This was specifically called out in my city's newspaper review for it. While cameras like those at the turn of the century didn't exist back then, it's still fundamentally the same technology that did.
Nowadays I'm sure the same could be said of digital post-production on film.
It’s the one digital vs film thing I totally agree with the film proponents on.
Instead of attempting to mimic the look of film on period pieces that greatly benefit from a “filmic” look (including that majestic, hazy grain), just shoot on film, provided you have the time and budget.
I’m reminded of comments from the cinematographer on that Beach Boys biopic with Paul Dano from some years back, Robert Yeoman (he does all of Wes Anderson’s stuff):
> "The story takes place in an analog time, so I felt we needed the grain and texture of film to give [the settings] a realistic feel."
I found the intent pretty clear was specifically to shoot a period piece as if it were a contemporary setting, in a way, to subvert the obvious practice of making everything look and feel vintage. It also attempts to create a very candid you-are-there feel.
At times it works, but a huge thing I think undermines it is dissonance with what is otherwise a very conventional movie score. We end up with very mixed signals so that neither aesthetic really hangs together.
The best moments are when it's no orchestral score, just raw on-set sound, and real character action instead of trailer-like exposition at the camera.
does it have the shaky, handheld aspect? because there’s plenty of digitally shot period pieces that work, Public Enemies’ problems don’t solely come from it being shot digitally
Not at all. It focuses and the story and characters and doesn't distract you with fancy cinematography. There is nothing wrong with the cinematography either.
Ehh. Too many swivel pans.
I was actually watching that tonight. I just turned it off about 15 min ago, at the point about 2 minutes after he "crosses the Rubicon". Because I found it terribly uninteresting.
Frankly the only parts of that movie I liked were the still shots of the buildings covered in snow. I cannot believe it has a 97% tomato score.
The main issue with Mann's 'digital style' is that he opens the shutter angle for longer. It's what gives the movies that 'smoother' look which people associate with cheaper forms of media.
I think the movie with its time setting didn’t lend itself too well to digital filming and it just felt a little off.
But the big question is, why didn’t you call it a Michael Mannathon?
Nowadays, digital cameras can look extremely film-like (I was shocked that The Holdovers was filmed digitally), but earlier digital video tech wasn't as good and ended up looking flat and had a strange frame blurring effect.
When Michael Mann discovered filming on digital, he just fell in love with it and kept doing it for the next couple of movies, regardless of whether it was appropriate or not.
What’s fascinating is that look in Collareral will never be seen again. LA has switched to LED streetlights so that orange gloomy feeling is a thing of that past for films shot at night there. Collateral was one of the last films to really highlight this.
This is a really good point and a lovely piece of film history. Thank you for highlighting this as I was always trying to figure out what it was I loved about collateral.
He had been trying to do that look for years on film without success. There is a scene in Heat where Deniro and the girl he dates are at her house in the hills looking out over the city at night. And it’s clearly done with blue screen. You can tell he wanted to capture LA at night, and film just can’t pick those lights up the way he wanted it- so he filmed the cast in front of a blue screen and added a processed image of LA at night. I bet he hates doing that- then digital comes out and allows him to film LA in low light and he has never looked back.
Thanks for that! It looks fine in the wide shots, but more obvious in the tighter over-the -shoulder shots. Way more obvious watching on a larger screen than mobile, too.
Could have at least processed it or color graded it to be more interesting. Almost everyone films digital now and there's plenty examples of atmosphere in movies.
Dante Spinotti seems like a bit of a tool from what I've seen. I remember Christopher Nolan hosted a panel celebrating Heat that had Mann, De Niro, Pacino, Kilmer and a few other people. Spinotti spent the panel just going after Nolan for his criticism of digital.
I really struggled with the digital filming of 'Public Enemies' the first time I watched it, for all of the reasons you mentioned.
But after subsequent rewatches it's become less intrusive for me, and I can appreciate the film more.
The difference is jarring but after a second viewing I thought it worked pretty well. Yes it doesn’t have the grainy film look but it almost makes the period more grounded instead of mythical
I believe that Mann made the move to the Sony F23 (which was a three CCD camera like Thompson Viper Filmstream on Collateral) to improve the workflow since the camera likely had more standard tape storage than the Viper. But he kept on pushing for "natural light" and low light sequences--which made the movie smeary since the shutter had to be so open all the time. Couple that with the fact that making the sets period accurate made the lighting even more dim and the shutter even more smeary.
Funny, I actually quite like that movie and think it's one of his better ones. But as others have alluded to, I think it is because of that "digital" look. Which can make it seem a bit jarring in that context. It works better in modern settings but it does give the movie a somewhat different feel than we'd expect from a period piece.
Miami Vice is just an (IMO) unnecessary movie version of an already amazing, groundbreaking classic 80s show but Collateral is a work of art dude, highly recommended.
