Michael Mann Latest News

Michael Mann set to produce new HBO Pilot
Michael Mann is set to be producing a new HBO pilot and possibly series on a futuristic crime story. The series touted as "Buda Bridge" is being directed by fresh talent Michael Roskam, whose latest directing work was on the Oscar nominated 'Bullhead" last year.

Keeping irons in his fire, Roskham is also to direct "The Tiger", which was originally linked with Darren Aronofsky who is currently shooting "Noah" with Russell Crowe in Iceland. No doubt due to that commitment, Aronofsky is instead intending to produce for Roskham.

The Last of the Mohicans
Further excellent news is that The Last of the Mohicans in Blu-ray format is making its way here to the United Kingdom with a release date soon for October 8th. Unlike the US edition which is distributed by 20th Century Fox, the UK edition will be distributed by Warner Brothers. There are no details of what bonus features may or may not appear.

For fans of The Last of The Mohicans, here is a great page of trivia about the movie and its historical context. Fascinating reading. Click here to go to the page.

Documentary of Key Scenes with Michael Mann and Actors

For as long as these videos are available online, you can treat yourself to some old but powerful Michael Mann interviews with some of our best loved Michael Mann scenes. This is wonderful footage, including actor interviews about the Tiger scene from Manhunter and that extraordinarily charged cliff scene in Last of the Mohicans. It includes scenes from Heat, and also the Insider. Actors speak about who they feel Michael Mann is, with some superb quotes to take away that sum up our favourite director. Get Michael Mann's inside story. Essential viewing, enjoy. I did... immensely. (Anyone know where these were first broadcast and who by?).


Part 1


"Les Réalisateurs" - Michael Mann (1/3) by SoWiFo


Part 2


"Les Réalisateurs" - Michael Mann (2/3) by SoWiFo

Part 3


"Les Réalisateurs" - Michael Mann (3/3) by SoWiFo

Michael Mann: Using style to shatter the status quo

Here is an old interview with Michael Mann. It is an excellent piece, if you want to try and understand what makes Michael Mann tick, and how he works. I found it an enjoyable read. Well written, with some genuinely good insights into his character and approach to work and life. An excerpt is below, with the rest available here.

I will quote from the article what he say's about working in TV, because of his forthcoming TV series "Luck".

...  it comes to film, however, Mann's chief belief is a simple one - absolutely everything counts. Day-Lewis puts it this way: "Michael's very, very conscious of how every aspect of film contributes; the colour, the sound, the lighting, the clothes. I never saw him once make an arbitrary decision. On a film of this scale, that takes incredible concentration."...

... Yet he admits the heady nature of wielding media power. "It first hit me one Tuesday night in 1976, when an hour-long Police Story I had written aired. The next morning I walk into 7-11 to buy cigarettes. And I hear the guy behind the counter using this phrase which I had invented! A phrase that had been on TV less than 24 hours before!"

He leans forward intently. "People's response to TV and film is a very multiplex phenomenon. So if you neglect any part of film, you're neglecting part of what is possible. It's really wild, but every part of any film is active. A sound here will change your sense of a shape which appears seconds later."...

Full article here.

Dante Spinotti & Michael Mann history of collaboration

One of the key people that has helped to bring Michael Mann success is his Director of Photography. Dante Spinotti was the first to collaborate with Mann on a feature film, this being Manhunter. Spinotti is now something of a cinematographer legend, and here is an excellent interview with him. I include an excerpt below about his arrival on the set of Last of the Mohicans, but he refers to some of the other movies he has worked on. To read the full interview click here, but an excerpt is included below:

DCR: What about The Last of the Mohicans?

SPINOTTI: Michael Mann called and spoke with me about this film, and he sent me the screenplay. What else would you want from life than a chance to film a great story set in 1700? Michael’s visual references included a couple of paintings, including Thomas Cole and Alfred Bierstadt. This is very typical of Michael. He shows you a simple image and says, ‘this is the movie.’ The paintings all showed how small human beings are in the scope of nature. Michael wanted everything to be extremely accurate. He offered me the picture, but it took a lot of time for him to put this project together. While I was waiting, Gary Marshall offered me a film called Frankie and Johnny. That was the film, which finally allowed me to get into the camera Guild. That opportunity was very important to me. It enabled me to work on other films in Hollywood, and also because I was always connected to union activities in Europe. Gary Marshall is a wonderful director and human being. A few weeks after we finished Frankie and Johnny, I was in Rome. 

