Anticipating Michael Mann's 'Public Enemies', with Depp, Bale, et al.

Trailer coming out later today.

Those apostrophes mess up a title, don't they?

Bale as Chuck D
Depp as Flavor Flav

Bale = Cagney
Depp = Harlow

Clip here.

my brother was an extra in this in some courtroom scene w/ i think both depp & bale, looking forward to finding out if he's gonna be visible onscreen at all.

Anticipating Michael Mann's 'Public Enemies', with Depp, Bale, Shipley et al.

max are you in it too? my brother told me they were filming at your school.

lol

OK OK, here's the trailer. Rated R for "gangster violence."

not 100% on these music choices tbqh

i'd like to see this filmed by Anthony Mann

great, really productive fuckin comment, thanks.

fyi morbs

In 1967, Mann died from a heart attack in Berlin, Germany while filming the spy thriller A Dandy in Aspic.

how insensitive

"too soon"

ya terrible music choices... still, hope this is good

i'd like to see this directed by thomas mann.

i'd like to see thee unmanned

honestly, the trailer for miami vice is the highpoint of moving-picture technology, and so this was bound to disappoint a bit.

will DV be at odds with period settings? can't wait to find out this summer

also, OTM

The fake trailer Mann and Benecio Del Toro made for Mercedes in '02 is one of my favorites.

I was completely expecting Chris Cornell and Timbaland to end up on the soundtrack to this one.

it's miami vice in costumes

looking forward to it.

weird to think bale and depp have never been in the same scene together.

is it?

A 21 Jump Street movie would have been better than the Miami Vice movie.

not 100% on these music choices tbqh

― Jesus Lulz (special guest stars mark bronson), Wednesday, March 4, 2009 3:34 PM (40 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ya terrible music choices... still, hope this is good

― s1ocki, Wednesday, March 4, 2009 3:49 PM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i would say that michael mann has been more or less consistently the worst director in terms of music choices since 1990 or so, which is weird considering how amazing the music for miami vice TV and manhunter are

honestly, the trailer for miami vice is the highpoint of moving-picture technology, and so this was bound to disappoint a bit.

― Jesus Lulz (special guest stars mark bronson), Wednesday, March 4, 2009 3:51 PM (25 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

couldnt agree w/ u more, one of the few places where a ridiculous & terrible song actually ended up working 100%

I think I prefer the proposed Anthony Mann directed version as well.

well i wish stanley kubrick directed it - imagine!!!

or fw murnau - he'd be perfect because he lived when dillinger was alive

that would be an interesting take because he died before dillinger's most notorious deeds were committed!

I think I prefer those proposed versions too.

i wish, instead of a movie, it was a comic book, instead of being directed by michael mann, it was written by cervantes, and, instead of starring johnny depp, it was filled with photographs of rachel weisz

http://www.imfdb.org/images/thumb/f/fb/DillingerLobby-Card.jpg/300px-DillingerLobby-Card.jpg

I know I'm hoping Zack Snyder makes a movie out of that comic book.

max, you've seen Lawrence Tierney!

i wish this was directed by a directing genius who hasnt even been born yet but he will be regarded as one of the finest talents in the industry in the future!

Years ago, I got to see the Lawrence Tierney version of Dillinger with Tierney himself offering up a hilariously aggressive running commentary throughout. Great stuff!

Music notwithstanding, the trailer alone looks better than most of the other swill that's supposed to be released this summer.

I wish this was directed by a labradoodle.

Music notwithstanding, the trailer alone looks better than most of the other Christian Bale swill that's supposed to be released this summer.

Bale is making a Medellin this year

weird to think bale and depp have never been in the same scene together.

― Jesus Lulz (special guest stars mark bronson), Wednesday, March 4, 2009 10:01 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

is it?

― s1ocki, Wednesday, March 4, 2009 10:03 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

understated british humour.

the whole "we're here to rob the bank's money, not yours" line was such bullshit in Bonnie & Clyde and it's bullshit here too.

eh?

it's not bullshit in 'heat' though.

dillinger makes a great and compelling movie subject but when they start dropping things into the script to make him seem like some sort of robin hood character i draw the line. the same exact thing happened in bonnie and clyde.

im not sure that michael mann reads the scripts of his movies

Milius' "Dillinger" is pretty sweet.

this looks incredible

Mann's definitely putting the DV stuff to good use. Love the way his stuff looks. If dude can get the tommy guns to sound as good as the assault rifles did in Heat, I'll probably love it. Shame about the music.

his miami vice (movie) guns were sweet sounding too, can't wait for this.

Hey stans: new trailer.

I love how the first shot is a continuation of the Collateral/Miami Vice trailers, which open with a helicopter over a nighttime skyline.

awes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O58RcguZkzs

^^^this michael mann gunfire sound is always excellent

Unofficial premiere in Chicago tonight.

another clip http://www.apple.com/trailers/universal/publicenemies/

Some one doesn't like the font http://davidcroy.wordpress.com/2009/06/21/the-new-public-enemies-lettering-is-total-dogshit/

At least he let the designers reply http://davidcroy.wordpress.com/2009/06/25/dogshit-the-rebuttal/

This was very sleek and very dull, esp. the first hour. Picks up a bit, but it's nothing special.

looking forward to it, w/reservations - not digging the prosumer dv look mixed w/the period setting, hopefully bale isnt in it too much, have a strong suspicion depp could end up carrying the whole thing, seems charismatic enough to liven things up a bit (i mean i know lively isnt really mann's thing but he took it from 'cool & composed' to 'boring as shit' in miami vice)

there are many, many gunfights and johnny depp plays clark gable playing johnny depp playing dillinger

one small step for mann

i have mixed feelings about this

the look really is like... in your face. SO video.

there's some really amazing stuff in it tho.

it's kinda like heat 2: the prohibition years

(or heat 3, really)

u saw it? heat 2/3 is a ringing endorsement to me

ya i did

it's crazy though... the look of this movie is so bizarre for period, it's really really in yr face

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/jun/26/interview-michael-mann-public-enemies

The look is the best part, by far. (though I liked Cotillard). Really couldn't give two shits about either principal figure (as presented at least).