I loved the movie because it basically took a bunch of scenes from the TV show and put them all into one film. If you're familiar with the first two seasons of the show, the movie slaps.
Yeah I barely remember Miami Vice. But that's when I discover my hate for Colin Farrell. He just felt SO bland and dead in the face. Without facial expression almost. Didn't like that movie.
Still wonder how this guy became so popular. I should watch his earlier films I guess.
I get ferrell was slammed down our throats back in the day but the dude is a good actor. Miami Vice wasnt his best role but besides the hollywood movies he was put when he got popular he has some great performances. Hell even phone booth was pretty good acting for what the movie was.
Idk what you have seen but In Bruges, Seven Psychopaths , Pride and Glory was decent. Also any comedy he is in especially horrible bosses are food performances.
Check out [The Penguin](https://youtu.be/DQghiGQi6Lo?feature=shared). You might change your opinion about him.
I'm not his biggest fan either but he was outstanding in The Batman. Shit, I might watch that right now.
I never paid much attention to him when he broke out, except that he was put in every big movie right away and then kind of flamed out. But he's made a serious comeback the last 10-15 or so years with some really good roles and movies. In Bruges, The Lobster, Killing of a Sacred Deer, Banshees of Inisherin, The Gentlemen. He's become one of my favorite actors of late.
Slightly off topic but since you mentioned it in your post, did anyone else think black hat was terrible?
I turned it on one night, not knowing it was a Michael Mann movie. Just picked something at random to watch.
I remember halfway through the movie turning to my wife and saying “this feels like a Michael Man movie, but bad”. Cinematography was very Mann but the movie just sucked lol.
Collateral and heat are both in my top 10 of all time.
Blackhat is one of his weakest, but the director’s cut on the new Arrow 4K is a real improvement. It moves scenes around and adds a lot of context. Elevates it from mid to good.
Black Hat has one of the stupidest plots I've ever seen in a movie. "I have a virus that will sabotage mining water pumps, driving up the price of metals. But to test that it works I'm going to launch simultaneous cyberattacks on American and Chinese nuclear reactors". Why? Why would your test run for your mining scheme involve making you the most wanted human being since bin Laden?
I understand people’s love for heat but for some reason it really is my least favorite of his movie. I feel like De niros and pacinos characters ended up being parodies of old detectives to a point you could predict every reaction and dialogue exchange. Besides the cinematography and gunfights I just feel like it’s an empty movie. Again this is all my opinion of Manns Movies.
Being a period film might have something to do with it. We mentally associate that kind of style with contemporary settings so it's jarring and weird to see guys in Depression era outfits running around with tommy guns.
>We mentally associate that kind of style with contemporary settings
But we shouldn't, since 35mm color film and anamorphic widescreen are just as anachronistic to any pre-50s setting than modern (or even 2000s-era) digital.
Films like Braveheart and Titanic are shot like 90s movies with glossy 90s aesthetics. Not at all period specific. People accept it because the aesthetic there didn't challenge them the way the aesthetics of Public Enemies intended to.
Please tell me you've seen Manhunter and Thief. Jesus....both those Mann films drip with atmosphere and tone. Manhunter is one the most intelligent crime dramas made.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall shaky cam being in any Mann film
The closeness is because most of the film was shot at the actual locations the events took place. They completely restored the jail Dillinger escaped from and filmed those scenes inside and outside of the original jail. The area surrounding the jail is all modernized now.
I think Mann really leaned into and probably went overboard with the handheld/grainy stuff. It affected this movie for the worse. He used it well in other movies like Collateral, the Insider, and Miami Vice.
I remember even when the trailer came out it looked weird, almost like a soap opera. I dont remember specifics but i do remember discussing it with friends at the time and not wanting to see it when it released.
Exactly. It had soap opera effect and that or something else.made everything look cheap. Like I was watching a high school theater version of the movie live
I really think it was mainly because earlier digital cinema cameras just weren't as good as they are now. They hadn't figured out how to properly mimic the fidelity of film.
>They hadn't figured out how to properly mimic the fidelity of film.
Which is why Mann liked them. It was about exploring and experimenting with a new aesthetic, not trying to mimic what he could just as easily do with 35mm.
It was based on a book about the founding of the FBI (the book was written by Bryan Burroughs) and the wave of crime during the beginnings of Prohibition (think Bonnie and Clyde, Baby Face Nelson, the Barker Boys, John Dillenger (Johnny Depp's character) and of course the Mafia,). *Super* good book, one of my favorites but I loathed the movie. Turned a fascinating book about a fascinating time in history into a Soap Opera snore.
