Sight and Sound on Mann and Collateral

Sight & Sound Article

Mark Olsen talks to Mann about his love of LA, shooting on DV and getting what he wants.

Mark Olsen: In Collateral you seem to be exploring the aesthetics of DV. Was that one of the things that attracted you?

Michael Mann: It's useful here to make an analogy with architecture. When steel was first introduced as a building material architects disguised the structure of their buildings to look like masonry. It wasn't until Louis Sullivan's pioneering work in Chicago in the 1890s that the aesthetics of the steel structure were allowed to be expressed.
So my reason for choosing DV wasn't economy but was to do with the fact that the entire movie takes place in one city, on one night, and you can't see the city at night on motion-picture film the way you can on digital video. And I like the truth-telling feeling I receive when there's very little light on the actors' faces - I think this is the first serious major motion picture done in digital video that is photoreal, rather than using it for effects. DV is also a more painterly medium: you can see what you've done as you shoot because you have the end product sitting in front of you on a Sony high-def monitor, so I could change the contrast to affect the mood, add colour, do all kinds of things you can't do with film. Digital isn't a medium for directors who aren't interested in visualisation, who rely on a set of conventions or aesthetic pre-sets, if you like. But it's perfect for someone like David Fincher or Ridley Scott - directors who previsualise and know just what they want to achieve.

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Some new links

Just to add to the growing collection of material available for those who want to study Michael Mann, I include some new links below:

A useful perspective on Public Enemies is provided by one blogger:
waysofseeing.org

YouTube has a good source of videos made by fans of some iconic scenes in Mann's movies. There are various tribute videos available, but here is one for your convenience:

Michael Mann 2010 Update

Here is a Michael Mann update for those of you (if there are any of you?!) who wondered where I have been (young family, work, bust computer... reality sigh). Since I have been away from blogging on my fond Michael Mann site there is much to show that Mann's appetite for working has not waned one little bit. The most exciting development for me is not necessarily his next movie project, but a new Mann produced TV series! I am suddenly launched back into strong memories of the original Miami Vice series which has since defined the way TV episodes are made. The cinematic Miami Vice is seared into my past and I can still remember and invoke those depth of feelings that totally changed my perception of not just television but motion pictures. As a teenager I recall discovering what I thought "cool" really meant, thinking Crockett and Tubbs were the pinnacle of everything a man could experience, not just in having the clothes and cars, but conveying emotional complexity and physical drama. It was the first program since, erhum, the A-team, Knight Rider and Airwolf (moving into manhood!), that I had to make absolutely sure I scheduled to watch each week - to miss an episode was unthinkable. This was more than a TV program - Miami Vice was an event. It was probably, unconsciously, one of the reasons I went into photography as a career plan.

It is with this background that the prospect of "Luck" is instantly exhilarating in prospect. My hope is that I can relive those same extraordinary TV experiences. Now that I am moving into "middle age" something is needed to lift me from the dusty floors of mediocre TV land where there is nothing but vampires or forensic investigators to take me away from it all - and I like neither. I need a Mann fix on a regular basis. Something that feeds me on more levels than Columbo with a DNA test kit or Buffy on steroids. Flashforward was enormous fun, but was never going to meet me on any deep emotive level. Still, I was sorry it was discontinued. 

What we need is some character driven story instead of merely plot-twist-driven-drivel. The mistake of copycats of Michael Mann is that they can imitate style but not substance. And who out there can write to a level Mann requires? Well, David Milch seems to have something Mann reckons he can work with. If I say Hill Street Blues and NYPD Blue, then you will immediately think substance over style. Milch wrote on both projects. Bring Mann into partnership, and we can hopefully have style and substance in the new series of Luck. And that is why I am excited. I do not know the course of events that brought this partnership, but ever since Mann made his Mercedes commercial "Lucky Star", the world of gambling seemed on his mind. Milch not only has award winning writing, but as I understand, he also owns a racing horse. Mann will appreciate Milch's creative symbiosis with his other passion. It brings deeper clarity and a heightened sense of reality that Mann can paint his own world on top of.

