes out the whole FBI angle and their involvement with Malcolm X's murder? I love the material of that nature we do get in the theatrical cut so that sounds promising. The sequence of his assassination is absolutely stunning.

Regardless of the version, it's a unique film in his oeuvre in that it has the impressionistic feel of his digital films yet it's still shot on the most sumptuous-looking celluloid, mostly handheld work by Lubezki (except, of course, for the snippets of grainy digital throughout, which are sublimely deployed -- particularly the love scene between Ali and his first wife, beautifully cross-cut with music from the club they met at). It certainly mirrors Public Enemies possibly more than any of Mann's other films, as both are lyrical and unconventional biopics about these mythical figures which trade the usual egocentric biopic structure for a kind of rich contextual portrait which is just as much, if not more, about the times that shaped the man as it is about the man himself. Both films are also deeply interested in the politics of media and how such burgeoning forces -- small in Dillinger's day but booming in Ali's -- distort and mold reality. I have to wonder how much his upcoming Enzo Ferrari film will follow in these two films' footsteps.

[flyonthewall2983]

The runtime is 8 minutes longer than the theatrical cut, but it's a little more significant in that there's 5 minutes cut out and 14 minutes put into that particular cut.

He talks a bit more about the cut he would like to see for a Blu-ray release here. Interestingly, he's also asked about Drive and the many comparisons that has been made to his work in it.

[Drucker]

BAM retrospective schedule up and Thief is playing in 35mm.

[criterion10]

BAM retrospective schedule up and Thief is playing in 35mm.

Hopefully someone can report back on the print's color timing.

[flyonthewall2983]

77 minute conversation between Mann and critic Bilge Ebiri, as part of the BAM retrospective of his career.

[flyonthewall2983]

Variety article written by Mann, about working on Ali and the man himself.

[flyonthewall2983]

The new Blu-ray of Manhunter is excellent. The transfer on the theatrical cut looks great and the new interviews are pretty good as well. The piece on Brian Cox is nice, and he has a pretty good perspective on the role and the subsequent way the character has been used.

[connor]

The new Blu-ray of Manhunter is excellent. The transfer on the theatrical cut looks great and the new interviews are pretty good as well. The piece on Brian Cox is nice, and he has a pretty good perspective on the role and the subsequent way the character has been used.

How does the transfer compare to the MGM blu-ray? I haven't seen much in the way of comparisons (the blu-ray.com review didn't go much into it).

[Ribs]

Caps-a-holic has both versions available for comparison. They look pretty much identical.

[flyonthewall2983]

Is there anyone here who can break down which cut is which, and how it translates to this latest release? It seems of all Mann's films, this one has had the more complicated history of cuts.

[flyonthewall2983]

A pre-order for Ali on Blu-ray is up on Amazon with a release date of January 17th. Sony is handling the release, no other info on it at this time.

[The Narrator Returns]

The Ali Blu-Ray doesn't have the commentary from the director's cut DVD, but that's because it has a new cut of the film that runs 151 minutes to the DC's 165 minutes (and the theatrical cut's 158 minutes).

[Ribs]

Which cut played in theaters earlier this year?

[hearthesilence]

The Ali Blu-Ray doesn't have the commentary from the director's cut DVD, but that's because it has a new cut of the film that runs 151 minutes to the DC's 165 minutes (and the theatrical cut's 158 minutes).

Michael Mann talks about his new cut, and sweet Jesus, this guy really has a problem letting go of a movie and leaving a cut be.

[oh yeah]

Christ, not many films where I'll keep a copy of the Theatrical Cut, the Director's Cut, and the 2nd Director's Cut because they're all legitimately different. Still, curious to see how this new version stacks up.

[flyonthewall2983]

Maybe it's my mind playing tricks on me, but I could have sworn there was footage in the movie not in either the theatrical cut or the first director's cut, when it was aired on CBS in 2004.

[hearthesilence]

That's very possible. The interview is prefaced with this: "He'd already revisited the material and recut the movie once, for a TV version that he's cited in interviews as being superior in terms of narrative flow." It would not surprise me if the "director's cut" was not the same cut but something subjected to further changes.

[flyonthewall2983]

Charlie Rose interview with Michael Mann on The Insider in 2000, including interview with the real Jeffrey Wigand.*

That link is long dead, but you can now find the whole show here, along with the two subsequent interviews Mann did with Rose, in promotion of Ali and Blackhat.

The Insider is such a fascinating counterpoint to what he was known for up to that point. It reduces what some could see as the more bombastic parts of his work, to where you can find scenes like this similar in emotional impact to the various shootouts and more elaborate action sequences of other films.

I also think it's his most important film, as the theme of corporate manipulation of media has lead us to where we are now.