Visionaries and Their Visions: Michael Mann
Director Series
By Alex Hudson
August 3, 2004
There comes a scene in Michael Mann's films of the horizon. Endless with possibility, the horizon glistens before our eyes, exalting the beauty of God's creation.
Quietly, Michael Mann has ascended atop the hierarchy of American auteurs. Shimmering with the polish of expert craftsmanship, Mann's films are impeccably sculpted cohesions of style and substance. Drawn repeatedly to projects of head-turning difficulty, Mann's attraction to complexity ultimately elevates his work.
A film about a tobacco industry whistleblower? Mann's The Insider deftly blends pathos, drama and nuance. A retelling of James Fenimore Cooper's schoolhouse favorite? Mann's The Last of the Mohicans gloriously delivers epic-sized adventure and romance. A serial killer movie with a soul? Mann's Manhunter first unleashed Hannibal Lecter into the nightmares of moviegoers.
Michael Mann refuses to play it safe. In an industry that does nothing but play it safe, Mann is a lone wolf, that rarest of artist willing to risk everything for the sake of his art.
Inside the Outsider
Gazing into that horizon with us is a breed of outsider not unlike Mann himself. World-weary and introspective, these outsiders, from James Caan in Thief to Robert De Niro in Heat, are postmodern antiheroes bound by codes of masculinity yet unbound by civility.
From his first film, the overlooked Thief, Mann's hyper-aware focus has fixated on nonconformists; men operating outside society who nonetheless desire what we desire: money, family and future. In Thief, James Caan plays Frank, a professional safecracker with dreams of a new life. Frank reluctantly aligns with crime boss Leo, compromising his freedom in the hope of securing one last score.
A debut as good as any, Thief reveals Mann's sure-handed camerawork and bleak world view. The lonely streets of Chicago are brought to life in vivid evocation; Mann taps the lyrical pulse of his hometown and frames his hero as a brooding figure entrapped by the world around him. After entrusting his safety with Leo, Frank is betrayed in the worst possible way. Despite their sins, Mann's outsiders remain sympathetic because their suffering is profound. The manner in which these men react to their doom turns our sympathy to admiration.
Television
Mann's path to the director's chair went through television. He got his start writing episodes of Starsky and Hutch. Branching in, Mann wrote for cop shows like Police Story before striking gold on a show that would become a phenomenon.
Miami Vice embodies Michael Mann's sleek style as much as it encapsulates the zeitgeist of the Reagan era. Sonny Crockett and Rico Tubbs, sporting facial stubble and wearing pastel Armanis, cavort Miami hotspots to the throbbing synth beats of Jans Hammer. As executive producer, Mann brought a big screen feel to the small screen. And while critics bemoaned the commercial gloss, Miami Vice electrified television with its exotic locales and high-energy visuals.
Magua
His dalliance with television successful, Mann returned behind the camera to helm his masterpiece. A visionary work, a work of true beauty, The Last of the Mohicans exudes man's greatest emotions, from simmering passion to seething rage.
Against the backdrop of the French and Indian War, Hawkeye (Daniel Day-Lewis) meets Cora (Madeleine Stowe) and the two fall in love. Their immediate and intense need for each other runs in direct opposition to Huron Chief Magua's need for vengeance. Ferocious in his bloodlust, Magua (Wes Studi) stops at nothing to avenge the destruction of his family, his people and his sanity. Chilling in his single-mindedness, Magua is hate personified. It's as though Studi harnessed the oppression of his race, those centuries of injustices, and exploded avenging fury.
On Thief, Mann hired actual thieves to consult and even act in the film. On The Last of the Mohicans, Mann's meticulous strive for authenticity ranged from having uniforms custom made to recreating Fort William Henry on a vast 38 acre site at Lake James, North Carolina. This attention to detail, small and large, ultimately transports the viewer; the world of yesterday is brought to thrilling fruition.
Neon Lights
Heat, an elaboration of Thief, finds Mann at the top of his game. Pinnacle of the heist picture, Heat famously pits Robert De Niro against Al Pacino in a showdown of the greatest actors of their generation. Outsider by profession and nature, like most Mann protagonists, master criminal Neil McCauley (De Niro) exemplifies perfectionism and professionalism, mirroring the defining characteristics of Michael Mann.
Like Caan's Frank, De Niro's Neil McCauley suffers a kind of existential fatigue. His personal solitude and professional stress are unbearable. We feel his need for change. And, like Frank, Neil readies himself for a new beginning, an escape from it all. Ultimately we connect with Mann's outsiders because we share their aspirations for better lives. We root for Neil, despite his transgressions, because we relate and therefore care.
Sweeping in its operatic grandiosity, Heat builds on the tension of Thief, understanding and capitalizing on the inherent dramatics of the heist film. Above all, this moody masterwork cements Mann's pre-eminent auteur status.
Art of Seduction
Mann's intoxicating imagery, pristine in its composition, skillfully and intelligently meshed with hypnotic, almost subliminally pleasing, audio seduces the senses. Paradoxically fusing Kurosawaian sensuousness with Kubrickian meticulousness, his art is seduction.
This startling fusion is most evident in Manhunter, a serial killer movie unlike all serial killer movies. Based on Thomas Harris' Red Dragon, Manhunter, which was needlessly remade 16 years later, bathes the screen in Floridian sunlight. The serial killer subgenre which Manhunter helped propagate ought follow the seductive approach taken by Mann. Rather than bombard the viewer with gruesome visuals, Mann bookends his story with scenes of the horizon. There is gorgeous light, tempestuously withstanding the coming darkness. We see the face of evil in the light of day and it is that much more haunting.
Gaze into the Horizon
Improlific, Mann makes every film count. There's an ambitiousness of scope to each of his films. There's a grand sense of human drama ready to unfold at the highest stakes. Each film for Mann is an opportunity to challenge himself, to push his artistic limits. Unwilling to play it safe, his most recent experimentations of craft display the maturation of an artist in total command.
The Insider, chronicling whistleblower Jeffrey Wiggand's one-sided fight with tobacco industry, burrows under the skin of an insider turned outsider. Ali, a Muhammed Ali biopic, captures the essence of an American original without reducing itself to plot. For Mann, it seems, he would rather challenge himself and risk failure than conform to convention. His upcoming Collateral, starring Tom Cruise, will undoubtedly explore new ground, push boundaries and enthrall audiences.
There comes a scene in Michael Mann's films of the horizon. We look into the brilliancy of that horizon as Mann's outsiders do the same. We see what they see. We see in that horizon hope and the dreams tomorrow may bring.
Print this column