"u saw it? heat 2/3 is a ringing endorsement to me"

i agree! i'll probably see it and like it
can't wait!

so amped for heat 2/3

Keep in mind s1ocki secretly means 'Heat two/thirds'

heat 0.6666666

from McCarthy in Variety:

The specific sociopolitical conditions of the time are crucial to the story, but one big thing almost entirely missing from "Public Enemies" is the Depression itself. It's suggestive of where Mann's true interests lie -- or perhaps, where they don't -- that one almost never sees poverty, desperation or even poor grooming; everyone here wears fabulous clothes and almost always looks their very best. Dillinger most frequently robbed banks in small or medium-sized towns, but here he only bothers with vast marble palaces of impeccable design....

That rant about the font goes goofy when he writes: "My guess was that it was probably some crap-ass key art flunky trying to make a “font” and failing in a horrible and computery bad way, but getting it through because nobody involved in the production has any visual sense."

Though the rebuttal suggests Mann is still Mann:
"If we had been designing a in house personal project for a WPA/New Deal typeface it would of been completely different, but it wasn’t a personal project, it was a client project with tight deadlines, calls at home from my sleep at 3am to get me out of bed to make changes right there and then etc etc, i.e. there are far more variables behinds the scenes to all projects, and the success of outcomes aren’t always whether it looks nice or cool."

Variety: my go-to source for intelligent film criticism

The specific sociopolitical conditions of the time are crucial to the story, but one big thing almost entirely missing from "Public Enemies" is the Depression itself. It's suggestive of where Mann's true interests lie -- or perhaps, where they don't -- that one almost never sees poverty, desperation or even poor grooming; everyone here wears fabulous clothes and almost always looks their very best. Dillinger most frequently robbed banks in small or medium-sized towns, but here he only bothers with vast marble palaces of impeccable design....

― Dr Morbius, Sunday, June 28, 2009 1:15 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

except... this is completely not true.

i mean, waht about the woman who begs him to take her with them... the whole issue of the $3 dress... the many shots of beggars on the street... mccarthy's BSing.

this is also so so stupid, from that font blog:

According to this board, someone who seems to be from Brody’s studio (but who knows – it’s the Internet after all) claimed that it was inspired by WPA posters. How bad is this lettering? So bad that the fact that Dillinger was dead and gone before the inception of the WPA isn’t the worst thing about it. But let me say that again: Dillinger: 1903-1934. WPA: 1935-1943. So, okay, whatever websurfing that passes for research at Brody’s studio wasn’t as diligent as we could’ve hoped – one year, give or take, isn’t really a big deal, and I’m not usually one to let a few pesky facts get in the way of a good design.

like the WPA would have to be exactly contemporary with the life of john dillinger for it to be inspiration for the font on a poster for a film about his life??

yeah thats where i tuned out of the font blog.

sorry i take that back i tuned out of the font blog when i realized it was a blog about design

o no you dint

rent the Milius Dillinger folks. It's really good (as i mentioned way upthread).

in-house ilx designer ice cream, where are you now when we need you most?!

is the Milius-Oates film on disc?

Dargis over the moon (even on Crudup as Hoover):

Mr. Depp looks good as Dillinger — few contemporary actors can wear a fedora as persuasively — but the performance sneaks up on you, inching into your system scene by scene. The same holds true of “Public Enemies,” which looks and plays like no other American gangster film I can think of and very much like a Michael Mann movie, with its emphasis on men at work, its darkly moody passages, eruptions of violence and pictorial beauty. Mr. Mann’s digital manipulations, in particular, which encompass almost pure abstraction and interludes of hyper-realism, is worthy of longer exegesis, one that explores how this still-unfamiliar format is changing the movies: it allows, among other things, filmmakers to capture the eerie brightness of nighttime as never before.

http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/07/01/movies/01enemies.html

Milius: I rented mine on Netflix.

Man, if you guys love fabric, you're gonna love Public Enemies.

Other than that, enjoyed it a lot. Thought it suffered from the same thing as a lot of movies based on books -- crammed a bit too much into two and a half hours. There's one robbery midway through that could've been set up and much more fully realized. And the HD is crazy. I'm not kidding about the fabric of the overcoats and suits and prison outfits popping out at you.

The specific sociopolitical conditions of the time are crucial to the story, but one big thing almost entirely missing from "Public Enemies" is the Depression itself.

There were a few destitute looking people creeping into shot occasionally, but one thing I did notice was that nobody smoked. Aside from Bale lighting the cigar as a plot point, and, I think, a brief glimpse of a hoodlum with a cigarette holder, I only saw two people smoking. Otherwise in the bars, the restaurants, the police rooms, the movie theatres, the air was clean and clear.

Disappointed overall. I didn't like the messy, distracting camerawork. Neither Depp nor Bale impressed - and I never got any sense of how/why Dillanger was such a popular folk hero at the time. Not enough Baby Face Nelson either imo. I did like the gunfire sound though! But it left me cold.
I kinda wished I was watching Manhatten Melodrama tbh. I got a kick out of seeing those brief scenes up on the screen.

I kinda wished I was watching Manhatten Melodrama tbh

on TCM tonight! Cagney & Bogey to follow.

http://www.tcm.com/schedule/month/?cid=N&timezone=EST&oid=7/1/2009

the editing of the scene where he watches manhattan melodrama is amazing.

i have no idea what u mean by messy camerawork!

this was even better than miami vice.

there, i said it.

camerawork was a bit weird yes particularly the bit where dill is lying on the bed w/ the bleeding arm and bale's men start shooting at the cabin place and he jumps up. yeah he had a wee surprise but it just looked a bit crap

picture quality distracted me a little too esp in high contrast lighting bits - kind of looked like making-of documentary footage esp bits on the street outside the cinema

film was fine

nice to see phelan and herc I guess and that english guy as babyface nelson

kind of looked like making-of documentary footage esp bits on the street outside the cinema

This. What was that? I was trying to describe this to my bf (after both of us seeing it together) and he didn't know what I meant. It was distracting.

digital video

Maybe I'm a philistine, but I hated that effect. I prefer movies to look like they are movies. I don't want to be reminded that Johnny Depp is just a guy on a set.

Another distraction: I had a really hard time understanding ANY of the dialogue for the first 1/2 hour or so, and quite a lot thereafter. A combination of the accents, the mumbled delivery, and the fucked-up sound levels.

Good parts: Marion was awesome, and the Biograph scene actually had my heart pounding.

it's too bad that depp is in this, but at least it isn't leo. i know he thinks that he's a master of disguise or something, but he always reminds me of a 12 year old playing abe lincoln in the school play when he plays dress up. same with leo.

OK I'm a HUGE Michael Mann fan. I think Manhunter is ridiculously superior to Silence of the Lambs. I adored Miami Vice and Collateral and moments of The Insider. Etc. Mainstream Hollywood doesn't get much better than him. So it pains me to admit that I found Public Enemies a rather large disappointment.

DavidM already nailed most of my objections:

Neither Depp nor Bale impressed - and I never got any sense of how/why Dillanger was such a popular folk hero at the time.

Apart from one Robin Hoodism, I had no clue myself (from the film). When Dillinger passes his de facto fans in a car, I was left thinking "he couldn't have been THAT pretty." (He wasn't; I checked when I got home.)

Not enough Baby Face Nelson either imo.

Yes! The film is very poorly titled. It's really about one public enemy, Dillinger.

I did like the gunfire sound though! But it left me cold.

That gunfire stood out waaaaay more than any of the digital visuals. But to what end?

I kinda wished I was watching Manhatten Melodrama tbh. I got a kick out of seeing those brief scenes up on the screen.

Me too! Which is sad because Manhattan Melodrama was directed by the relatively hacky W.S. Van Dyke II. Although I will admit that this scene was beautifully constructed. The discontinuous Myrna Loys go on Mann's career reel.

I didn't like the messy, distracting camerawork.

This was worst of all. What's with all the handheld? Where's the Mann of skewed compositions and bizarre editing rhythms? (Only Shyamalan [!] creates more masterful shot/reverse shots in mainstream Hwd. But where were they here?) Where's the Mann of the austere pan/tilt? A lot of the visuals seemed rushed and lazy and purposeless.

The aforementioned Manhattan Melodrama scene, the very last scene (no spoilers but not much to spoil really), and the shots of the phone tapping bank were the only hints of Mann's genius. A solid entertainment? Absolutely. But little more. Maybe it'll work better on DVD.

P.S. McCarthy is not the first person I turn to on anything re: film. But he's right about this one - it's VERY easy to forget The Depression is happening in this film.

Maybe it was a bit too jokey? I know Miami Vice had the medulla oblongata punchline and Foxx/Farrell campy exchanges and stuff, but Depp seemed so Jack Sparrow at times. And the common thread with Mann's heroes is their dedication and expertise at work, that's how we identify with them - but there was never any indication that Dillinger was a particularly capable robber (yet everyone loved him) and Bale seemed downright incompetent. There needed to be more to Dillinger - justify the lovability with more characterization or the greatest robber ever stuff with more work.

Giovanni Ribisi was great in his five minutes, and I liked the guy who played Frank Nitti.

The interior of the log hotel (the most video-y of the shots) worked better in a similar context in Miami Vice (when it looked like modern surveillance/doc footage).

The timeline seemed weird too - Dillinger goes into prison as a boy for a stupid crime, emerges as super-criminal, breaks out his boys eight weeks later, by the time he makes it to Chicago after the escape he's public enemy #1, known to all, etc.?

*minor spolier*
The sequence in Sioux Falls felt truncated. Maybe there will be a longer version on the DVD, but it felt like there was much more potential in that moment, when what seems like a simple bank robbery turns into a whole town in the middle of nowhere pulling guns on them.

i thought this was very good - great acting all around, directing was on point, and i really didn't think that there was one extraneous or wasted scene, which was my big beef with miami vice despite the continuous erection i got from just looking at it

Damn this movie looks *amazing.* You really feel like you've got 20/15 vision... the muzzle flashes lighting up faces, the manufacturers stamps on the guns, signs, store facades, the glare from lighting flares. Once you get past the initial strangeness of seeing the 1930s filmed in DV, it was actually pretty engrossing but not quite enough to get past the badly disjointed script.

Overall, one step forward one step back. Worth it alone for the Little Bohemia Lodge shootout.

Damn this movie looks *amazing.* You really feel like you've got 20/15 vision... the muzzle flashes lighting up faces, the manufacturers stamps on the guns, signs, store facades, the glare from lighting flares. Once you get past the initial strangeness of seeing the 1930s filmed in DV

this is totally otm - i left the theatre feeling like i was seeing SUPER clearly which is like what happens when i get new contacts or something

Obligatory Discordian namecheck

http://appendix.23ae.com/stuff/jddfys_mcard.gif

75th anniversary of the death of Dillinger takes place at the Biograph on July 22nd.
http://www.ghosttours.com/press/dillinger.htm

Two other things:

Someone above mentioned the intermittently cruddy sound. I thought this was just me. The opening 5 mins. or so were so difficult to hear that I was about to tell the manager to turn it up. It got better but there were moments that were inaudible...and they didn't seem like Altmanesque moments.

*MINOR SPOILER*

Why wasn't there mention in the closing credits of what happened to Anna (aka The Lady in Red)? Her role is in the film was small, yes. But her role in the Dillinger story is monumental. So...

dialogue in this one was MARGINALLY more audible than in MIAMI VICE, but the murkiness is obv deliberate on mann's part, all part of his digital realism - and i admire the way that he has stuck to his aesthetic guns w/ the whole look of PUBLIC ENEMIES, he really is using commercial cinema to experiment with form/technology

but - sign - i wish the script didn't contain so many cliches (the doomed love affair, the dream of escape that will never happen, dillinger and purves being but two sides of the same coin blahdiblah, the independent gentleman bandit put out of business by the mob etc etc) or feel so slapdash and routine.

imo the cliches worked coz dillinger was trying to be like a guy in the talkies, a little. they didn't hit you over the head with it, but i liked the way that aspect rubbed up agin the look of it, which was (obviously) nothing like the look of films in 1934. (most films now look like they were made in 1934, compared to this.)

the sound design also -- basically the cinemas seem to have been playing it too quietly -- but the mix of realness and romantic strings, i thought it was really effective. loving it. most convincing romantic storyline in any mann film i think. marion cotillard was aces.

so many beautiful shots, not just there to be beautiful, and not in a way i'd seen before. must be the combination of deep staging, the fact that digital can pick up so much in low lights, and the handheld, 360-ness. it's nothing like handheld celluloid.

And the common thread with Mann's heroes is their dedication and expertise at work, that's how we identify with them - but there was never any indication that Dillinger was a particularly capable robber (yet everyone loved him) and Bale seemed downright incompetent.

this is true about purvis, but also historically accurate! mann deviating from his norm isn't a big crime.

Yes! The film is very poorly titled. It's really about one public enemy, Dillinger.

uhhh... this film ends with the fbi tortuing a woman and murdering someone in the street.

maybe that the thing about digital in low light: it picks up too much

funny that the lady in red thing wasn't really in the movie - dill's wiki article says she was his "girlfriend" but there was no sign that she was anything other than a "girl" maybe of his because they didn't want to detract from the billie and bye-bye-blackbird bit? also some police def says and double-underlines that the romanian chick will be wearing a white blouse on an orange skirt and THAT's how we'll know it's him

Yeah, I always knew Dillinger's story as "his deceitful girlfriend tipped off the feds" so I was waiting for Billie to turn him in...

most convincing romantic storyline in any mann film i think. marion cotillard was aces.

Admittedly I don't think I've seen any other Mann films but I did not find the romantic storyline particularly convincing. I thought both actors did a good job but it felt a bit rushed. Like a couple of preliminary conversations between them had to stand in for an emotional connection that the narrative didn't have time to show.

The racetrack scene was one place where the DV created such vivid effects -- both the textures of all the suits and the right amount of sweat on the actors.

Lots of familiar Mann moments in this movie (listed as cliches above): the blue-tinted sex scene, the cop-criminal face-to-face, the flying-over-the-city shot (though this one is remarkable, since it's a plane in 1932), parallel of Gong Li in Miami Vice and Cotilllard in this one...He does what he does.

gonna rescreen 'thief' to check, but the 'shot by both sides/outfit = cops' aspect is in that iirc.

as with miami vice, i wish he could do a tv show with the same material -- and on this budget. with all the little glimpses into the bigger chicago crime world, it'd be great to see the thing done as an epic deadwood-type series. apparently the book it's based on was lined up with hbo at one point.

jean renoir's quote "a director makes only one movie in his life, then he breaks it into pieces and makes it again" is pretty much made 4 mann

i can see why people would not get fully into this movie. it's definitely not for everyone. i think it's awesome tho

seems like it's been getting panned (even here, where it was filmed) but is the kind of movie that's going to get repped for in a couple of years, after the pressure is off.

I did not find the romantic storyline particularly convincing. I thought both actors did a good job but it felt a bit rushed.

Damn near everything felt rushed. Which is why the "uhhh..." phrase below is a silly assertion:

Yes! The film is very poorly titled. It's really about one public enemy, Dillinger.

uhhh... this film ends with the fbi tortuing a woman and murdering someone in the street.

There isn't enough screen time for anyone other than Dillinger (much less the FBI) to register as the public enemies of the title.

uhhh no.

there was a fairly detailed storyline involving hoover resorting to hiring roughnecks to get the job done, purvis finding he has qualms about this when they torture people, then an extended scene of torture on a non-combatant. and then they gun down dillinger in the street.

it's not mann's fault if you're too dumb to follow a movie.

Keywords:

"fairly": pronounced "uhhh..."

"qualms": little more than a shot and less than a minute of screen time

"extended": approx. three minutes of screen time out of 140

"dillinger": Dillinger

I never really thought Dillinger was meant to be aping the gangster pictures, though he did obviously love him. I felt Nelson was there as a contrast, being the cliché gangster-movie wannabe, even seeming to laugh hysterically when he was firing his tommy gun at Sioux Falls.

The take on Dillinger all around was really interesting. Never fully embracing cliché, but always dancing around it. One of the positives of not showing too much of the depression (though this was there) was to not give any excuses for his behaviour, but it does show him as a loyal, fairly honourable, and certainly very smart if arrogant. I think Depp did a really great job, despite what I had read beforehand.

'obviously love them', rather

also, Zoller Seitz on Mann

uhhh no.

there was a fairly detailed storyline involving hoover resorting to hiring roughnecks to get the job done, purvis finding he has qualms about this when they torture people, then an extended scene of torture on a non-combatant. and then they gun down dillinger in the street.

it's not mann's fault if you're too dumb to follow a movie.

― FREE DOM AND ETHAN (special guest stars mark bronson)

Except that's not what happened. The torturer and ultimate shooter was one of Purvis and Hoover's fine, learned young men - the gray-haired man who puts the torturer up against the wall to stop him and listens to Dillinger's dying words was one of those roughnecks.

^^ this is true, but idk, i think i've made my point that the feds are construed as 'a public enemy' in the film. like when JEH says 'arrest anyone who ever spoke to dillinger'.

do not like that piece on the dennis lim site. "during Mann’s stint at at London’s International Art School" -- no such place, for example.

A lifeless movie -- maybe Mann's worst.

After the serviceable dialogue and totally predictable meet-cute between Deep and Cotillad, I just said the hell with it and stared at Depp and Bale's cheekbones for the next two hours, wondering whose were more chiseled.

The political subplot involving Hoover (Cudrup's entertaining performance suggested a much better movie Mann could have made) was really the most promising element.

This was fitfully good, but Miami Vice did me way better.

it lacked the immediacy of Collateral, but wasn't quite as out there as Vice. I did enjoy it a lot, and look forward to seeing it again.

is the kind of movie that's going to get repped for in a couple of years, after the pressure is off.

idk I think the opposite will happen and the Mann stans will come to see it as the miscast, so-so scripted misstep that it is.

We already have. :(

Zoller Seitz:
Mann never personally directed an episode of the show

??

I walked away disappointed from every Mann movie I've seen except The Insider and then saw something new with each repeated viewing (even 10 or 20 times later), so I'm expecting this one (which I enjoyed overall and was blown away by in some moments) will do the same.

Zoller Seitz:
Mann never personally directed an episode of the show

??

according to imdb, this is true

I walked away disappointed from every Mann movie I've seen except The Insider and then saw something new with each repeated viewing (even 10 or 20 times later), so I'm expecting this one (which I enjoyed overall and was blown away by in some moments) will do the same.

But this movie doesn't even have The Insider's juicy cast. This movie had good character actors and gave them little to do.

Yes! The film is very poorly titled. It's really about one public enemy, Dillinger.

Except that the book the movie is based on is called "Public Enemies." It's a great book (written by the same guy who wrote Barbarians At The Gate) and it focuses on the criminal crime wave of 1933-34, with Bonnie & Clyde, Dillinger, Ma Barker, and Pretty Boy Floyd vs. the FBI.

I think the main issue I had with the script stems from the sheer size of the source material - think it would have worked better if Mann had built up the Dillinger story from scratch rather than eliminating the non-Dillinger elements of the book. Still, there were connections that I completely missed - Giovanni Ribisi's character was apparently part of the Barker gang, but I don't remember if that was made explicit.

ITS CALLED PUBLIC ENEMIES BECAUSE DILLINGER AND PURVISH ARE ENEMIES YOU MAROONS

i was going to say something about the connections in mann movies need to develop angularly in your head or whatever bs bu slocki sums it up.

the seitz piece could do with some evidence. he doesn't really make the case that mann was the auteur-god behind it, and i don't believe a word of this:

Although Yerkovich created the show's world and characters, and Mann executive-produced, the decision to prize picture and sound over the written word tips the creative balance toward Mann—a filmmaker whose preference for the visceral is powerfully illustrated in a sequence from episode five of Season 1, “Calderone's Return, Part 2,” a dialogue-free montage scored to Russ Ballard's “Voices,” showing Crockett and Tubbs headed to the Bahamas on a mission of revenge, their grudges illustrated in flashback snippets of outrages perpetrated by Calderone in preceding episodes.

who knows? but what the hell does 'visceral' mean there anyway? just speculative. mann did direct some of 'crime story', which is closer to his main shit anyway imo.

There he goes with that evidence stuff again.

Yes! The film is very poorly titled. It's really about one public enemy, Dillinger.

Ok so in response to this, we first heard that the title is fine because the film features many of Dillinger's criminal contemporaries (who apparently had oodles of screen time).

Then we heard it's because the film features the FBI who are bad (and who also apparently had oodles of screen time) (but then that was shot down anyway since the good FBI agent stopped the torture and shot Dillinger).

Then we heard it's because the book it was based on is called Public Enemies.

THEN we heard it's because Dillinger and Purvis (who also had oodles...) are enemies of each other.

Next we'll hear that it was really in homage to all the politically conscious rappers who arose in Chuck D's wake.

Y'all ain't doing Mann/this film any favors.

there could be... more than one reason why the title is appropriate? the idea that the film shows the FBI are themselves a threat to the public hasn't been shot down: j. edgar hoover quoting "the italians" on "taking off the white gloves" in 1934 seemed a pretty clear reference to fascism, for instance.

discussion of the title has gone on way too long.

Y'all ain't doing Mann/this film any favors.

― Kevin John Bozelka, Saturday, July 4, 2009 7:36 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

because we're suggesting that the title could be ambiguous or have a more shaded meaning than "this film features and gives equal time to more than one criminal"? let it go dude. let it go.

kind of hate this, but i'll post it anyway: Knives Out for Michael Mann

guys, if you can't prove what the justification for the title is, the movie is officially bad. that's the way it works, i'm sorry.

Who should let it go. let it go?

let it ride

I think the movie sort of missed the mark as a "last of a dying breed" tale, and as much as I admire Mann's focus on the protagonist(s), it's remarkable how little detail made it into a 140 minute movie set. Little on the secondary players, Depression, little on Chicago at large. And when was the last time any of you saw a movie set in a major city without, say, one establishing skyline shot? Did this movie even have a single wide shot (other than the rare landscape)? I do admire the restraint, but it made the movie seem a little smaller than it should have been, in the literal sense. Lots of scope, not a lot of scale. Certainly less so than "Collateral" and "Miami Vice," at least, though just as hypnotically quotidian as both of those recent minor Mann works (albeit major minor Mann).

That said, is there any other director working today so thematically focused as Mann? Highly specialized loners tragically going about their lonely business? Also love the way Mann as of late has been embracing DV on artistic rather than budgetary grounds, responding to the way it captures "natural" darkness - street lights, moonlight and the like - and also the infinite depth of field (like the shooting of Pretty Boy Floyd in the apple orchard). A little odd to see a period film in DV, but the movie is more than a little odd in other regards, as well. Also, the POV shot toward the beginning of the dying man being dragged by the getaway car is one for the ages.

Also, there are totally other "public enemies' beyond JD in this movie. Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, Nitti ... it's a movie about the ending era of nationally known "public enemies." Also, interesting/brave that there is not a single mention of Capone. I like the idea of all these parallel bad guys, operating more or less independently of one another, like super-villains in comic books.

I think the movie sort of missed the mark as a "last of a dying breed" tale, and as much as I admire Mann's focus on the protagonist(s), it's remarkable how little detail made it into a 140 minute movie set. Little on the secondary players, Depression, little on Chicago at large. And when was the last time any of you saw a movie set in a major city without, say, one establishing skyline shot? Did this movie even have a single wide shot (other than the rare landscape)? I do admire the restraint, but it made the movie seem a little smaller than it should have been, in the literal sense. Lots of scope, not a lot of scale. Certainly less so than "Collateral" and "Miami Vice," at least, though just as hypnotically quotidian as both of those recent minor Mann works (albeit major minor Mann).

1) that era/"breed" last only 14 months or so
2) no establishing shots is a GOOD thing
3) almost everything, even the closeups, WAS wide.

capone was banged up by '33 tho

xpost

the title makes total (ambiguous/ironic) sense! esp for mann movie. which i just think are all (and i guess this might be obvious but i don't seem to see it written about much) way more auteur than some would give credit for.

i mean, with his films i care so much less about plot and dynamic character development (and, tbh, i think so does he), than the posited-as-universal struggle to live out a dream while in constant battle to stay alive; it's all i'm trying, i'm trying, i'm winning, i'm losing, i'm dying - no matter what 'side' you're on.

and though i find his films depressing partly because of this, i (generally) end up being in love with them about two days after viewing. i really think he's trying to put us through as much of an ordeal as possible while still making a big-budget hollywood movie. and that is kind of brilliant in itself.

kind-of looking like making-of documentary

I said the same coming out of this. I hadn't really noticed until the Little Bohemia shoot-out, but at that point the unusual angles and DV made it look just like TV shooting behind-the-scenes on set, and suddenly they all became actors playing with toys. The flare-lit scene outside the theatre had the same problem.

Combined with the handheld it also gave bits of it a whole Blair Witch feel, and it blew the illusion. Struggled to get back into it.

(Same thing with the super-clarity -- just made things like the matchbox and some of the clothes look like props.)

x-post

1) Clearly that's what Mann was getting at with the meeting of Depp and Bale in jail, where Depp asks him more or less what he's going to do after all the bad guys are caught or killed and Bale pauses to consider. Also, in the end title noted Purvis' subsequent suicide. Also, when Depp looks at the mug shots all lined with, stamped "deceased." And also with all the talk of Hoover's "new" methods, and the organized crime syndicate's embrace of new technology versus Dillinger's meat and potatoes work. And the constant comparison of Dillinger's modest scores and the numbers of the new criminal economy.

2) No establishing shots was not a bad thing, just a strange choice, considering Mann's obsession with shooting on location and authenticity. Maybe the lack of establishing shots was a way around the intrusion of illusion-busting contemporary architecture?

3) I didn't mean wide as in 'Scope-wide. I meant that almost everything was some form of a close-up or medium shot, which was cool, as a stylistic affect. But again, an unusual choice. The courtroom scene might have been the only wide one packed with extras. Almost every other scene was most interested in only a handful of people at a time. I do love Mann's use of close-up, especially his behind-the-ear cam, but it's not often a movie set in a bustling city seems so uncluttered with people and pedestrians. I wonder if it was a budget consideration/constraint?

I love me some Michael Mann, though, since for all the flaws I find in many of his films, I find each of them near endlessly fascinating on several levels.

This one is not endlessly fascinating. How weird: it's underwritten YET lethargically paced.

The old Texas bounty hunter or whatever was the most interesting character, and his last scene with Cotillard would have crackled if a better screenwriter would have come up with lines worthy of the situation's ambiguities.

Sure it's fascinating, at the least as a further exploration of Mann's motifs. Or, more generously, as a subtle subversion of period flicks and/or cops and robbers movies. At the very least, I think it's fascinating to consider how the flaws inform its achievements - was the dialog mixed too low, or meant to be missed? etc. - or how corners cut might have sent Mann and the movie in different directions in search of a solution. Whether or not he found those solutions is one thing, but I think the movie's still packed with all sorts of stuff worth unpacking. And whether the movie ultimately succeeds as a dramatic narrative is another debate, too, but as a Mann film it's very much in line with everything he's done, save "Ali."

hmmm...can't understand how anyone is disappointed in this. i thought it was fantastic.

I'm confused about one scene, and for formality's sake

SPOILER WARNINGS
How did Dillinger and friend escape from the shootout at the Wisconsin motel/lodge? From what I could tell: Nelson hijacks a cop car and picks up JD and friend, but then the car wipes out and Nelson is gunned down. Next thing we see is JD and friend driving elsewhere. Wha' happened?

I wondered that too. And normally, I wouldn't care about such things including the title I have to let go let go (so melodramatic). But in the absence of the Mannerisims I mentioned adoring above, one has to turn to narrative, title, etc. and even there, they were wanting.

they slipped out the back out of a window onto a lower roof and down and through the woods and two cops were following them and there was some shooting between them and dill's pal got shot but they kept running then they reached a house and there was a car and a guy outside and dill aimed his gun at this man and told him to give him the keys then they were in the car driving

Wow, I don't remember JD stealing a car. I really thought Nelson picked them up and it was JD shooting from the car at the flatfeet.

conrad is otm.

No one has talked about how beautiful JD's last scene was? For shame. That's the climax Mann has been circling around forever (lol lacan).

Huh, just noticed that this was the first time Mann worked with Dante Spinotti since "The Insider" (he also did "Manhunter," "Mohicans" and "Heat"). Dion Beebe did the last two Mann movies, which of course were DV as well. I wonder what Spinotti, one of the all time great DPs made of DV this time out? Or what he made of Mann and his methods (not to mention that Mann is prone to playing DP himself on set) after such a long break?

I think Beebe had the feel much better than Spinotti.

I wondered that too. And normally, I wouldn't care about such things including the title I have to let go let go (so melodramatic). But in the absence of the Mannerisims I mentioned adoring above, one has to turn to narrative, title, etc. and even there, they were wanting.

― Kevin John Bozelka, Sunday, July 5, 2009 1:57 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

have u ever successfully "turned to title" with a movie you didn't like?

No one has talked about how beautiful JD's last scene was? For shame. That's the climax Mann has been circling around forever (lol lacan).

― Leee, Sunday, July 5, 2009 2:11 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

amazing sequence, so beautifully constructed and edited.

Since I didn't care about him at all, his death was merely beautifully constructed and edited.

I'm all for the cinema of action and gesture, and Mann in Heat and The Insider showed how an actor can register with not much dialogue in his widescreen HD spaces. This movie just felt attenuated and rushed at the same time, which is some kind of feat, I guess.

it was originally going to be called Feat

Michael Mann's "Feat," lol.

more like Stunt.

have u ever successfully "turned to title" with a movie you didn't like?

Yup. You were in it. You won an Oscar for it in the 1930s although the acting is no doubt out of style today. Bit too melodramatic what with all the hair pulling and the back of the hand on the forehead.

But yes, to answer your very obnoxious question seriously, this happened very recently to me with Day Night Day Night.

The second of the two Day Nights was pretty good.

The Color of Night

this was one of the least rewarding movies i've seen in a long time. almost everyone (except cotillard) seemed very wooden, and aside from fundamental stuff like "staying alive" or "doing a job" i couldn't really sense any motivation behind what the characters were doing.

i really didn't LIKE this portrayal of dillinger -- he seemed like a grade-a douchebag and not even an entertaining bad-guy douchebag (a la pacino). why should i care? why should i root for him?

I still think a lot of that is because of Depp (or how Depp was used) - too smirky. Or maybe it was just investing so much with the actors/characters now - Mann's films have always been about place, situation and action much more than the people themselves, IMO. Pacino and DeNiro are both fine in Heat, but is it hard to imagine a successful film utilizing other actors? I don't think that's true here, at least for Dillinger/Depp. Your reaction rests on how you respond to him/his performance (and the universally praised elements tend to be those where he's just a piece in a scene or series of scenes, rather than the central element, I believe)

There's nothing wrong (referring way upthread) with Mann 'deviating from his norm' (which the Insider kind of is, no?), but he just doesn't do it successfully here. There's a nobility to his portrayal of 'work' in other films that's missing. We've got the same guys who have nothing but their careers, only they're pretty bad at it, don't seem to take it seriously and really who gives a crap about either of them?

how is this movie a deviation? it's like almost archetypical mann.

i really didn't LIKE this portrayal of dillinger -- he seemed like a grade-a douchebag and not even an entertaining bad-guy douchebag (a la pacino). why should i care? why should i root for him?

Yeah, I totally agree with this. The worst was the scene at Cotillard's job where his beating up some dude who just wants his jacket and then being a total psycho somehow convinces her to go with him.

right, and then he said to the guy "keep the tip money" -- cotillard doesn't even get her tip!

he's not more of a douche than de niro in 'heat'.

not sure the purpose here is to root for dillinger. the flip side of that coin is you're not supposed to root against him either. he spends an awful lot of the movie not understanding why he does the things he does himself. the inversion of the typical Mann criminal here is that, unlike previously where they had an idea of what happiness was but could never attain it because of forces beyond their control, Dillinger doesn't really know what that happiness is until the final scene in the cinema, when he's more or less lost everything already anyway.

i liked this, but i probably wouldnt see it again (depp's old lady getting roughed up was pretty hard for me to stomach)

the log cabin set piece towards the end was the best he's done since Heat

kinda got the feeling mann's entire rationale for doing this movie is he wanted to make some vintage gun porn... loved all the shots looking down the iron sights

agree w/ppl who pointed out how convincing the romantic storyline is, tho i think it was basically accidental - there's not much attention paid to fleshing it out in the actual narrative, but depp & cotillon do a great job of bringin that shit 2 lyfe imo

holy cats i have really come to loathe christian bale; billy crudup fukkin OWNED though. don frye also owned, as did all the texas lawmen dudes. i would've liked to have seen more of them but i guess they were mostly just there to contrast with the shitbirdification of law enforcement wrt the g-men

I like the idea of all these parallel bad guys, operating more or less independently of one another, like super-villains in comic books.

― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, July 4, 2009 5:05 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark

this is pretty otm imo

also i guess this is a giant no duh but it honestly didnt occur to me until this movie how obsessed mann is with ROBBERY. i always just broke down his motifs as cops vs criminals but really he only gives a motherfuck about guys who steal shit, what's up with that

Killing innocents or cops during a robbery is an incidental, and in Mann's world the true professionals know it is best avoided. This ensures that the robber protagonists aren't so outside the audience's moral compass as to completely alienate them. Notable how Cruise's hitman is seen as a morally reprehensible villain in all stages ("you're missing essential parts").

Probably more important is that a good robbery takes meticulous planning and a strong work ethic, and Mann LOVES work.

also he sure loves cars too

Though of course, "Manhunter," "The Insider," and "Mohicans" have nothing to do with robberies. Or cars. I suppose "Heat" is the apotheosis of all his cop themes, from "LA Takedown" to "Crime Story" and "Miami Vice" (TV and movie versions). And I suppose just about everything he has done, right up to "Public Enemies," begins with this scene:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfetsPmDWAk

Two other thoughts:

-Mann's DVD "director's cut" are all oddly inferior to the theatrical versions, especially "Miami Vice," which changes one of the coolest things that movie had going for it (that abrupt "right in the middle of the action" opening).

- "Risky Business" is the teen sex comedy Mann never made. Chicago, Tangerine Dream, dreamy cinematography ...

Oh, and great "Thief" essay here (which includes a link to that scene):

http://kirbydotsmovies.blogspot.com/2009/02/thief.html

Sums up Mann thus:

"It is worth noting that as much as Mann's films deal with characters that identify to a compulsive degree with their vocation or career, the characteristic malaise of a Mann protagonist is actually the longing to escape that vocation."

Which I suppose does make "Public Enemies" somewhat anomalous, even if Bale's underwritten character clearly fits this template.

suppose "Heat" is the apotheosis of all his cop themes, from "LA Takedown" to "Crime Story" and "Miami Vice" (TV and movie versions).

i always used to think Heat was meant to be the movie where he got that stuff out of his system, but he's spent most of this decade disproving that theory.

-Mann's DVD "director's cut" are all oddly inferior to the theatrical versions, especially "Miami Vice," which changes one of the coolest things that movie had going for it (that abrupt "right in the middle of the action" opening).

waht?! really?! i love that opening :(

miami vice was pretty dope but the more i have seen it the more i wish there was more focus on luis tosar as opposed to john ortiz, who seems like such a bullshit weak villain.

haha i dont even remember the villain.

i'm a fiend for mojitos~~~~~~~

will poor sonny ever find love???

x-post Yeah, lame director's cut of "Vice" opens with a boat race (often shot from underwater) that leads into the nightclub scene. Completely unnecessary. The theatrical abrupt open was one of the coolest things I've ever seen.

i like both versions!

the dir-cut has herc from 'the wire' and the boat race is dope.

lol is herc mann's new ted levine

Director's Cut pads some other scenes, I think. And it's the only one available on Blu-Ray :(

Herc from the Wire is in the theatrical cut, too. And he's in Public Enemies!

Herc, vocation, criminals being careful not to drop bodies... am I reading a The Wire thread?!?!

The same site with the "Thief" essay (and other perceptive essays on Mann) posts this rave:

http://kirbydotsmovies.blogspot.com/2009/07/dying-breaths-some-thoughts-on-public.html

Even if one disagrees with his assessment, I stand by my assertion that for all its flaws there's an awful lot left to address in this movie.

>>Damn this movie looks *amazing.* You really feel like you've got 20/15 vision... the muzzle flashes lighting up faces, the manufacturers stamps on the guns, signs, store facades, the glare from lighting flares. Once you get past the initial strangeness of seeing the 1930s filmed in DV

this is totally otm - i left the theatre feeling like i was seeing SUPER clearly which is like what happens when i get new contacts or something

― a poppy seed NAGL (J0rdan S.), Friday, July 3, 2009 2:06 AM (6 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Huh, this film mostly just looked kind of shaky and blurry to me. When they showed the Manhattan Melodrama scenes, I wished the whole thing had been shot in B&W on film.

Also, maybe it was the theater, but everything looked sort of washed out and/or underlit.

Did you see it at the Davis or somewhere with good picture/sound?

man i saw this today and thought it was great. it's funny and a little surprising so many people on this thread didn't like it. i was totally absorbed, even though i'm not sure why (true, no particular reason to care about the characters), and the ending was sort of devastating for reasons i'm equally unclear on. i'll have to think about it. one thing that occurred to me is that in some ways i felt like it did some of the things that other people said they saw or felt in the dark knight (where i totally didn't see or feel them at all). i mean in terms of the moral ambiguity of the clash between order and chaos etc. but it's not really a message movie or anything. its effects are a lot more close-up than that.

the action scenes just totally bristled. the whole movie bristled. it bummed me out, but i wanna see it again.

i really didn't LIKE this portrayal of dillinger -- he seemed like a grade-a douchebag and not even an entertaining bad-guy douchebag (a la pacino). why should i care? why should i root for him?

he did more or less seem like a douchebag, but that's probably par for the course among bank robbers. i liked the portrayal, because it made him sharp and charismatic enough that he made sense as the guy who things revolved around, but not really very smart or likable. and of course he wasn't, because how smart and likable can a guy like that be? he was sort of feral, basically, surviving from day to day.

which is no reason to root for him -- i don't think the movie does, exactly -- or even to care. but i'm not sure you have to care about dillinger for the movie to work. he's not really its moral center; he's more like the subject of its inquisition.

it's crazy though... the look of this movie is so bizarre for period, it's really really in yr face

yeah, thinking about it some more, the rawness of the video in a lot of places is really jarring and effective. thinking especially of the big shootout at the lodge in the woods, where you get all the graininess of nighttime video resolution and up-close handheld stuff with depp as he's caroming around from room to room. never seen anything quite like it.

Did you see it at the Davis or somewhere with good picture/sound?

At the Davis. :/

xpost -- it's sort of weird that not many of the reviews i've read talk much about the filmmaking, which seems like the most important part of the movie to me. (as usual in a mann movie.) talking about historical accuracy and suchwhat seems pretty beside the point.

most movie reviewers are eng lit grads, basically.

the most annoying reviwing trend is from the trade or vaguely tradey writers like that woman at the daily beast. they almost want mann to fail to prove some obscure point. it actually did okay last weekend, so anne thompson at variety is all 'expect it to drop off!' well yeah, it probably will. it's not clear what kind of movie they do want. the daily beast lady just hammered away at 'michael mann is a tough guy on set'.

an exception is scott foundas' review, which is good and pinpoints exactly the shot that most startled me:

Visually, Public Enemies seems like the summation of something Mann has been steadily building toward ever since he first incorporated video-shot footage into the dynamic opening training montage of Ali in 2001. Where digital methods have gradually become the industry standard by simulating the dense, luxuriant textures of film, Mann embraces video precisely for the ways in which it is unlike film: for the hyper-real clarity of its images, for the way the lightweight cameras move through space, and for its ability to see sharper and more deeply into his beloved night. At every turn, Mann rejects classical notions of cinematic "beauty" and formulates new ones. The sounds and images rush at you, headlong, and before you can fully get a handle on them, something else takes their place. (I am haunted by one particular shot, of Dillinger being wakened by gunshots, the camera springing off his body as if it, too, had been startled from sleep.)

(I am haunted by one particular shot, of Dillinger being wakened by gunshots, the camera springing off his body as if it, too, had been startled from sleep.)

Haha waht? He reacted like Jack Sparrow being told all the rum had gone at that moment.
Dear me.

Mann stans are some real die-hards huh? Fair enough.

great use of music in this, video was pretty startling in this, even moreso than how it looked in Miami Vice and Collateral I think because of the period setting

amazing film. i have no idea if it was any good (maybe the script felt rushed or almost incompetent at times), but seeing movie-scale stories and emotions on crisp HD is v. powerful to me, and i was kind of a wreck in the last ten mins.

still feel like there are serious and ugly technical problems with motion blur and rapid camera movements on this F23 thing.

these are interesting if you are camera dork like me:

http://www.studiodaily.com/filmandvideo/currentissue/Co-Producer-Bryan-Carroll-on-the-Tech-Behind-Public-Enemies_11048.html

http://www.studiodaily.com/main/topstory/DP-Dante-Spinotti-on-Public-Enemies_11045.html

how do you know if it's "amazing" if don't have any "idea how good it is"?

as in it amazed me

anyone seen:

http://www.moviegoods.com//Assets/product_images/1020/360935.1020.A.jpg

aka "guns, sins and bathtub gin"

Red for a Beef?

Red for a Crook.

same film

http://www.moviegoods.com//Assets/product_images/1020/203919.1020.A.jpg

these are interesting if you are camera dork like me:

http://www.studiodaily.com/filmandvideo/currentissue/Co-Producer-Bryan-Carroll-on-the-Tech-Behind-Public-Enemies_11048.html

http://www.studiodaily.com/main/topstory/DP-Dante-Spinotti-on-Public-Enemies_11045.html

― caek, Thursday, July 16, 2009 8:01 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

d*mn that's some interestin ass shit caek thanks for postin thats the ikind of thing i wanna see more of, less GAMES AS ART style analysis imo

cool i will check that

Saw it again. Still crappy.

does anyone still rep for or even remember this flat ugly boring pos

I remember it because I went to a fucking theater to see it. So in a sort of "never forget" way, yeah.

me tooni wonder is there scope for a class action or at least a survivors group

I have little memory of it aside from hating the super-digital video looking outdoor night gunfight scenes.

Which still makes it the most passable Johnny Depp movie since Sleepy Hollow.

There were gunfights? I remember nothing of this but I know I saw it on HBO at some point

Gun battle between the FBI and Dillinger's gang at a house in the country, I think? Or a hotel?

I love bits of it. Don't think it hangs together all that well.

it's definitely the best Depp movie in recent memory that i've seen. cotillard and lang are particular standouts and i agree w/cankles upthread about crudup. it's got a completely historically inaccurate rogues' gallery of villains, it reminds me of the warren beatty version of dick tracy in that regard. on that level i really liked it.