Public Enemies (Michael Mann, 2009)

[Mr Sausage]

The only reason I can see for demanding that "period pieces" look gritty is so that movie conventions are upheld, not because if you actually stepped back in time things would look grainy and sunlight would be less illuminating. I have the vague sense that I've made this point before, but it's cinematographic convention, not historical realism, that dictates a period piece be more gritty and less crisp in its photography; and to complain that Mann isn't following convention sounds absurd to me. Good, frankly. He's not just borrowing an old aesthetic.

[TedW]

First (HD) trailer is up.

If this proves to be as good as Miami Vice I'm going to be very happy indeed.

If it's at the level of Miami Vice, audiences everywhere are in trouble.

(Thankfully, it's not. My understanding is that it is very very good.)

[MyNameCriterionForum]

I agree that the notion that period pieces be "gritty" or desaturated (or, if costume pics, "foggy" and gauzy) is artistically lazy and more often than not detrimental to the film. I imagine Mann will push just enough in a glossy "modern" direction to keep things interesting.

However, his Last of the Mohicans is my least favorite of his films, and I can't see how he could bring anything of interest to the tired story of John Dillinger that hasn't already been examined by other filmmakers. I'd be much more excited had Mann been working with a screenplay of original (or less familiar) material, crime genre or otherwise (would love to see him make a science fiction film, for example... but then, I want EVERY one of my favorite directors to make an SF film).

[Mr Sausage]

I agree that the notion that period pieces be "gritty" or desaturated (or, if costume pics, "foggy" and gauzy) is artistically lazy and more often than not detrimental to the film.

I wouldn't say it's lazy, just usual.

[Binker]

My god, in a few of those shots it looks like Johnny's wearing about 5 pounds of foundation.

Didn't really find much of note in the trailer. Just comes off like a typical bankrobbers flick... (complete with the always essential "refuse the working man's money" trope)

[Antoine Doinel]

The only reason I can see for demanding that "period pieces" look gritty is so that movie conventions are upheld, not because if you actually stepped back in time things would look grainy and sunlight would be less illuminating. I have the vague sense that I've made this point before, but it's cinematographic convention, not historical realism, that dictates a period piece be more gritty and less crisp in its photography; and to complain that Mann isn't following convention sounds absurd to me. Good, frankly. He's not just borrowing an old aesthetic.

I'm not asking for the actors to be covered head to toe in grime, but I am asking that the midwest in the 30s not look pastoral. There is just something unnatural in the nearly impeccable cleanliness of the shots, sets, costumes, actors etc that I found distracting and unnatural that for me is only enhanced by the use of an HD camera. And as I mentioned, Zodiac is a great example of balancing the crispness of HD and period detail.

[John Cope]

The uber-crisp HD seems to be a weird fit for a period piece about a bank robber in the Depression-era midwest. Everything looks far too clean. Where's the grit and grime?

I think what Michael is trying to achieve with that, is actually something very similar that he did with Ali. And that is to try and show this period through very modern eyes. Nearly everything in Ali had a very modern touch to it, despite being 60's and 70's. Most of the music were re-recorded versions of songs around that time (the songs in the beginning and the live version of "A Change Is Gonna Come" when Malcolm X is shot). I'm not sure if I'm conveying this properly, but I think he's taken that same approach here.

This is a great observation and dead on I think. It ultimately makes sense of Mann's style as embellishment. The HD is a fine tool in capable and sensitive hands, which, God knows, he and his cinematographer have. Anyway, what this mode of photography does then is enhance and emphasize the disparity between what we know and what we think we know as well as between the familiarity of a certain formal method or technique and the application of one which is less so. Beyond that, and here's the heart of the matter, it emphasizes the remove of these characters from a certain pre-determined, or assumed as proper, method of representation; between the present and our comfortable manner of enshrining the past. It proves appropriately disruptive and places the characters on a slightly alien plane of being. The unnaturalness Antoine speaks of is appropriate and, I suspect, intended.

Meanwhile, I'm just going to ignore TedW's continued, willful misreading of Vice.

[TedW]

Haha. You are certainly free to like that movie if you so choose, I begrudge you not. I do, however, fully expect PE to be miles better.

[flyonthewall2983]

Thank you, John. Your own summation of this visual stylistic choice is making me more and more excited for the film to come out.

Just comes off like a typical bankrobbers flick... (complete with the always essential "refuse the working man's money" trope)

Is it really cliche if it actually happened?

As an aside, this has been bugging me for awhile now...is your avatar from Predator 2?

[domino harvey]

No, it's recent Criterion Forum sensation To Sleep With Anger

[Binker]

Considering Mann's past with HD video, it seems somewhat counter-intuitive that the decision to use it here would be based specifically on the story being told and a conscious desire to subvert historical fetishizing, as opposed to simply the advantages which drew him to it to begin with.

[flyonthewall2983]

No, it's recent Criterion Forum sensation To Sleep With Anger

I gotta admit it's kind of creepy my first guess was another movie Danny Glover did in 1990.

[Oedipax]

Anyway, what this mode of photography does then is enhance and emphasize the disparity between what we know and what we think we know as well as between the familiarity of a certain formal method or technique and the application of one which is less so. Beyond that, and here's the heart of the matter, it emphasizes the remove of these characters from a certain pre-determined, or assumed as proper, method of representation; between the present and our comfortable manner of enshrining the past. It proves appropriately disruptive and places the characters on a slightly alien plane of being. The unnaturalness Antoine speaks of is appropriate and, I suspect, intended.

I buy this argument with respect to Peter Watkins in, for instance, La Commune (Paris, 1871) or The Freethinker, but it feels less successful in the Public Enemies trailer for whatever reason. From what I understood, and just from my own aesthetic assessment of the work, Mann's use of HD for Collateral and Miami Vice was more to do with how it captured the world around the characters - the way the city exteriors remained in relatively deep focus at night, and the way you could see color in the sky at night, particularly in Miami Vice. And with Vice, also as a kind of effort to distance itself from the film-originated 80s TV series, a way of suggesting a more realistic grittiness, capturing it with up-to-the-minute 21st century technology. It was jarring for many, but it still was of a historical piece - technology depicting the impact of technology on our world.

Public Enemies, just from looking at the trailer (which I admit is far from the final word) doesn't seem as natural a fit, but then perhaps that's the idea this time around. At some point shooting digital will probably lose the added metatextual impact it had on the first digital Mann features, simply because every Mann feature is now shot that way.

[knives]

The movie itself looks fun, but about 30% of that trailer has that stupid HD look that distracts the living hell out of me. I am pro saturation in period pieces though. Pan's rocked.

Edit: not everything came through at first

[Mr Sausage]

The only reason I can see for demanding that "period pieces" look gritty is so that movie conventions are upheld, not because if you actually stepped back in time things would look grainy and sunlight would be less illuminating. I have the vague sense that I've made this point before, but it's cinematographic convention, not historical realism, that dictates a period piece be more gritty and less crisp in its photography; and to complain that Mann isn't following convention sounds absurd to me. Good, frankly. He's not just borrowing an old aesthetic.

I'm not asking for the actors to be covered head to toe in grime, but I am asking that the midwest in the 30s not look pastoral. There is just something unnatural in the nearly impeccable cleanliness of the shots, sets, costumes, actors etc that I found distracting and unnatural that for me is only enhanced by the use of an HD camera. And as I mentioned, Zodiac is a great example of balancing the crispness of HD and period detail.

Why shouldn't they look pastoral, tho'? Dillinger seems to be having a ball, so a clean, crisp, pastoral landscape makes a lot of aesthetic sense. I understand if you're not used to the look--as I've said, it's not conventional--but I think you should understand the movie isn't necessarily making the wrong choice by not following conventional photography. Give the look a chance. Seeing the world through HD is no more unnatural than seeing the world through 35mm; and for all we know Mann is not even going for natural.

[John Cope]

Seeing the world through HD is no more unnatural than seeing the world through 35mm; and for all we know Mann is not even going for natural.

Has he ever gone for "natural"? I think the confusion may arise because of the use of a technology most typically associated with immediacy and naturalistic filmmaking. But Mann's immediacy is always heightened immediacy and his naturalism is never not inflected with elaborate aesthetic accents. In other words, significantly and determinedly mediated.

[Mr Sausage]

Has he ever gone for "natural"?

You've put natural in quotes, so I'm going to assume you're working under a different defnition than I was when I wrote my post, and that we agree.

I think the confusion may arise because of the use of a technology most typically associated with immediacy and naturalistic filmmaking.

I don't know that the people here are conflating HD with DV; the latter is associated with immediacy and naturalism not so much by virtue of its photography as by virtue of the whole handheld, shaky aesthetic that accompanies it. Inland Empire for example used DV while never once having that 'realistic, on-the-spot' feel.

But Mann's immediacy is always heightened immediacy and his naturalism is never not inflected with elaborate aesthetic accents. In other words, significantly and determinedly mediated.

Yes, indeed. I don't know how it came off as tho' I were saying the opposite.

[Antoine Doinel]

The only reason I can see for demanding that "period pieces" look gritty is so that movie conventions are upheld, not because if you actually stepped back in time things would look grainy and sunlight would be less illuminating. I have the vague sense that I've made this point before, but it's cinematographic convention, not historical realism, that dictates a period piece be more gritty and less crisp in its photography; and to complain that Mann isn't following convention sounds absurd to me. Good, frankly. He's not just borrowing an old aesthetic.

I'm not asking for the actors to be covered head to toe in grime, but I am asking that the midwest in the 30s not look pastoral. There is just something unnatural in the nearly impeccable cleanliness of the shots, sets, costumes, actors etc that I found distracting and unnatural that for me is only enhanced by the use of an HD camera. And as I mentioned, Zodiac is a great example of balancing the crispness of HD and period detail.

Why shouldn't they look pastoral, tho'? Dillinger seems to be having a ball, so a clean, crisp, pastoral landscape makes a lot of aesthetic sense. I understand if you're not used to the look--as I've said, it's not conventional--but I think you should understand the movie isn't necessarily making the wrong choice by not following conventional photography. Give the look a chance. Seeing the world through HD is no more unnatural than seeing the world through 35mm; and for all we know Mann is not even going for natural.

I will definitely give it a shot. Mann is no hack, and I really liked the look of Collateral so it may just be the trailer that's throwing me. I have no issue with someone bucking convention, but my reaction to the trailer was from merely a gut level. For me, the shots drew attention to themselves in a negative way. I understand it's an aesthetic choice by Mann, but I found it jarring. That said, as it unfolds in a two hour film instead of a two minute trailer, it may work really well.

[Cde.]

I actually think it looked stunning. The aesthetic and the quick cuts shown reminded me a lot of Miami Vice, and I love that film.

I think the aesthetic here does actually feel a lot more spontaneous and real than the typical desaturated look period pieces are conventionally shot at. As flyonthewall says, Mann wants us to look at the old world through new eyes. The 'look' here seemed like a great fit (or maybe a fittingly great clash) with the content.

'Ugly' or not, I really think that the video look adds character to Mann's recent work and really distinguishes it. I'm always a little saddened to see so much resentment towards his approach, though I do understand it.

[Len]

I actually think it looked stunning. The aesthetic and the quick cuts shown reminded me a lot of Miami Vice, and I love that film.

Agreed.

I'm very impressed by Mann's approach to this, especially on the visual side. It seems clear that he's not treating this one as a period piece in the traditional sense. Public Enemies (atleast judging by the trailer) seems to be a very modern crime film that just happens to be set in the 30's.

I think the obvious comparison here seems to be Heat, and I couldn't be more thrilled about this.

[flyonthewall2983]

One thing I'm slightly disappointed in, and I'm just judging this by the poster and trailer alone, is that it appears that the focus is more on Johnny than it would be on both his and Christian's character. I thought it was going to be more like what you have in Heat where the focus is 50/50 on the two leads. That's my only complaint thus far, hopefully my only one because it hasn't deterred my excitement for it much.

[Cde.]

That might just be the marketing. Everybody loves Depp acting it up, but Christian's been acting a little fucking professional lately.

[flyonthewall2983]

Probably right.

[King Prendergast]

Speaking of Heat, anyone else notice Mann's obvious "quoting" of his earlier film in the trailer? Two examples clearly stood out to me: the sliding of the money bags on the floor is a direct homage to Val Kilmer doing the same, and Depp's line, "We're here for the bank's money not your money," is straight from DeNiro. Directors directly quoting their own films seems to be a trend lately. See Gus Van San's brilliant use of Elliot Smith's song "Angeles" in Paranoid Park, which he had previously features, to far less effect, in Good Will Hunting.

[TedW]

Or maybe they're just out of ideas.