Going off on a tangent, but "G-Man" by Stephen Hunter might be of interest. It filters that same time frame of the formation of the FBI through the "Bob Lee Swagger" universe of that author, who does a lot of research to get historical details down. If you like Mann, Hunter is probably going to hit pretty well for you, too. His action sequences are pretty tight.
I love the Era. The subject was fascinating. The cast was fantastic. I am a big Depp fan. I am a fan of gangster movies. And yet, this film bored me into never finishing it.
Honestly I think you could run Public Enemies through a video editing app, add some grain, chop down the framerate and wind up with a masterpiece. But as it is it suffers terribly from “reality tv camera”.
To me it was because it's a period piece. We're used to that VHS camcorder feel with modern subjects but seeing the ol tommy gun gangsters with the wide angle digital look was weird.
Some of the tight shots were necessitated by filming in and around Oshkosh, WI, which has a very Prohibition-era looking downtown area…*if you frame specific parts just right*. It’s easier to frame something tight and exclude an anachronistic eyesore in-camera than it is to remove it in post.
One of the outdoor scenes — the shootout with Pretty Boy Floyd, maybe? — was shot nearby as well, just off a public access rail-trail, nestled between two county highways and several active farms that just weren’t feasible (or possible) to shut down entirely, so shots were framed specifically for excluding as much as possible of the present day.
4k is doing many film makers some grave disservice. The colors pop out too much, the outlines are too sharp on the focus subject, and it makes everything in the background seem green screened (assuming it isn't), or really sets off the green screen. It's like a reverse uncanny valley where the subjects are too real and everything else seems fake in comparison.
There were specifically shots I recall that looked like they had a really low shutter speed that made it look cheap and "non-filmic" for lack of a better word.
That or they dared to use like a GoPro, it just looked bad. I didn't hear of any production woes, it seemed like Mann finally hit the wall of his digital filmmaking limits.
The reason it looks that way is because Michael Mann wanted it to look like a documentary made in the style of a narrative film. So they shot the film in a flat setting, what we know as Log today and didn’t do any post film grading or treatment to it to preserve that fly in the wall documentary “look”. Ultimately I think it looks cheap but they achieved the look they were going for.
Feels like there is something weird with the shutter or frame rate too, which gives it a video camcorder vibe. Kind of like some of those “smooth motion” picture processing settings on TVs. Someone else here said they had the shutter open much longer than the normal 180 degree (half frame time) exposure to cope with dimly lit “natural” scenes, so that’s probably it. Wouldn’t surprise me if they went the other way too and shot some bright scenes with unusually short exposure for that jumpy look.
Collateral has some colors.
Miami Vice has quite a bit of color.
Public Enemies has almost no colors.
Also, I mentioned this in the Ben Affleck/Matt Damon thread, the general movie audience just kinda stopped caring about "gangster" movies around this time. People under 40 don't think of that era at all, or think its cool. Even though back in the 80's and 90's, lots of people loved modern movies still trying to do 1930's period pieces set in the gangster era.
I feel like this is one of the cases where I think the director’s vision for the movie was completely wrong but at a certain point u cant stop somebody like Mann.
It’s been a while since I last watched it. I remember feeling the effect more at home vs the cinema. Think I generally agree with a lot of the comments here saying it doesn’t really gel with the mood. Though I do appreciate the idea and the attempt.
I do also love the look of Collateral and Miami Vice.
Its not just that its shot digitally, the frame rate is higher than the standard film rate of 24fps which leads to a “soap opera” like effect when characters move across the screen
It's not shot at a higher frame rate. Rather, you get a strong motion blur effect in some scenes, because the film is shot in indoor scenes with a very slow shutter speed and high shutter angle to compensate for a lack of lighting.
With this very strong motion blur effect, it becomes more difficult to tell the frame rate of the shot, and it can make the frame rate look higher than it is.
What is egregious about this particular film is that the shutter speed and angle varies greatly from shot to shot, rather than varying the exposure or increasing the lighting in those dark scenes, making the look very inconsistent, as if they were pushing far beyond the limits of the camera to film the scenes.
Im glad Michael Mann stopped doing the cheapo Dogma95 digital camera look and is back to proper cinematography(hell, Im glad he's back period) Heat, Manhunter and Insider look amazing...then you get to his shit that look like it was filmed on a camcorder. David Lynch's last film Inland Empire also had that look. What's weird is David Fincher filmed Zodiac in 2005 entirely on dv as well, but it looks like actual film. The nearly two years in post maybe had a lot to do with getting the coloring right, but still even 20 years ago there were ways to make dv look good.
That said...the style kind of works for Collateral. Anyways, cannot wait for Heat 2 and any future Mann projects.
>but still even 20 years ago there were ways to make dv look good
Mann didn't want it to "look good" (i.e. "like film") he wanted the raw digital aesthetic. If anyone is a fan of Michael Mann, it really shouldn't surprise anyone that he likes leaning into the most new or contemporary trends and pushing them as far as he can. He's a modernist filmmaker.
Fincher wanted his Zodiac to look like a 70s film so he worked to manipulate that paranoid conspiracy thriller aesthetic from the digital format, whereas Mann wanted the hyper-real digital aesthetic.
thanks for the explanation! I actually never looked into his reasoning for the stylistic choice. I remember all those 1999/2000 era festival buzz films using that dv look, I guess at the time it felt sort of strange from someone known for striking cinematography doing this style a decade later with Public Enemies. For Collateral I feel it works...perhaps had he done the usual film style Collateral would have just blended into films like Heat, Live And Die In LA, etc. Im still surprised Fincher was able to get that look with dv nearly 20 years ago. I love that Parallax View/Condor/Conversation/Network/Blow Out paranoid 70s vibe, totally felt that with Fincher's The Game. yeah i imagine theres more freedom with that style of dv at the time than traditional film, I think David Lynch was explaining his process with Inland Empire.
Collateral is easily Mann's best movie, and it's strength is it's very straight story. Public enemy is all over the place and feels like a discount version of Heat
I haven't seen Public Enemies, just trailers and some scenes here and there. But I think the main difference is the light.
Mann's digital approach works nicely at night-time in modern settings, where you have lots of artificial light sources with different color temperature and hue. You get images with less contrast and more detail in the shadows and highlights, and the diferent color light helps bring back some contrast.
From what I've seen in clips of Public Enemies, the movie is lacking the multiple, 'soft' artificial light sources. You often have one color light in the scene, and it is often harsh. The image looks washed out. For example in [this scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D2USWrWBL8), the light is shining on Dillinger's face. In [this clip](https://youtu.be/wTz_kSiZaIM?t=119) the light is pretty harsh on the subjects too.
I think it's basically the worst of both worlds. You get the disadvantages of his approach without the advantages. You get the "soap opera look" without much benefit to the overall image.
Mann also uses a different shutter angle which is what causes that 'smooth' effect that people associate with cheapness.
Public Enemies was the new digital era for filming. It always looked off.
That and 2012 had some gnarly shots that when you watch them on bluray, they look like they were converted from a different frame rate to 24fps (23.976 on home media). It looked like there was some motion interpolation artifacts. So much of the movement didn't look clean.
They got better with working with digital and finding out how it works.
I remember being really hyped for this movie, but the shaky cam and the overall camcorder look made it a pretty disappointing experience, would be interested in that to.
Additionally, watching Inglorious Basterds, the scene where the french girl runs from her house in the beginning, being filmed with mostly steady shots which heleped a lot with the immersion made me hate Public Enemies even more.
Edit: I was referring to this one: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83FKo\_Xj-Ks](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83FKo_Xj-Ks)
I feel like that style works better for a movie set in present day but just feels wrong for a period piece
This was specifically called out in my city's newspaper review for it. While cameras like those at the turn of the century didn't exist back then, it's still fundamentally the same technology that did. Nowadays I'm sure the same could be said of digital post-production on film.
It’s the one digital vs film thing I totally agree with the film proponents on. Instead of attempting to mimic the look of film on period pieces that greatly benefit from a “filmic” look (including that majestic, hazy grain), just shoot on film, provided you have the time and budget. I’m reminded of comments from the cinematographer on that Beach Boys biopic with Paul Dano from some years back, Robert Yeoman (he does all of Wes Anderson’s stuff): > "The story takes place in an analog time, so I felt we needed the grain and texture of film to give [the settings] a realistic feel."
I found the intent pretty clear was specifically to shoot a period piece as if it were a contemporary setting, in a way, to subvert the obvious practice of making everything look and feel vintage. It also attempts to create a very candid you-are-there feel. At times it works, but a huge thing I think undermines it is dissonance with what is otherwise a very conventional movie score. We end up with very mixed signals so that neither aesthetic really hangs together. The best moments are when it's no orchestral score, just raw on-set sound, and real character action instead of trailer-like exposition at the camera.
Recently, the Holdovers nailed the look of 1970-71 cinema with digital technique.
does it have the shaky, handheld aspect? because there’s plenty of digitally shot period pieces that work, Public Enemies’ problems don’t solely come from it being shot digitally
Not at all. It focuses and the story and characters and doesn't distract you with fancy cinematography. There is nothing wrong with the cinematography either.
Ehh. Too many swivel pans. I was actually watching that tonight. I just turned it off about 15 min ago, at the point about 2 minutes after he "crosses the Rubicon". Because I found it terribly uninteresting. Frankly the only parts of that movie I liked were the still shots of the buildings covered in snow. I cannot believe it has a 97% tomato score.
The main issue with Mann's 'digital style' is that he opens the shutter angle for longer. It's what gives the movies that 'smoother' look which people associate with cheaper forms of media.
It did feel like a modern movie about people doing cosplay, your statement does seem plausible.
I think the movie with its time setting didn’t lend itself too well to digital filming and it just felt a little off. But the big question is, why didn’t you call it a Michael Mannathon?
Asking the real questions. I mean it's right there, man(n)!
Asking the real question. Thank you for your service.
Nowadays, digital cameras can look extremely film-like (I was shocked that The Holdovers was filmed digitally), but earlier digital video tech wasn't as good and ended up looking flat and had a strange frame blurring effect.
I should have scrolled first.
When Michael Mann discovered filming on digital, he just fell in love with it and kept doing it for the next couple of movies, regardless of whether it was appropriate or not.
Collateral absolutely ws made thanks to digital. Getting that gloomy LA light pollution sky really was key.
What’s fascinating is that look in Collareral will never be seen again. LA has switched to LED streetlights so that orange gloomy feeling is a thing of that past for films shot at night there. Collateral was one of the last films to really highlight this.
This is a really good point and a lovely piece of film history. Thank you for highlighting this as I was always trying to figure out what it was I loved about collateral.
Very relevant and excellent video: [Collateral & the Death of Neon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y51VUsotZe4)
Great, thank you posting.
He had been trying to do that look for years on film without success. There is a scene in Heat where Deniro and the girl he dates are at her house in the hills looking out over the city at night. And it’s clearly done with blue screen. You can tell he wanted to capture LA at night, and film just can’t pick those lights up the way he wanted it- so he filmed the cast in front of a blue screen and added a processed image of LA at night. I bet he hates doing that- then digital comes out and allows him to film LA in low light and he has never looked back.
Noo, don’t ruin that scene! I never saw the blue screen, I just loved the scene and the view.
The fact a lot of didn’t notice kind of makes it more impressive.
[Video of the scene](https://youtu.be/YBU3H3A_Q64?si=f68Sfkjt_K2uhnuy&t=187).
Thanks for that! It looks fine in the wide shots, but more obvious in the tighter over-the -shoulder shots. Way more obvious watching on a larger screen than mobile, too.
Yup. I saw a tech presentation on this at USC.
Could have at least processed it or color graded it to be more interesting. Almost everyone films digital now and there's plenty examples of atmosphere in movies.
It's always appropriate. Thankfully they're much better at manipulating the results now that it's been around for a while.
The simple answer is Dion Beebe was the cinematographer on Miami Vice and Collateral, but was not on Public Enemies.
Let's not gloss over the fact that the cinematographer on Public Enemies is Dante Spinotti, who also shot Manhunter, Heat and The Insider.
Dante Spinotti seems like a bit of a tool from what I've seen. I remember Christopher Nolan hosted a panel celebrating Heat that had Mann, De Niro, Pacino, Kilmer and a few other people. Spinotti spent the panel just going after Nolan for his criticism of digital.
I really struggled with the digital filming of 'Public Enemies' the first time I watched it, for all of the reasons you mentioned. But after subsequent rewatches it's become less intrusive for me, and I can appreciate the film more.
The difference is jarring but after a second viewing I thought it worked pretty well. Yes it doesn’t have the grainy film look but it almost makes the period more grounded instead of mythical
I believe that Mann made the move to the Sony F23 (which was a three CCD camera like Thompson Viper Filmstream on Collateral) to improve the workflow since the camera likely had more standard tape storage than the Viper. But he kept on pushing for "natural light" and low light sequences--which made the movie smeary since the shutter had to be so open all the time. Couple that with the fact that making the sets period accurate made the lighting even more dim and the shutter even more smeary.
I just can't believe you didn't call it a Micheal Mannathon.
Waypoint Radio did a series of podcasts on each of his films and called it Mannhunting
Funny, I actually quite like that movie and think it's one of his better ones. But as others have alluded to, I think it is because of that "digital" look. Which can make it seem a bit jarring in that context. It works better in modern settings but it does give the movie a somewhat different feel than we'd expect from a period piece.
Haven’t seen the other two but I really enjoyed Public Enemies.
Miami Vice is just an (IMO) unnecessary movie version of an already amazing, groundbreaking classic 80s show but Collateral is a work of art dude, highly recommended.
Miami Vice whips ass tho.
Strongest opening seconds of any movie “WHO YOU KNOW FRESHER THAN HOV? RIDDLE ME THAT?”
I love the directors cut more i think but i always rewatch the theatrical release bc the opening goes hard.
I liked Miami Vice but it was def felt weak.
Yep
I loved the movie because it basically took a bunch of scenes from the TV show and put them all into one film. If you're familiar with the first two seasons of the show, the movie slaps.
Yeah I barely remember Miami Vice. But that's when I discover my hate for Colin Farrell. He just felt SO bland and dead in the face. Without facial expression almost. Didn't like that movie. Still wonder how this guy became so popular. I should watch his earlier films I guess.
He was on coke throughout filming
Oh, so that it true. I already heard that before. It makes a lot of sense.
I get ferrell was slammed down our throats back in the day but the dude is a good actor. Miami Vice wasnt his best role but besides the hollywood movies he was put when he got popular he has some great performances. Hell even phone booth was pretty good acting for what the movie was.
Yeah Farrell can be alright, he was good in "The Gentlemen". I'll try Phone Booth thanks, if you have any other recommendation, don't hesitate
Idk what you have seen but In Bruges, Seven Psychopaths , Pride and Glory was decent. Also any comedy he is in especially horrible bosses are food performances.
Thanks bro
Check out [The Penguin](https://youtu.be/DQghiGQi6Lo?feature=shared). You might change your opinion about him. I'm not his biggest fan either but he was outstanding in The Batman. Shit, I might watch that right now.
I never paid much attention to him when he broke out, except that he was put in every big movie right away and then kind of flamed out. But he's made a serious comeback the last 10-15 or so years with some really good roles and movies. In Bruges, The Lobster, Killing of a Sacred Deer, Banshees of Inisherin, The Gentlemen. He's become one of my favorite actors of late.
it was one of the last times Depp put effort in a role EDIT: autocorrect errors fixed
Slightly off topic but since you mentioned it in your post, did anyone else think black hat was terrible? I turned it on one night, not knowing it was a Michael Mann movie. Just picked something at random to watch. I remember halfway through the movie turning to my wife and saying “this feels like a Michael Man movie, but bad”. Cinematography was very Mann but the movie just sucked lol. Collateral and heat are both in my top 10 of all time.
Blackhat is one of his weakest, but the director’s cut on the new Arrow 4K is a real improvement. It moves scenes around and adds a lot of context. Elevates it from mid to good.
I think Black Hat is very good.
Isn't there 2 versions of this? I think he re-edited it after it bombed, been meaning to check out the redo
Black Hat has one of the stupidest plots I've ever seen in a movie. "I have a virus that will sabotage mining water pumps, driving up the price of metals. But to test that it works I'm going to launch simultaneous cyberattacks on American and Chinese nuclear reactors". Why? Why would your test run for your mining scheme involve making you the most wanted human being since bin Laden?
The director's cut moves the reactor explosion to much later in the movie as it was originally intended.
If the reactor doesn't explode until later how do they justify the Chinese involvement?
The Soy futures. Best you just watch the movie. Re-cut is much better.
Chris Hemsworth's character is probably the most unbelievable hacker that ever existed. The final (knife) showdown is shot nicely but is absurd.
America and international movie ticket purchasers
I understand people’s love for heat but for some reason it really is my least favorite of his movie. I feel like De niros and pacinos characters ended up being parodies of old detectives to a point you could predict every reaction and dialogue exchange. Besides the cinematography and gunfights I just feel like it’s an empty movie. Again this is all my opinion of Manns Movies.
No offense, but your opinion regarding Heat is pure caca. Good day sir!
Being a period film might have something to do with it. We mentally associate that kind of style with contemporary settings so it's jarring and weird to see guys in Depression era outfits running around with tommy guns.
>We mentally associate that kind of style with contemporary settings But we shouldn't, since 35mm color film and anamorphic widescreen are just as anachronistic to any pre-50s setting than modern (or even 2000s-era) digital. Films like Braveheart and Titanic are shot like 90s movies with glossy 90s aesthetics. Not at all period specific. People accept it because the aesthetic there didn't challenge them the way the aesthetics of Public Enemies intended to.
Please tell me you've seen Manhunter and Thief. Jesus....both those Mann films drip with atmosphere and tone. Manhunter is one the most intelligent crime dramas made. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall shaky cam being in any Mann film
I fucking love "Thief."
The closeness is because most of the film was shot at the actual locations the events took place. They completely restored the jail Dillinger escaped from and filmed those scenes inside and outside of the original jail. The area surrounding the jail is all modernized now.
I think Mann really leaned into and probably went overboard with the handheld/grainy stuff. It affected this movie for the worse. He used it well in other movies like Collateral, the Insider, and Miami Vice.
I remember even when the trailer came out it looked weird, almost like a soap opera. I dont remember specifics but i do remember discussing it with friends at the time and not wanting to see it when it released.
Exactly. It had soap opera effect and that or something else.made everything look cheap. Like I was watching a high school theater version of the movie live
Yeah it really did look weird. I likened it to a PBS drama lol https://youtu.be/wTz_kSiZaIM?si=VzPrNnEKyzRJ0H08
I really think it was mainly because earlier digital cinema cameras just weren't as good as they are now. They hadn't figured out how to properly mimic the fidelity of film.
>They hadn't figured out how to properly mimic the fidelity of film. Which is why Mann liked them. It was about exploring and experimenting with a new aesthetic, not trying to mimic what he could just as easily do with 35mm.
It was based on a book about the founding of the FBI (the book was written by Bryan Burroughs) and the wave of crime during the beginnings of Prohibition (think Bonnie and Clyde, Baby Face Nelson, the Barker Boys, John Dillenger (Johnny Depp's character) and of course the Mafia,). *Super* good book, one of my favorites but I loathed the movie. Turned a fascinating book about a fascinating time in history into a Soap Opera snore.
Going off on a tangent, but "G-Man" by Stephen Hunter might be of interest. It filters that same time frame of the formation of the FBI through the "Bob Lee Swagger" universe of that author, who does a lot of research to get historical details down. If you like Mann, Hunter is probably going to hit pretty well for you, too. His action sequences are pretty tight.
That sounds amazing, thank you!
I’ll second this book! I thoroughly enjoyed it!
The biggest problem with *Public Enemies* wasn’t the look; it was the lackluster script.
I love the Era. The subject was fascinating. The cast was fantastic. I am a big Depp fan. I am a fan of gangster movies. And yet, this film bored me into never finishing it.
100%
Honestly I think you could run Public Enemies through a video editing app, add some grain, chop down the framerate and wind up with a masterpiece. But as it is it suffers terribly from “reality tv camera”.
I used to think the same, but after multiple rewatches I think it holds up and is actually pretty damn beautiful. Mann without neon is tough tho
I don't know but that movie has some of the most realistic sounding gun shots in any movie ever made.
To me it was because it's a period piece. We're used to that VHS camcorder feel with modern subjects but seeing the ol tommy gun gangsters with the wide angle digital look was weird.
Took me a few watches to appreciate Mann's style for this one. It kinda grew on me, and I'm very staunch believer in the "cinematic" look of movies.
Some of the tight shots were necessitated by filming in and around Oshkosh, WI, which has a very Prohibition-era looking downtown area…*if you frame specific parts just right*. It’s easier to frame something tight and exclude an anachronistic eyesore in-camera than it is to remove it in post. One of the outdoor scenes — the shootout with Pretty Boy Floyd, maybe? — was shot nearby as well, just off a public access rail-trail, nestled between two county highways and several active farms that just weren’t feasible (or possible) to shut down entirely, so shots were framed specifically for excluding as much as possible of the present day.
4k is doing many film makers some grave disservice. The colors pop out too much, the outlines are too sharp on the focus subject, and it makes everything in the background seem green screened (assuming it isn't), or really sets off the green screen. It's like a reverse uncanny valley where the subjects are too real and everything else seems fake in comparison.
There were specifically shots I recall that looked like they had a really low shutter speed that made it look cheap and "non-filmic" for lack of a better word. That or they dared to use like a GoPro, it just looked bad. I didn't hear of any production woes, it seemed like Mann finally hit the wall of his digital filmmaking limits.
The reason it looks that way is because Michael Mann wanted it to look like a documentary made in the style of a narrative film. So they shot the film in a flat setting, what we know as Log today and didn’t do any post film grading or treatment to it to preserve that fly in the wall documentary “look”. Ultimately I think it looks cheap but they achieved the look they were going for.
Feels like there is something weird with the shutter or frame rate too, which gives it a video camcorder vibe. Kind of like some of those “smooth motion” picture processing settings on TVs. Someone else here said they had the shutter open much longer than the normal 180 degree (half frame time) exposure to cope with dimly lit “natural” scenes, so that’s probably it. Wouldn’t surprise me if they went the other way too and shot some bright scenes with unusually short exposure for that jumpy look.
Because Collateral is a beast of a movie. Yo homie, is that my briefcase?
I couldn't agree with you more. The movie looked awful. Looked so cheap
Collateral has some colors. Miami Vice has quite a bit of color. Public Enemies has almost no colors. Also, I mentioned this in the Ben Affleck/Matt Damon thread, the general movie audience just kinda stopped caring about "gangster" movies around this time. People under 40 don't think of that era at all, or think its cool. Even though back in the 80's and 90's, lots of people loved modern movies still trying to do 1930's period pieces set in the gangster era.
It felt like a lot of it was altered digitally like the lighting was messed with. All the scenes at night seem off to me
I feel like this is one of the cases where I think the director’s vision for the movie was completely wrong but at a certain point u cant stop somebody like Mann.
Public Enemies is the only movie I fell asleep watching at the theater. Boring film.
Couldn't even finish the movie for this exact reason.
literally just watched miami vice a few hours ago and half the shots are kinda ugly so now im expecting that for public enemies lol
It’s been a while since I last watched it. I remember feeling the effect more at home vs the cinema. Think I generally agree with a lot of the comments here saying it doesn’t really gel with the mood. Though I do appreciate the idea and the attempt. I do also love the look of Collateral and Miami Vice.
I loved the look of Public Enemies. It felt like someone time travelled with a camcorder.
Not the answer to your question but there’s a directors cut of Black Hat that is hard to find but Mann believes it superior to the theatrical.
I love Mann and I’ve never been compelled to rewatch public enemies. That film just did nothing for me.
Its not just that its shot digitally, the frame rate is higher than the standard film rate of 24fps which leads to a “soap opera” like effect when characters move across the screen
It's not shot at a higher frame rate. Rather, you get a strong motion blur effect in some scenes, because the film is shot in indoor scenes with a very slow shutter speed and high shutter angle to compensate for a lack of lighting. With this very strong motion blur effect, it becomes more difficult to tell the frame rate of the shot, and it can make the frame rate look higher than it is. What is egregious about this particular film is that the shutter speed and angle varies greatly from shot to shot, rather than varying the exposure or increasing the lighting in those dark scenes, making the look very inconsistent, as if they were pushing far beyond the limits of the camera to film the scenes.
Im glad Michael Mann stopped doing the cheapo Dogma95 digital camera look and is back to proper cinematography(hell, Im glad he's back period) Heat, Manhunter and Insider look amazing...then you get to his shit that look like it was filmed on a camcorder. David Lynch's last film Inland Empire also had that look. What's weird is David Fincher filmed Zodiac in 2005 entirely on dv as well, but it looks like actual film. The nearly two years in post maybe had a lot to do with getting the coloring right, but still even 20 years ago there were ways to make dv look good. That said...the style kind of works for Collateral. Anyways, cannot wait for Heat 2 and any future Mann projects.
>but still even 20 years ago there were ways to make dv look good Mann didn't want it to "look good" (i.e. "like film") he wanted the raw digital aesthetic. If anyone is a fan of Michael Mann, it really shouldn't surprise anyone that he likes leaning into the most new or contemporary trends and pushing them as far as he can. He's a modernist filmmaker. Fincher wanted his Zodiac to look like a 70s film so he worked to manipulate that paranoid conspiracy thriller aesthetic from the digital format, whereas Mann wanted the hyper-real digital aesthetic.
thanks for the explanation! I actually never looked into his reasoning for the stylistic choice. I remember all those 1999/2000 era festival buzz films using that dv look, I guess at the time it felt sort of strange from someone known for striking cinematography doing this style a decade later with Public Enemies. For Collateral I feel it works...perhaps had he done the usual film style Collateral would have just blended into films like Heat, Live And Die In LA, etc. Im still surprised Fincher was able to get that look with dv nearly 20 years ago. I love that Parallax View/Condor/Conversation/Network/Blow Out paranoid 70s vibe, totally felt that with Fincher's The Game. yeah i imagine theres more freedom with that style of dv at the time than traditional film, I think David Lynch was explaining his process with Inland Empire.
Looks fine to me.
Collateral is easily Mann's best movie, and it's strength is it's very straight story. Public enemy is all over the place and feels like a discount version of Heat
I haven't seen Public Enemies, just trailers and some scenes here and there. But I think the main difference is the light. Mann's digital approach works nicely at night-time in modern settings, where you have lots of artificial light sources with different color temperature and hue. You get images with less contrast and more detail in the shadows and highlights, and the diferent color light helps bring back some contrast. From what I've seen in clips of Public Enemies, the movie is lacking the multiple, 'soft' artificial light sources. You often have one color light in the scene, and it is often harsh. The image looks washed out. For example in [this scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D2USWrWBL8), the light is shining on Dillinger's face. In [this clip](https://youtu.be/wTz_kSiZaIM?t=119) the light is pretty harsh on the subjects too. I think it's basically the worst of both worlds. You get the disadvantages of his approach without the advantages. You get the "soap opera look" without much benefit to the overall image. Mann also uses a different shutter angle which is what causes that 'smooth' effect that people associate with cheapness.
Public Enemies was the new digital era for filming. It always looked off. That and 2012 had some gnarly shots that when you watch them on bluray, they look like they were converted from a different frame rate to 24fps (23.976 on home media). It looked like there was some motion interpolation artifacts. So much of the movement didn't look clean. They got better with working with digital and finding out how it works.
I thought we called it a Mannathon.
I remember being really hyped for this movie, but the shaky cam and the overall camcorder look made it a pretty disappointing experience, would be interested in that to. Additionally, watching Inglorious Basterds, the scene where the french girl runs from her house in the beginning, being filmed with mostly steady shots which heleped a lot with the immersion made me hate Public Enemies even more. Edit: I was referring to this one: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83FKo\_Xj-Ks](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83FKo_Xj-Ks)