691 Thief

Discuss releases by Criterion and the films on them. Threads may contain spoilers!
Message
Author
flyonthewall2983
Joined: Mon Jun 27, 2005 3:31 pm
Location: Indiana
Contact:

Re: 691 Thief

#101 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Mon Feb 10, 2014 8:51 pm

I love Thief but I think Manhunter is way better. Michael had acquired more skills as a director by the time he made it, having gone through the trial/error process of The Keep and having so fine-tuned what made Miami Vice so iconic for it's time. Like the early seasons of Vice the film is more of it's time than being stuck in it. To Live And Die In L.A. would fall in the latter category for me. It has some things going for it, but it's not particularly as memorable for me personally.

beastwave
Joined: Thu Feb 06, 2014 6:07 pm

Re: 691 Thief

#102 Post by beastwave » Mon Feb 10, 2014 9:19 pm

Thats an interesting take. One that will make me watch these films back to back maybe in a month or two from now.

I haven't spent much time trying to intellectualize Michael Mann films in the last ten years, until recently. I started to revisit Mann's body of work (The Keep included haha) , and films that had similar themes such as work from Friedkin (Sorcerer, To Live & Die In L.A.) , and in some cases even Ridley Scott (Black Rain) .

With Criterion showing love to Thief, obviously it makes me look at his other films a start to analyze them a bit further. Thief was just insanely beautiful last night, and it lead to me immediately screening Manhunter for the few dedicated viewers left remaining. It just seemed to me that Manhunter didn't have an element or two that helps make Thief appear classic. Thief feels like an art film to me more so than Manhunter or really any of Mann's other films. I do really love Manhunter I just wonder if others feel there is a gap in quality between both films.
Casting may also play a part in my perceptions (William Peterson has a rather vague film career).

Criterion really did a great job with the restoration of Thief. My god.

flyonthewall2983
Joined: Mon Jun 27, 2005 3:31 pm
Location: Indiana
Contact:

Re: 691 Thief

#103 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Tue Feb 11, 2014 2:00 am

It's worth reiterating the hope that Criterion gets Manhunter next. I've pretty much lost my own hope that they get The Insider, but who knows.

Zot!
Joined: Wed Jan 20, 2010 12:09 am

Re: 691 Thief

#104 Post by Zot! » Tue Feb 11, 2014 9:13 am

flyonthewall2983 wrote:It's worth reiterating the hope that Criterion gets Manhunter next. I've pretty much lost my own hope that they get The Insider, but who knows.
Well, I believe there are 5 existant cuts, so this is a case where Criterion would really have to make a big effort to put out a definitive release, and I'm not sure if this film has quite the fanbase necessary to support such a release. I'm a Manunhter superfan, and I'm perfectly content owning 4 of those cuts, with the (original and best) theatrical cut being available on BD, albeit in a hideous "horror" cover. I would certainly buy a Criterion, but you can already piece together a suitable Manhunter "integrale", if you just can't help yourself.

flyonthewall2983
Joined: Mon Jun 27, 2005 3:31 pm
Location: Indiana
Contact:

Re: 691 Thief

#105 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Thu Feb 13, 2014 11:31 pm

I think it'd merit a definitive release because it has historic value as the first movie featuring Hannibal, and I believe none of those releases have many features (I think the Anchor Bay version has a commentary from Mann, and some interviews). But then again I am not sure who holds the rights. MGM released a DVD and the current Blu-ray, but I think Lionsgate has them now (at least the TV rights).

LavaLamp
Joined: Wed Jul 24, 2013 12:59 am

Re: 691 Thief

#106 Post by LavaLamp » Tue Feb 18, 2014 12:28 pm

Recently watched Thief on this new new Criterion BD....Wow. The PQ & anamorphic print are gorgeous. For me, this BD is literally like seeing the movie for the first time (the several other times I saw the film were in the older non-anamorphic DVD).

One of the many scenes that really stood out here was the POV from the top of Caan's car as he's driving at night, and the various neon lights/signs are reflected on the car...

To me, this new release brings the film from merely good status to great status; it just goes to show how much a sub-par, non-anamorphic print can affect the quality of an otherwise excellent movie...

User avatar
Mr Sausage
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 9:02 pm
Location: Canada

Thief (Michael Mann, 1981)

#107 Post by Mr Sausage » Mon Aug 04, 2014 6:32 am

DISCUSSION ENDS MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 1st AT 6:30 AM.

Members have a two week period in which to discuss the film before it's moved to its dedicated thread in The Criterion Collection subforum. Please read the Rules and Procedures.

This thread is not spoiler free. This is a discussion thread; you should expect plot points of the individual films under discussion to be discussed openly. See: spoiler rules.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

-What is the point of Willie Nelson's character? His role seems very small but very important to Caan.

-Why is Caan "getting out of the game?" He seems like he would've been content doing this forever until his fiancee tells him she wouldn't marry him if he continues to steal. In this case though, why is he in such a rush to marry her? What's Caan's overall motivation?

I encourage members to submit questions, either those designed to elicit discussion and point out interesting things to keep an eye on, or just something you want answered. This will be extremely helpful in getting discussion started. Starting is always the hardest part, all the more so if it's unguided. Questions can be submitted to me via PM.




***PM me if you have any suggestions for additions or just general concerns and questions.***

User avatar
Mr Sausage
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 9:02 pm
Location: Canada

Re: Thief (Michael Mann, 1981)

#108 Post by Mr Sausage » Fri Aug 15, 2014 10:04 am

A member sent in two discussion questions. You'll find them in the post above.

User avatar
swo17
Bloodthirsty Butcher
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:25 am
Location: SLC, UT

Re: Thief (Michael Mann, 1981)

#109 Post by swo17 » Mon Aug 18, 2014 10:32 am

Someone has broken open the thread!

User avatar
matrixschmatrix
Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 11:26 pm

Re: Thief (Michael Mann, 1981)

#110 Post by matrixschmatrix » Mon Aug 18, 2014 10:55 am

This movie strikes me as being interesting in a number of directions at once- even before Miami Vice the TV show, it's a marriage of the seemingly incongruous elements of gritty, hard-bitten noir crime film and neon Tangerine Dream-infused fantasy world, with Caan's character as a very down to earth, blue collar working slob who is also a magician, a man who can control fire and break into any safe, and the storyline both a very ordinary story of an ex-con trying to make a real life for himself and a nearly mythical one man against the world thing, something that has grandeur that would seem to fight against the very limited aims our hero had.

The tension works for the film, I think- Mann's already developed sense of exacting detail in how you would really do this kind of thing and who would be the people who would really do them means that wild extravagances of style that would otherwise risk making the movie feel weightless and the stakes feel meaningless instead heighten a very human and personal story, and while it's something Mann's done over and over again (successfully, in my view) it's hard to think of anything that quite did it before. Cann isn't just a man who happens to be a sociopath and a magician criminal, he's a man with a background where you can detail here is the place where he learned to build an armor around his feelings, there is where he learned the techniques of crime, this other place is where he made the contacts to let him use those skills- and even where the background isn't explicitly stated, it's felt in Caan's performance, in his accent and word choices, in the ugliness of the men who surround him. Yet due to the soundtrack and color palatte, the movie never loses the sense that there's something beyond petty theivery going on, something spectacular - one wonders if Mann could make such fireworks out of the life of an insurance adjuster or an actuary.

Willie Nelson's character seems like he's key both in grounding Caan- a mentor figure, who taught Caan both the skills to be a professional thief, the discipline to be a good one, and the checklist of goals that are (to him) the endgame, the life you are looking to construct. He's also a warning, the end that Caan can't allow himself to face, of living death in prison- in the mythic sense, he's the movie's Obi-wan or whatever, the source of patriarchal wisdom, as Caan is very much on a sort of hero's journey.

It does seem worth considering how much the life Caan has constructed in his head is a patriarchal one- Caan's charmingly honest in his pursuit of it, but what he wants is a wife and a kid whom he can take care of, not necessarily a life partner or any more modern conception of marriage and family (though his total disinterest in sharing biological links with his child keeps him from being an entire caveman about it.) I wonder if this is something that Mann chose as Caan trying to become part of society from the outside- a man who lived in a totally different world putting together what he believes will make him normal in the larger one- or if it was more an unreflective idea of what Caan's character ought to have shared by the filmmakers.

User avatar
Drucker
Your Future our Drucker
Joined: Wed May 18, 2011 9:37 am

Re: Thief (Michael Mann, 1981)

#111 Post by Drucker » Mon Aug 18, 2014 12:05 pm

Matrix, your comment about the "Tangerine Dream-infused fantasy world" is spot on, and it really gripped me early on. Who is this guy? What is he looking for? What is this music? It's a fantastic opening sequence. While in the end, it merely sets him up as a diamond thief (as opposed to something more exotic, like Kiss Me Deadly), the sequence is masterful. It's of course followed by a delightful sequence showing Caan going about his business, making you feel for the guy as a regular joe.

I think the best part of the film is Caan's interaction with the cops. He knows exactly what he is doing. These scenes are amusing, violent, and tension-filled, just like the rest of the best moments in this film. And while the film works as heist film, it seems much more interested in developing Caan as a character. The scene in the restaurant, where the boss of the big job is asking Caan how the heist is going almost works for him to stand-in for the audience. "Yeah, yeah, the job is doing fine don't worry about it, I got more important shit on my plate!" Caan's relationships are consistent and make sense. There is no sense of shock from the viewer that Caan wants his money and to ditch the job.

The only things that didn't sit perfectly with me are Nelson's character and Caan's dispatching of obstacles. I understand we are dealing with an action movie, but didn't Caan's bus trick just seem a bit too easy? What happened with the idea that the job was going to take 15 hours? Did I mis-hear that early on?

And for Nelson's character, Matrix, if it really was a warning for Caan to make sure he doesn't get nabbed by the police again, then I stand even more by my last point. There doesn't seem to seriously be a point in the film where anybody is worried about getting caught. Of course other things go awry in the end, with some truly gripping scenes (where you do actually worry about Caan's life). But the cops, nerve-racking at first, kind of turn into a joke.

The film was a fantastic picture. I can't wait to check out more Mann, and finally check out Heat.

User avatar
Satori
Joined: Sun May 09, 2010 10:32 am

Re: Thief (Michael Mann, 1981)

#112 Post by Satori » Sat Aug 23, 2014 7:56 am

matrixschmatrix wrote: It does seem worth considering how much the life Caan has constructed in his head is a patriarchal one- Caan's charmingly honest in his pursuit of it, but what he wants is a wife and a kid whom he can take care of, not necessarily a life partner or any more modern conception of marriage and family (though his total disinterest in sharing biological links with his child keeps him from being an entire caveman about it.) I wonder if this is something that Mann chose as Caan trying to become part of society from the outside- a man who lived in a totally different world putting together what he believes will make him normal in the larger one- or if it was more an unreflective idea of what Caan's character ought to have shared by the filmmakers.
This is indeed a key question. The "life checklist" idea is really interesting because it makes explicit the normative teleological development that is expected of everyone. By having Caan's character read and hear about all these things one "must do" to be normal, the film gestures at the technologies of power that construct these heteronormative patriarchal narratives (it seems key that his checklist is comprised of mass media images). His incredibly awkward behavior at the diner is also fascinating because it reveals that he hasn't grasped the correct way to perform gender and to pursue these things he is taught to desire. So I think the film does de-naturalize both heternormative life narratives as well as gender performance and desire by having Caan's character come across these narratives and gender performances as if he was an alien. There is nothing innate in Caan's character that desires marriage and a family; he must be taught to desire and pursue these things.

Mann's films often set up a clear opposition between heterosexual romance/family life on the one hand and professionalism/ the job (whether cop or criminal) on the other. Sometimes the lead character manages to come away from the "job" and return to his family life: Manhunter is a key example of this, where the film's ending posits the family as this quasi-utopian space outside of all the death and cruelty of the world. Usually, however, the characters must reject their family or heterosexual relationships in favor of the job: both Thief and Heat are examples of this plot dynamic. In Mann, these two elements or spaces can never come together- he can imagine no place for women in the world of work. I find this element of his films to be deeply problematic, and a real step backwards from someone like Hawks, who was able to resolve this opposition between the heterosocial group of professional men and the outsider woman by creating strong female characters who were able to integrate into the professional unit. Indeed, films like Thief, Manhunter, and Heat all reintroduce a public/private sphere gender binary that Hawks for one completely rejected- there is no private sphere in Hawks, so the women had to become fully integrated into the public.

It seems to me that Mann's films are really only interested in homosocial bonds between men- again, this is similar to Hawks, just without the realization that women could participate in these activities, too. Prison is of course the ultimate space for these homosocial bonds, which seems to me to go a long way toward explaining the importance of the Willie Nelson character. It might also suggest that the heterosexual life narrative checklist is a displacement that is meant to interrupt to possibilities of gay desire. Indeed, the love between the Caan character and the Willie Nelson character seems to far exceed the love between Caan's character and his wife, the latter only selected because she is a convenient sexual object choice that will allow the Caan character to construct his chosen life narrative. Heat will of course make this thematic even more explicit, ending with the two men sharing a tender moment together that far exceeds anything in either of their respective heterosexual romances. Perhaps we can grasp the embryo of this idea in Thief.

User avatar
matrixschmatrix
Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 11:26 pm

Re: Thief (Michael Mann, 1981)

#113 Post by matrixschmatrix » Sat Aug 23, 2014 2:20 pm

I'd argue that Public Enemies introduces that dynamic to some degree as well- there is as always a tension between Dillinger the untouchable professional and Dillinger the man who has ties to women, people whom he loves. I think, though, that Mann's construction of women and family is more Fordian than Hawksian- they're the things that keep one human, that keep one from being Dollarhyde, and the endings of both Thief and Heat involve the heroes more or less choosing to renounce their humanity, or their chance at humanity. It's family as a civilizing force. It's not difficult to imagine Mann adapting this ethos for a gay hero- a husband and kids to go home to wouldn't function that much differently- but it's still fundamentally a patriarchal outlook, I think, particularly since it's difficult to think of a Mann movie where even the most active women (Jada Pinkett Smith in Collateral, say) is involved with the action on the level of the male leads, though I think Miami Vice is something of an exception there. For Mann, the private sphere is perhaps the only sphere worth having, and it always comes at the expense of the professional, a dynamic not that different from that of a million crummy genre movies, and one that would probably be somewhat tiresome were it not for Mann's mastery in the other aspects of his film making.

I do think that makes Thief particularly interesting, almost a pre-emptive deconstruction of the narrative- Caan's attachment to the ideals of family is just the place that his unmoored need for an identity while in prison landed, explicitly not something that developed organically over time, and his family unit is likewise new and distinctly artificial. One could read that in a number of ways- that the family is just a useful placeholder for the overlapping feelings of individuality and bonding that prison life denies, that family is at the root of Caan's desire throughout and Nelson merely helps him to put a name on it, or perhaps cynically that Caan ultimately just needed a goal to work towards and that it didn't matter what it was.

User avatar
Drucker
Your Future our Drucker
Joined: Wed May 18, 2011 9:37 am

Re: Thief (Michael Mann, 1981)

#114 Post by Drucker » Sun Aug 24, 2014 11:57 am

I almost brought this up earlier, but I feel like The Conformist could almost be brought into this discussion as having a similar set-up. The most interesting thing about this dynamic, to me, being that the job that you take on in order to have that separate, normal life, actually keeps you mentally and physically more distant from that "normal" life. While Caan's character thinks that doing his job will give him the means to finance his "normal" life, it's really keeping him alienated from that life.

oh yeah
Joined: Sun Jan 04, 2009 7:45 pm

Re: Thief (Michael Mann, 1981)

#115 Post by oh yeah » Sun Aug 24, 2014 4:45 pm

I think Mann's films are more about the dynamic of the lone individual vs. society/the 'system'/global capitalism/etc., or of the professional vs. the private, than a simple men vs. women dialectic. When the incompatibility of De Niro or Caan's romantic/home life with their criminal lives is illustrated, it is not to say that women have no place in the criminal world -- certainly, as mentioned, a film like Miami Vice is pretty equal-opportunity in how the women fight and work and live alongside their male partners, in crime and in law enforcement (one only need recall the centrality to the narrative of Gong Li's character, but also the seemingly more tertiary character of Gina who ends up having such a pivotal role in the trailer-park hostage escape). In reality, women simply aren't joining groups of criminals in pursuit of "taking down scores" or robbing banks or shooting innocent armed guards, nearly at the level that men do; I see this more as a consequence of Mann's realism than anything else. But, of course, as I've mentioned, Miami Vice departs from this in how it depicts the new globalized world shifting and erasing most/all boundaries, so that Gong Li can be a crime boss just as much as John Ortiz can. Collateral is problematic (and one of Mann's weakest films, I'd have to say) in that its worldview is more Hollywood-typical (it wasn't written by Mann): the cliche'd ending with the damsel in distress and Foxx's miraculous saving of her, etc.

But the ironic thing is that, generally, I find Mann to be one of the most genuinely Romantic directors working today. Although he doesn't or cannot get into his female characters' heads like he does his male characters, I find this more likely an idiosyncratic personal failure than a purposeful prejudice or anything else (compare to Kubrick, who had maybe one substantial female character in Alice Harford, yet continually made films critical of patriarchal structures). Anyway, Mann films his love scenes and love stories so tenderly that it's hard to dismiss him as some kind of macho man's-man, in whose artistic world women are just throwaway sex-dolls. Cotillard in Public Enemies and Gong Li in Miami Vice, in particular, play very pivotal roles... and the former's initial love scene with Dillinger is, again, beautifully and tenderly shot, not just about bodies connecting in an instant, but about minds probing (that constant, strange but endearingly recurring theme with Mann couples being how one partner immediately asks the other about their familial origins and ancestry).

But I digress. Back to Thief -- this surely is Mann's "purest" distillation of his film- and world-view, but I don't think there's something in raw purity that makes it inherently superior to later and more polished works. It seems to me that Thief is, fascinatingly, stuck in a kind of late 70's/early 80's netherworld where the gritty grime of The French Connection or Straight Time is just beginning to be intermingled with the neon expressionism of the Miami Vice decade. This is an interesting aesthetic, but I prefer the fluidity of the camera and the stark modernism which he adopted starting with Heat (his best pre-millenium film), and took into the digital ether, with increasingly rapid movement and fragmentation of time and space and relationships, with Miami Vice (his best post-millenium film). Thief's ending is powerful in its directness, but also uncharacteristically bombastic and obvious in its meaning and goals compared to the aforementioned films (plus The Insider, Manhunter, and the underrated Public Enemies; even Ali's really quite stunning, if more flawed than the previous ones).

In other words, here's a fascinating take from Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, found here, which although I don't agree 100% with, raises some cogent points:
"Over the years, Mann’s approach has changed. At the beginning of his career, he seemed like a contemporary of Jean-Jacques Beineix. He was the Beineix who wasn’t a misanthrope. Now he’s the only obvious contemporary to Claire Denis and Johnnie To. His career is the story of a director who began with “the look” and discovered the image. From the “cinematic” to cinema. The Mann of Thief through Manhunter, like Beineix, seemed to care about the appearance of the image more than the image itself. They’re good movies, but making good movies isn’t enough. It was about staging things for the camera more than capturing an image. Closer to a photogram than a photograph. I remember a scene from The Keep like I do a scene from Beineix’ The Moon in the Gutter: I remember the color, the lighting,but not whether the images were close-ups or wide shots, whether the camera moved, whether it was one shot or several. Even The Last of Mohicans seems to have been made by someone thinking: “What if we made a movie that looked this way?”

[…] But something happened around Heat. Aesthetics gave way to ethics, imagery to images.

The first shot of Thief and that final tableau from Heat are obviously directed by the same man—or at least by the same tastes—but the ideas aren’t the same. It’s the difference between letting your tastes find something and having a feeling inside you that you use your tastes to express. The first shot ofThief and the last shot of Heat: rumbling electronic music, night time, lights forming a V shape that disappears on the horizon. In Thief, it’s a man getting into a car and driving away. In Heat, it’s two men perfectly still. Funny how it’s only in a moving image that we can really capture stillness. In neither image are the figures “acting” in the traditional sense. James Caan just gets into a car. Robert De Niro and Al Pacino pose; they look like statues (but then I think: “Statues also die.”). Similar images, but not the same. Like that conversation De Niro and Pacino have in their only other scene together in the film, the final shot of Heat is Utopian. Two people expressing themselves completely and shamelessly. I think it’s that ideal that Mann has aspired to since: to let go of preferences, of standards in framing, editing, composition and to express whatever he might be thinking or feeling through the image. Instead of simply telling their stories, he will become one with the characters he admires.
"

User avatar
Mr Sausage
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 9:02 pm
Location: Canada

Re: Thief (Michael Mann, 1981)

#116 Post by Mr Sausage » Fri Aug 29, 2014 9:22 am

Small question about unimportant matters:

When the two police officers pull over Caan, they indicate that they are on the take. Are they lying merely to trick him into admitting something, or are they actually corrupt and working outside the law?

User avatar
Drucker
Your Future our Drucker
Joined: Wed May 18, 2011 9:37 am

Re: Thief (Michael Mann, 1981)

#117 Post by Drucker » Fri Aug 29, 2014 9:42 am

I totally missed that line! But that's a hard one.

If they truly are just trying to trick him, that seems like it would be a pretty obvious case of entrapment, doesn't it? Caan obviously frustrates the hell out of them, perhaps more than most guys they pick up. Caan is smarter than them (bus trick), knows his rights (never admits to anything when being pulled over), and is generally contemptuous of cops. If these cops are even remotely competent (which they wouldn't be, again, given what I just outlined), surely they would have realized this is not someone that the usual shenanigans will help take down.

I think I just convinced myself they really are working outside of the law, in this case, and just want in on it. Which would be a pretty cool thing for the film to do, to show Caan striving to be legitimate and the supposedly "legitimate" criminal justice system being corrupt, with cops seeking to be illegitimate.

User avatar
Mr Sausage
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 9:02 pm
Location: Canada

Re: Thief (Michael Mann, 1981)

#118 Post by Mr Sausage » Fri Aug 29, 2014 10:22 am

I don't know. I could still see them trying the basic tricks just in case. Plus considering they beat Caan in the police station, I wouldn't put entrapment above them.

User avatar
matrixschmatrix
Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 11:26 pm

Re: Thief (Michael Mann, 1981)

#119 Post by matrixschmatrix » Fri Aug 29, 2014 10:40 am

Given the earlier depiction of the wildly corrupt judge (and the beating) I assumed that the cops were legitimately on the take- it is Chicago, after all.

flyonthewall2983
Joined: Mon Jun 27, 2005 3:31 pm
Location: Indiana
Contact:

Re: 691 Thief

#120 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Fri Sep 05, 2014 8:36 am

What's interesting to me is that they seemingly have no connection to Leo. They likely just had a tail on him when he and Frank meet for the first time. But regardless of that, it'd have to be that Leo has connections to the police just as he does seemingly legit business ones (maybe even more than Frank's, because of his real estate dealings).

It's interesting that Mann has never done much beyond this film, concerning crime and corruption in Chicago. His interests have more or less taken him the world over, as I suspect we'll see a lot of in his next film, so maybe doing something about his backyard hasn't appealed to him as much.

User avatar
Feiereisel
Joined: Fri Aug 16, 2013 9:41 am

Re: 691 Thief

#121 Post by Feiereisel » Fri Sep 05, 2014 9:06 am

flyonthewall2983 wrote:What's interesting to me is that they seemingly have no connection to Leo. They likely just had a tail on him when he and Frank meet for the first time. But regardless of that, it'd have to be that Leo has connections to the police just as he does seemingly legit business ones (maybe even more than Frank's, because of his real estate dealings).

It's interesting that Mann has never done much beyond this film, concerning crime and corruption in Chicago. His interests have more or less taken him the world over, as I suspect we'll see a lot of in his next film, so maybe doing something about his backyard hasn't appealed to him as much.
PUBLIC ENEMIES? Granted, it's framed in a larger Midwestern and national context--I suppose it's hard to consider anything that prominently features J. Edgar Hoover "local."

But a lot of it is set in and around Chicago and deals with the changing criminal landscape--there's a scene where Dillinger goes to a mob-run gambling den and is told that the rise of coast-to-coast crime and the resultant FBI scrutiny means that the mob can't shelter him anymore.

The corruption is there, not as central to the film as it is in THIEF, but more than subtext.

Or did I miss a subtle tip-off that you maybe consider PUBLIC ENEMIES a lesser Mann film?

flyonthewall2983
Joined: Mon Jun 27, 2005 3:31 pm
Location: Indiana
Contact:

Re: 691 Thief

#122 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Fri Sep 05, 2014 12:08 pm

I meant something more specific to Chicago, and more to do with corruption on the other end to what is shown in Public Enemies which I quite liked.

User avatar
Feiereisel
Joined: Fri Aug 16, 2013 9:41 am

Re: 691 Thief

#123 Post by Feiereisel » Fri Sep 05, 2014 2:14 pm

flyonthewall2983 wrote:I meant something more specific to Chicago, and more to do with corruption on the other end to what is shown in Public Enemies which I quite liked.
Ah, I see what you mean. I'd dig that, too, and there's plenty of unseemly business to explore. His output is so glacial, though, I'll take whatever I can get.

But his take on Chicago in THIEF is one of my all time favorite presentations of the city on film. The prominence of those riveted steel bridges and the more general, workworn look of everything gives it a singular vibe that even Chicago mainstays like THE BLUES BROTHERS only glance at. The highway oasis overpass restaurant is such a great space, too. I'm from the area and think of the scene every time I drive under one.

oh yeah
Joined: Sun Jan 04, 2009 7:45 pm

Re: 691 Thief

#124 Post by oh yeah » Fri Sep 05, 2014 2:28 pm

One of the best aspects of the film is Mann's depiction of Chicago as this caged-in grid of steel and neon. We never really see the sky -- everything's street-level.

User avatar
Drucker
Your Future our Drucker
Joined: Wed May 18, 2011 9:37 am

Re: 691 Thief

#125 Post by Drucker » Fri Sep 05, 2014 3:07 pm

oh yeah wrote:One of the best aspects of the film is Mann's depiction of Chicago as this caged-in grid of steel and neon. We never really see the sky -- everything's street-level.
Except that fantastic shot where Caan visits the guy fishing on the lake. And even there, you are trapped and surrounded by water, of course.

Post Reply