One of the producers called and said Michael Mann wanted me to shoot The Last of the Mohicans. They booked me on a Concorde on a three-hour flight on Friday night. I was jet-lagged when I arrived and saw this amazing set of a British fort with actors dressed in military uniforms from 1700. All of our lighting was going to be based on sun and moonlight bonfires, torches and candles. There was a wonderful cast, including Daniel Day Lewis and Madeleine Stowe. Michael said he wanted was to keep the look monochromatic. One of the scenes that I was happiest with reproduced the pounding power of a waterfall in an interior shot set in a cave at night. You can’t see the waterfall, but you can feel its immense power in the pounding water on the faces of the actors. We bounced light from a couple of 4K Xenon’s with some big 12 x12 Mylar frames that a grip was shaking in front of them You can see the pattern of moving light on the faces and feel the power of the waterfall.

Full interview is here > 

See the effect Dante mentions about reproducing the flickering light on the faces in the scene below:

Legends of the Fall: Tristan writes again

Michael Mann movie appreciator, Tristan, has written yet another short essay, this time focussing on The Last of the Mohicans. Enjoy more new words such as elegiac and prelapsaria. Here is an excerpt:

The best way to view Mohicans in relation to the rest of Mann’s filmograhy is as an evocation of the American frontier as an Edenic wilderness prior to the urbanised, corporatized world of Mann’s other films. To put it more precisely, it is an Edenic wilderness which is in process of being civilized, ironically enough, through struggle and violence. The trio of Nathaniel, Chingachgook, and Uncas are clearly presented in the introductory scenes as a prelapsarian ideal of roaming independence, decency, and piety for the natural world. It is part of tragedy that this ideal is not destined to survive, either for the characters as individuals, or as a prevalent way of life in the future America whose birth pains form the film’s backdrop.

For the full essay click here>

Michael Mann get's a Valentine's day vote

In a distinguished honour, Megan Smith from www.blogher.com lists Michael Mann's Last of the Mohican's as one of the film's featuring in her list of top seven movie love scenes. I personally was amazed to see a Mann film featured in such a list, but here is what she said about it for all you luvvies out there.

Last of the Mohicans (1992) - Daniel Day-Lewis, Madeleine Stowe: Directed by Michael Mann, this film is based on the James Fenimore Cooper novel. Madeleine Stowe is Cora Monroe, Daniel Day-Lewis is Hawkeye, the adopted son of a Mohican elder. The two are drawn together when Hawkeye, his father and his brother escort Cora and her sister to Colonel Monroe's fort during the French and Indian war in 18th century North America. The fort is under attack and in the midst of all the death and destruction Cora and Hawkeye acknowledge their love for each other.

One night after Cora leaves the infirmary where she works Hawkeye finds her. He grasps her hand and without saying a word leads her to a quiet corner before taking her in his arms. This scene is so satisfying because up until this point Cora has abided by the prim and proper rules of the period while still being attracted to the freedom Hawkeye represents. In this scene all conventions are shed in a whirl of long dark hair and passionate embraces.

Original Music by Trevor Jones and Randy Edelman.

The Last of the Mohicans Final Battle Scene

The Last of the Mohicans is where Michael Mann took another giant leap forward in his film making. It is epic like, with huge production issues and no doubt a nightmare to film such a huge cast in jungle like conditions. It is beautifully shot and the end sequence is as dramatic as is possible on the cinema screen. The mixture of the beauty and the horror creates a strange dichotomy. What results is an incredibly violent yet poetic end to a tragic story. I will let you interpret what Mann is saying through this imagery and music. The Promontory Kiss is extraordinarily well composed for this sequence and without it, the ending would very likely not have worked nearly so well. It elevates the scene and places our emotions in a context - it is heroic tragedy, beauty and pain, despair but redemption. We are left with mixed feelings, where we realise nothing in this life belongs in any pigeon hole. The end scene of Last of the Mohicans has it all, and here it is below - you need to know the story to empathise with the characters and understand the sacrifice, but enjoy: