Brando's Tribute to Michael Mann

In my last article I touched upon the 1986 film “Manhunter”, which was based upon the novel Red Dragon by Thomas Harris and details the hunt for a serial killer nicknamed “The Tooth Fairy” by FBI Special Agent Will Graham, with assistance by the recently captured and insanely brilliant killer Dr. Hannibal Lecter.  As I said last time, this film is an unfortunately often over-looked addition to the Lecter Universe and I can’t say enough about William Petersen’s portrayal of Will Graham as a wounded and brilliant profiler that assists in these investigations at great cost to himself and his family.

“Dammit Jack, I can’t do it anymore! I’m moving over to something called Crime Scene   Investigation. It’s a new field, and I’ll never be in the spotlight again!!”

Serendipitously for all of us, the relationship between Graham and Lecter is the subject of the new NBC show Hannibal, albeit with a new timeline as the show begins from the very first moment that they meet and is continuing to detail (hopefully) the inner workings of their professional relationship; whereas both of the films pick up either on the night Lecter attacks Graham and ends their professional relationship or after Graham has already retired after catching Lecter.  It’s a different Lecter on the show than we’re used to seeing (luckily Mads Mikkelsen’s accent completely nullifies any half-baked attempts to copy Anthony Hopkins’ iconic take on the character), and as such it’s a great opportunity to explore him being an active participant in the police investigations as opposed to just the evil genius in the cage who’s just screwing with everyone for his own entertainment (I give it a thumbs up).

However, it was the tie to the Michael Mann film that apparently crawled into my brain and wouldn’t let go.  After my last article posted, I downed my usual nightcap (three parts Irish whiskey, six parts Coors Light, a grilled cheese sandwich, and three Tic-Tacs) and headed off to bed for the sleep of angels; only to be woken up in the middle of the night and sit bolt up in bed with the following two thoughts racing through my brain: first, that Michael Mann is a freaking awesome director and that I should tell the world, and secondly, that I needed to pee immediately.  One of these problems was easily remedied (yeah, I have indoor plumbing, what’s up?) but the other festered long enough to motivate me to the keyboard and get cracking on a new article, a tribute to one of my favorite directors of all time.  Ladies and Gentlemen, please put your hands together for…

Brando’s Tribute to Michael Mann

Most every director is known for their niche.  Woody Allen and Spike Lee make films about New York and characters from their representative demographics, Len Wiseman is known for his over the top action spectaculars, Wes Anderson’s best trick is making pretentious quirkiness just merely pretentious; and Joel Schumacher can either blow the doors off a dramatic script or take a Cleveland Steamer on Batman’s head.  The best directors are the ones that transcend this straight pigeonholing and craft entirely new and creatively separate films while still retaining the feel of their previous work.  For a variety of reasons, any Tarantino film will always feel like a Tarantino film, Steven Spielberg will add a flair that most cannot touch, Paul Thomas Anderson’s film will grind on for hours into unexpected delight, and James Cameron will make you believe he is the future of the film industry.  And in this company lies Michael Mann, one of America’s preeminent directors. Best known for his gritty crime laden opuses (and granted, this genre is his bread and butter), Mann originally gained notoriety for the hit eighties television show “Miami Vice”, which he created and produced.  He directed more than a few made for television movies; however most of them were always in the cops and robbers genre (including the acclaimed “LA Takedown” which was marketed as not much more than LA Vice) and it was uncertain whether or not he would ever get to turn his eye to anything else.   

And then in 1992, Mann dropped one of the greatest historical epics on us ever to grace the silver screen.  Based upon the 1826 novel by James Fenimore Cooper, “The Last of the Mohicans” is one of the most complete yet underappreciated epics ever to come out of Hollywood. Cementing lead actor Daniel Day Lewis as a bankable action star and vaulting indie darling Madeleine Stowe into true leading lady status; this was the film that was a true game-changer for Mann, as it proved he could dazzle and entertain with something other than a cops and robbers shoot out and its box-office success paved the way for Mann to take his rightful place as an A-List director.

Although in the original script, this character’s name was “Detective Hawkeye”

In the wake of this triumph, Mann has embarked on one of the most durable run of hits that any director has ever seen (Spielberg had one for a while, but he dropped the ball when he started trying to take over for Kubrick), and trust me when I say this, there’s nothing accidental about this success.  Here’s why…

HE CAN DO IT ALL

With the possible exception of slapstick comedy, there is literally no genre Mann could not master with ease.  Great films contain elements of all the genres in them, and great directors know that even in a tensely paced film about something as heart-wrenching as the death of a loved one, there are light-hearted moments of genuine laughter that can be included and still service the film.  As a movie fan one of my favorite moments are when a comedy allows its characters poignancy and gravitas, or vice versa with a dramatic character, because it proves that you don’t have to keep lambasting your audience with the same thing over and over, and that if your characters are well-drawn enough, they can be something other than a one note player.  This cross-hatching of genres is one of the things that Mann does best, and perhaps it because he knows his characters so well.

Action

In the interest of a purely alphabetical criteria, let’s start with action first.  Sure, everyone knows about the iconic Bank Robbery scene in “Heat” (so good is this sequence, that it is even shown to US Marines as a proper example of a military technique known as retreating under fire) but that’s not the only action sequence under his belt; I submit that the shootout in the night club in “Collateral” or the scene when the team rescues Trudy from the trailer in “Miami Vice” (on the whole, one of Mann’s lesser films, but still packed with great stuff) are both superior action sequences in their own right.  What makes these sequences so compelling is that Mann wisely gives us time to catch our breath during the melee (take note Michael Bay, there is no need to have a car chase last twenty minutes on film) and then returns to the pulse pounding pace. The concept of “less is more” sometimes applies to action films Hollywood, and this is a lesson that is more than a little overdue.

Even rarer in this day and age, Mann takes the time to focus tightly in on the shooters in these scenes, Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx respectively, and puts us right into their situation and then allows us to look through their crosshairs. Mann’s intense attention to detail is also worth a mention here; as it is in scenes like these that the director’s infamous commitment to realism pays off so well.  To prepare Cruise for the aforementioned scene, he had the actor train with former British Special Forces members in order for him to not only know the proper firing positions that a quick firing assassin would use, but also so that Cruise would be familiar enough with the weapons he was using as to look completely believable and relaxed during the scenes.  In addition, Mann is known for prepping his films so intently so that the weapons involved in them perform only as they would in the real world (guns actually run out of bullets). Action done as well as this raises the genre to new heights and is still pulse pounding and intense.

Honorable mentions for Mann’s action chops include the Little Bohemia Lodge sequence in “Public Enemies” and the finale of “The Last of the Mohicans”.

Drama

While action films may often times be overlooked as pure popcorn fluff, great drama is the stuff of accolades and attention in today’s film industry, and as good as Mann is at action, drama is the area where he really knocks it out of the park. One of my favorite things about Mann’s films is that he allows the film to be slow at times and draws out the story in a way that services the plot, he doesn’t shove it down the audiences’ collective throat. 

Anyone who’s listened to SpoilerAlert Podcast before knows that I am a dialogue nut, and that often times I find the most drama in a spoken performance rather than in quiet action.  My favorite scenes in most films are when the good guy and the bad guy finally talk to one another, and I am a confessed sucker for the plot device of adversaries being polite to each other. Once again, Mann’s masterpiece “Heat” is the showcase for this concept; and how better to illustrate it than with two of acting’s best sitting across the table from each other, chewing scenery left and right, and basically telling each other that this is the last time that they will ever see each other alive. So good is this scene that it became the primary marketing ploy from the studio during the promotion of the film, hailing the “clash of the titans of cinema on film for the first time!!” (their previous shared film “The Godfather Part 2” obviously couldn’t let them be on film together given the nature of their story lines).

But just as in the world of action, Mann has other tricks up his sleeve in the world of drama.  His direction has yielded some of the tensest exchanges of dialogue this author has ever seen, most notably Mann’s tour de force acting juggernaut “The Insider” which is actually my favorite of his work.  So good is this film that Pacino and an almost unrecognizable Russell Crowe’s most dramatic exchanges are done on the telephone with both actors looking off into the distance and having absolutely no eye contact during the conversations.  I’m sorry but that is absolutely incredible to have such intense interaction, and now even having the participants in the same room. Mann pulls a variation of this trick off again in the film “Collateral” because of the nature of the story (for those that don’t know, Cruise gets into Foxx’s cab about ten minutes into the film and then the madness starts) Foxx spends most of the movie talking to the rear-view mirror while Cruise stares at the back of his head; all the while the dialogue is flowing between them and getting you deeper and deeper into the film. Once again, such good drama for such an unorthodox situation is incredible.

Honorable mention to Mann’s dramatic direction also include the scene from the film “Public Enemies” where Johnny Depp goes to the coat check counter to get Marion Cotillard and tells her his past; as well as the scene in “Ali” when Will Smith learns that Malcom X has been murdered.

Music

A director knows that music is just another tool in his toolbox with which to create the film; however some directors know how to use this particular tool with a flare that goes on to define their films and to become expected of them.  Once again Tarantino comes to mind, but Martin Scorsese is no slouch at this either (I defy you to listen to Layla and not think about finding dead mobsters in the trash). Mann’s got some game on this front as well, not only for his often eclectic musical choices, but more so for how spot on these songs plug into his films.  In fact, having missed most of the nineties music craze due to an iron grip on my eighties cassette tapes and a complete lack of need for wearing flannel in Texas; its Mann’s films that are bringing me around to finally becoming a Moby fan.  Two of his contributions really stand out from Mann’s work, the first being ‘God Moving Over Water’ in the final scene of “Heat” but also ‘One Of These Mornings’ featuring Patty LaBelle that plays over Sonny and Isabella’s impromptu trip to Cuba in “Miami Vice.” Sure, both pieces of music encompass the mood of the scene they are attached to (that is the whole reason a director uses any music for any scene) but these songs actually elevate the respective scenes they are in, which is what makes them exceptional.

To give even more kudos to the “Miami Vice” soundtrack, when the film was released there was a collective fan base waiting with baited breath as to what the film would sound like, as the music was a cornerstone of the television show the film was based on.  Phil Collins’ iconic eighties anthem ‘In the Air Tonight’ actually debuted on the pilot episode of the show, and many fans were waiting to see if and how Mann would slip the song into the film.  In the director’s cut of the film (far superior to the original version released in theaters), when Sonny and Rico are waiting to head to the final drug buy with the bad guys, Mann inserts a cover version of ‘In the Air Tonight’ performed by the Miami based band Nonpoint which lasts all the way up until the bullets starts flying. This gives Mann points both ways, because not only is he tipping his cap to the original iconic song placement in the original series, he’s servicing the much grittier world of the newer film as well. 

EVEN WHEN HE’S BAD, HE’S GOOD

I’ve taken some criticism for some of my stances on this Podcast and in these articles, and some of my opinions have not only been argued against in the comments section, but also in person with friends and family members. Back in an earlier Podcast, I touched upon how much I liked Michael Mann’s films, but that I felt he had miss-stepped with “Ali” and had actually crafted a Mohammed Ali biopic that made me less of a fan of perhaps the greatest athlete of all time. Several friends took me to task for this stance, insisting that I watch the film again and that I had missed greatness.  In proper Brando tradition, I processed the essence of what they were trying to tell me and maturely accepted this constructive criticism.

Author Receiving Criticism

In all honesty, I haven’t seen the film from beginning to end since that conversation, but I did watch a portion of it only to discover that while it wasn’t changing my opinion of Will Smith’s version of Ali, I was still enjoying the cinematography and pacing of the film.  Which lead me to realize that Mann is a good enough director that even when he’s less than his A-game level, he’s still head and shoulders above a lot of directors out there.  Even the mentioned “Miami Vice,” a film that has some great parts in it but a lot of bad ones as well, is what I refer to as “one of my favorite bad flicks.” I submit that that is the mark of a great director.

And since I can’t get through an article without throwing a list in there, here are my rankings of Mann’s major films, best to worst:

The Insider - 1999

Heat - 1995

The Last of the Mohicans – 1992

Collateral – 2004

Manhunter - 1986

Public Enemies – 2009

Miami Vice - 2006

Ali - 2001

Mann Crush!!!!

From all of us here at SpoilerAlert, go watch some freaking movies!

-Brando