HBO executives haven't said much, but said enough: "Michael Mann delivered a pilot from David Milch’s brilliant script that took our breath away," states HBO Programming President Michael Lombardo." We are truly excited that these two artists, and our extraordinary cast headed by Dustin Hoffman, will be bringing 'Luck' to life." Shooting proper is to commence this Fall at the Santa Anita Park and other Los Angeles locations. Dustin Hoffman leads a stella cast, including Nick Nolte, but I anticipate they will have a decent cast of less familiar actors joining the series. The pilot stars Dennis Farina, John Ortiz, Kevin Dunn, Richard Kind, Jason Gedrick, Ritchie Coster, Ian Hart, Tom Payne, Kerry Condon and Gary Stevens. Somehow I always fall into a new TV world more easily if I don't associate actors with any other role. But TV execs like a safe pair of hands to carry a project. Hoffman does however sound perfect for the role and will suit a complex character. Nolte may be used as the rough but lovable rogue we know from his other films, but I suspect and hope he will surprise us. I look forward to seeing the first screen glimpses of the pilot.

I am presuming that between Public Enemies and Luck, there hasn't been huge time available to him to develop a full scale new movie project. But Mann works hard. So what next, for the large screen? Is it Frankie Machine or the biopic about Hungarian war photographer Robert Capa? Maybe neither. Hands up, I don't know. But as soon as I do, I will let you know!

Unique pitch from Actor wanting Mann's Attention

I was amazed to see just how powerful YouTube can potentially be in promoting a cause! Check this guy out who found his way to the top of the search rankings with this video cast, advertising his availability to act on the forthcoming new Mann produced HBO series "Luck".

Michael Mann's Heat Script

Here is the script for Michael Mann's Heat:

http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/Heat.pdf

MIchael Mann's Public Enemies Script

Minimalism, Michael Mann and Miami Vice

I have been away a while due to heavy work and other commitments - the usual juggling of life! Yet my passion for Michael Mann films does not wane. Some folk may be wondering where my review is of Public Enemies. I did of course see it at the movie theatre, and I do of course have an opinion on it. Yet with Mann movies, as I have said before, they seem to get better with age and repeated viewings. I am not entirely sure why this is. I think it is because each frame in a Mann shot is so packed with "essence" that it is impossible to take it in a single viewing. The Public Enemies DVD (two disc edition of course) was on my Christmas list and I was thrilled to get it from my lovely sister. Whilst Mann films are undoubtedly made for the big screen, there is also something very intimate about watching a Mann film on your own TV, in your own lounge, lights dimmed or better off, at the right viewing distance and, importantly, alone. Only then can you immerse yourself not only into Mann's world, but into your own, as you allow your emotions to manifest, even overflow. It is a response not only to the characters you are watching, but there is this deep level reflection into your own self.

After several viewings of the DVD I will come back to write my thoughts.

One blogger helped crystallize how I perceive some of Mann's recent movies (Public Enemies and Miami Vice), referring to the stripping down of character backgrounds. The following is an extract by Khoi Vinh from www.subtraction.com:


“Public Enemies,” continues Mann’s ongoing exploration of a stark, almost ascetic kind of narrative sensibility. With a nearly impudent disregard for common storytelling conventions, the director has in recent years taken to gutting from his works anything and everything that might be superfluous to the forward momentum of his core narratives. He affords his characters practically no backstory or prehistory, his plots are reduced to the threadbare, and subplots are often extracted altogether. Including “Public Enemies,” his past three movies are so elemental and succinct (not necessarily in running time, but in scope) that they’re just as much like episodes within a larger series of events as wholly contained feature films of their own.

What’s left out from these movies is as important and beautiful as what’s included. They’re exercises in doing as much as possible with as little as possible, implying whole swaths of narrative information by allowing the audience to extrapolate events, details, backstories and subplots from only the barest hints of their presence. In fact, what Mann is doing here (and why I am so obviously drawn to this sensibility) is designing these stories — not just their presentation but more fundamentally their construction, too — and doing so in a way that evokes many of the very same things that thrill me about design.

Mann employs an architectural approach that establishes a plot framework but declines to fill every nook and cranny. He uses very few elements to suggest many more, and in so doing constructs a kind of environment that the audience experiences rather than a narrative account that the audience observes. This is very much minimalism and experience design at work; it just happens to star Johnny Depp, is all.