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Michael Mann: A Contemporary Retrospective
With just eleven films to his credit, Michael Mann has managed to draw a singular and innovative line within the Hollywood industry. The Last of the Mohicans, Heat, Revelations, Ali, Collateral, Miami Vice, and Public Enemies have reshuffled the cards of American cinema to the point of making Mann one of the most important filmmakers of the last three decades.
ln just a few shots one can identify his unique filmmaking a predilection for urban settings - and in particular for Los Angeles, whose image he was able to renew - and breath-taking night shots; a taste for supremely skilled but solitary men; an obsession with the world of crime; and above all, a contemplative way of filming that combines fascination and melancholia.
Going further than just a comprehensive essay on the career of a revolutionary filmmaker, this biography from the highly regard Jean-Baptiste Thoret, is also a treaty on contemporary times.
ln just a few shots one can identify his unique filmmaking a predilection for urban settings - and in particular for Los Angeles, whose image he was able to renew - and breath-taking night shots; a taste for supremely skilled but solitary men; an obsession with the world of crime; and above all, a contemplative way of filming that combines fascination and melancholia.
Going further than just a comprehensive essay on the career of a revolutionary filmmaker, this biography from the highly regard Jean-Baptiste Thoret, is also a treaty on contemporary times.
352 pages, Hardcover
Published May 21, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
March 19, 2024
My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Quarto Publishing Group – White Lion, for an advanced copy of this look at one of the most interesting, and stylish directors working in Hollywood today, whose resume covers many genres and styles, but with a vision that is uniquely his own.
The film director has only eleven movies, and many television show to his name, but is own of the most unique stylists in the visual medium. Not only his films, but his television shows are considered not just classics, but classics that show a clear line of what was before and what followed. Heat, Last of the Mohicans,The Insider, Ali, even last years Ferrarri, all different genres of film, but clearly Mann-made. Miami Vice changed television, and police shows, moving from staid one camera shots, and police in uniform, to using the environment, pastels, and well groomed police officers that burned brightly even on cathode ray tubes. Mann's films have an outsider feel, a person making a stand in a world where bad people have power, the government is weak or corrupt, and where a person's word is the only sure thing. French film critic and filmmaker Jean-Baptiste Thoret in his book Michael Mann: A Contemporary Retrospective looks at the director, where his ideas and training come from, how he developed his vision, and a look at some of the projects that never came to be.
The book begins at the beginning, in Chicago, Illinois where Mann was born, and later was the setting for his first big commercial film, Thief. Mann was a good student, interested in English and literature, but in college he was introduced to film, specifically Stanley Kubrick, and Mann fell in love. After graduating Mann went to London to attend film school. While attending school, Paris was having it's summer of riots, protesting Vietnam, and the government with violent clashes everywhere. Mann went to Paris, with a camera and filmed shots and bits that he was able to sell to American networks. After graduating, Mann used these news contacts to pick up small jobs, and began to write for television. This led to a job doing Starksky and Hutch, not only in the writing aspect but in directing and bringing the show together. From there is was more television, and television movies which helped earn him his first directing job, the afore mentioned Thief starring James Caan. This moderate success led him to The Keep, a troubled production for many reasons, which might have set another director back, but gave Mann the need to prove himself, which he did with both his next movie Manhunter, the first to feature Hannibal Lecter, and the television show Miami Vice. And much more was to follow.
A very good look at an important filmmaker who is thought of as a person who makes movies for guys. Mann however draws on far more than that. The movie that is considered the ultimate Mann film is Heat, a movie that seems like a simple crime story, but is much more. There are scenes about families, and pressures, the fact that America's penal system continues to punish those who have paid their debt to society. Love, hate, racism, and of course trust, and living by a mortal code. Thoret discusses this and more. Thoret is very good at parsing a scene down, from point of view, color, subtext, even the words used or lack of words. Thoret can see things and explaining in a way that readers understand why this works, maybe why this doesn't that makes even a simple walk across a room, sound fascinating. The book is also well illustrated with movie scenes, and inspirations from art and other films that Thoret compares with what is happening on the screen.
Recommended for fans of Michael Mann, of course. And for fans of cinema. This is a very big book, and one that I enjoyed immensely, and has made me have to plan out when I am going to watch all eleven of these movies again.
The film director has only eleven movies, and many television show to his name, but is own of the most unique stylists in the visual medium. Not only his films, but his television shows are considered not just classics, but classics that show a clear line of what was before and what followed. Heat, Last of the Mohicans,The Insider, Ali, even last years Ferrarri, all different genres of film, but clearly Mann-made. Miami Vice changed television, and police shows, moving from staid one camera shots, and police in uniform, to using the environment, pastels, and well groomed police officers that burned brightly even on cathode ray tubes. Mann's films have an outsider feel, a person making a stand in a world where bad people have power, the government is weak or corrupt, and where a person's word is the only sure thing. French film critic and filmmaker Jean-Baptiste Thoret in his book Michael Mann: A Contemporary Retrospective looks at the director, where his ideas and training come from, how he developed his vision, and a look at some of the projects that never came to be.
The book begins at the beginning, in Chicago, Illinois where Mann was born, and later was the setting for his first big commercial film, Thief. Mann was a good student, interested in English and literature, but in college he was introduced to film, specifically Stanley Kubrick, and Mann fell in love. After graduating Mann went to London to attend film school. While attending school, Paris was having it's summer of riots, protesting Vietnam, and the government with violent clashes everywhere. Mann went to Paris, with a camera and filmed shots and bits that he was able to sell to American networks. After graduating, Mann used these news contacts to pick up small jobs, and began to write for television. This led to a job doing Starksky and Hutch, not only in the writing aspect but in directing and bringing the show together. From there is was more television, and television movies which helped earn him his first directing job, the afore mentioned Thief starring James Caan. This moderate success led him to The Keep, a troubled production for many reasons, which might have set another director back, but gave Mann the need to prove himself, which he did with both his next movie Manhunter, the first to feature Hannibal Lecter, and the television show Miami Vice. And much more was to follow.
A very good look at an important filmmaker who is thought of as a person who makes movies for guys. Mann however draws on far more than that. The movie that is considered the ultimate Mann film is Heat, a movie that seems like a simple crime story, but is much more. There are scenes about families, and pressures, the fact that America's penal system continues to punish those who have paid their debt to society. Love, hate, racism, and of course trust, and living by a mortal code. Thoret discusses this and more. Thoret is very good at parsing a scene down, from point of view, color, subtext, even the words used or lack of words. Thoret can see things and explaining in a way that readers understand why this works, maybe why this doesn't that makes even a simple walk across a room, sound fascinating. The book is also well illustrated with movie scenes, and inspirations from art and other films that Thoret compares with what is happening on the screen.
Recommended for fans of Michael Mann, of course. And for fans of cinema. This is a very big book, and one that I enjoyed immensely, and has made me have to plan out when I am going to watch all eleven of these movies again.
February 15, 2025
I was not sure what to expect with this, but it was incredibly deep, insightful, well-researched, and academic. Seeing reference to Romantic art or Karl Marx and Michel Foucault was cool. Here’s some of my favourite excerpts:
“At the extremity of the world, external and internal space pair in one dream of pantheistic fusion. On the other side, the territory of passions, of pure affects and of freedom; on this side, the territory of existential emptiness, of anonymous trajectories and late capitalism.
Moments of mental escape, of introspection and deliberation, the temptation of withdrawal […], the melancholy tendency to dream about an object lost forever, these shots ask: Does there still exist an edge to this world? […] What secret is held by this oceanic infinity which grabs these solitary men and frees them from the flux for a brief instant that Mann films as if it was an eternity? Finally, what mirages do they see that we do not? The enormous but invisible projection of a wild imaginary, the place of an untamed utopia opposed to the continent of the real, a space of transcendence which gives relief from a contemporary completely covered by capitalism, speed and globalization.”
“We remember the two coyotes in Collateral, two little bits of wilderness appearing in the heart of Los Angeles and provoking a sort of poetic short-circuit between modernity (of which the City of Angels is one of the paragons) and a wild power originating in a territory situated outside of civilization but in reality very close […] Granted, modern man no longer lives on the frontier, surrounded by imaginary beasts and sacred forests, but, in the midst of the highways, high-rises and neon lights, he continues to be at the heart of a Great Whole. For Mann, the visible world, whatever it may be, remains underpinned by an array of spiritual bonds that are always to be revealed.”
“We find the same exacerbated cosmic feeling in Collateral, Public Enemies and Blackhat, a sort of oversoul which, in spite of the sadness of capitalism, the end of the frontier and its privatization, might continue to float in the ruins of our postmodernity and link the contemporary man to something greater than him. This is undoubtedly a diffuse and atheistic mysticism, halfway between a Christianity emancipated from institutions and a form of pantheism, which here reactivates a key element of the American unconscious. For this conviction that the sacred dwells everywhere and for all time, including in urban, technological or postindustrial environments, reconnects Mann's cinema with an Emersonian tradition.”
“At the extremity of the world, external and internal space pair in one dream of pantheistic fusion. On the other side, the territory of passions, of pure affects and of freedom; on this side, the territory of existential emptiness, of anonymous trajectories and late capitalism.
Moments of mental escape, of introspection and deliberation, the temptation of withdrawal […], the melancholy tendency to dream about an object lost forever, these shots ask: Does there still exist an edge to this world? […] What secret is held by this oceanic infinity which grabs these solitary men and frees them from the flux for a brief instant that Mann films as if it was an eternity? Finally, what mirages do they see that we do not? The enormous but invisible projection of a wild imaginary, the place of an untamed utopia opposed to the continent of the real, a space of transcendence which gives relief from a contemporary completely covered by capitalism, speed and globalization.”
“We remember the two coyotes in Collateral, two little bits of wilderness appearing in the heart of Los Angeles and provoking a sort of poetic short-circuit between modernity (of which the City of Angels is one of the paragons) and a wild power originating in a territory situated outside of civilization but in reality very close […] Granted, modern man no longer lives on the frontier, surrounded by imaginary beasts and sacred forests, but, in the midst of the highways, high-rises and neon lights, he continues to be at the heart of a Great Whole. For Mann, the visible world, whatever it may be, remains underpinned by an array of spiritual bonds that are always to be revealed.”
“We find the same exacerbated cosmic feeling in Collateral, Public Enemies and Blackhat, a sort of oversoul which, in spite of the sadness of capitalism, the end of the frontier and its privatization, might continue to float in the ruins of our postmodernity and link the contemporary man to something greater than him. This is undoubtedly a diffuse and atheistic mysticism, halfway between a Christianity emancipated from institutions and a form of pantheism, which here reactivates a key element of the American unconscious. For this conviction that the sacred dwells everywhere and for all time, including in urban, technological or postindustrial environments, reconnects Mann's cinema with an Emersonian tradition.”
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January 6, 2025#michaelmann a contemporary retrospective by #jeanbaptistethoret published in 2024. I became aware of this through the excellent oneheatminutepodcast . Part retrospective, part thematic analysis. Strikes a balance between interesting, thought provoking and informative without becoming pretentious or sycophantic. I have always viewed mann’s films through the lens of obsessive or dedicated men who excel in their work and the romance (literal and metaphorical) that surrounds them. Thoret considers the films broadly but will often focus on thematic capitalism during his interpretation. I had noticed mann’s crime films have expanded from local to transnational over the years, but considering I have a mild interest in economics I felt rather stupid that I had not considered mann’s films through a lens of capitalism before. Always nice to find even deeper interpretations into one of your favourite filmmakers. The book starts with a fairly chronological sequence of mann’s work but soon forgets that and leaps from film to film and back and forth when discussing different topics. It’s a little muddled in terms of structure. I wonder if I would have preferred something with a more rigid structure either with a chapter dedicated to each film, or with a chapter focusing on a particular theme and then discussing each film in context of that theme, or maybe even an examination of mann’s films in chronological order of the period in which they are set: so starting with mohicans, public enemies, the keep, Ferrari, Ali, jericho, thief etc. ending with blackhat and discussing how technology and romance have developed through history while dedicated men continue to obsess about their craft in a timeless fashion and any blurring of the lines between the compartmentalised aspects of their personal/professional lives leads to destruction or tragedy. Bonus: the collateral title is explained (sadly not Vincent’s last name 😂 ). The book introduced me to mann’s leave nothing advertisement for Nike, but I was a little disappointed that Lucky Star didn’t even get a mention as it the greatest trailer ever made for a film that doesn’t exist.
July 16, 2024
The best sections are those about the Michael Mann movies this reader liked the most...Thief, Manhunter, The Last of the Mohicans, Heat, The Insider and Blackhat. The author does a good job of breaking down Mann's general themes and his use of color schemes to amplify those themes. There's also a lot here that might remind you of those film classes you took in college that left you wondering what the hell the professor was trying to teach you.
February 13, 2025
A book I know I'll be revisiting many times. Some of this is incredibly dense. This mostly takes the form of a thematic analysis of Mann's work which will make your head spin.
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