1995: Heat (Michael Mann)

1995: Heat (Michael Mann)
Ask me to choose my favorite post-seventies crime film, and this is it.  I think it's Mann's greatest accomplishment.  I also think it's our greatest crime epic, post-Godfather.  So why do I like it so much?        

a.  Location work

First off, I love how it treats one of my favorite aspects of the first noir cycle, a real interest in location work.  I gravitate towards realism.  And there's a profound effect that comes with the choice to shoot in actual locations that's missing for me in the more artificial and heavily art-directed neo-noirs.  After all, noir was spearheaded by jaded Europeans, who having fled their countries, arrived in Hollywood wanting to tell the truth.  Part of getting at the truth for them was taking a more realistic approach to filmmaking.  So Mann's work here, particularly his interest in shooting in actual locations, connects Heat for me back to these earlier films.

b.  Formal rigor

Often relegated to B-film status, Mann takes the crime film and gives it the most artful of all presentations.  There's a specificity in every shot, every cut, and every camera movement.  And Mann has a Kubrickian control, a conception of craft, and attention to formal detail unmatched by anyone currently working in Hollywood.  One of the more appealing aspects of the first cycle of noir films is their formal audacity and achievement.  By creating such a highly formal work with Heat, Mann once again offers a connection between his cinema and this past tradition. 

c.  Existential noir

Rather than take the more poular post-modern approach to noir, Mann steers clear of irony, narrative gymnastics, and pop-culture references to deliver a work with the goal of existential weight.  This tone feels more in line to me with the first cycle of noir films than the tone coming out of the post-modern cycle that began to appear in the seventies.

d.  Modern treatment

But Heat is certainly not a mere re-tread of the first cycle; Mann definitely updates the tradition and gives it a new feel.  His most major contribution is the way that he deals with sound/music.  Most of the films from the first cycle had symphonic scores.  Mann takes this tendency and replaces it with minimal, electronic music.  His film also relies much more on natural sounds than the early noirs.  Just listen to the way Mann makes sound the driving force during some of the key moments in the film, how he accents the big trucks in the first set piece or the guns in the famous heist scene.  By being so loyal in other areas but by making such a radical departure in his treatment of sound/music, Mann both upholds and moves the noir tradition forward with his work.    

It's a taste thing, I realize.  But for me, when it comes to updating noir, Heat is the perfect paradigm for a new direction.  I simply think it's a marvel.

Other contenders for 1995:  From this year, I still have some things to see.  These include:  Maurice Pialat's Le Garcu, Carl Franklin's Devil in a Blue Dress, Jacques Rivette's Haut bas fragile, Charles Burnett's When It Rains, Arturo Ripstein's Principio y fin, Hou Hsiao-hsien's Good Men, Good Women, and Manuel Poirier's ...A la campagne.  At some point, I need to revisit Gus Van Sant's To Die For and Todd Haynes' Safe as it's been too long since I've seen either of them to know where they'd place on this list.  From this year, I really like Claude Chabrol's La ceremonie, Martin Scorsese's Casino, Noemie Lvovsky's Oublie-moi, Takeshi Kitano's Sonatine, Benoit Jacquot's A Single Girl, Larry Clark's Kids, and Mathieu Kassovitz's La Haine.  I love Jean-Luc Godard's JLG/JLG. And my closest runner-up is Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man.

10/19/11 I watched Maurice Pialat's Le Garcu.  There's such a natural heft to Pialat's cinema.  And when it's at its best, it's grinding into terrain that is so rich, human, complex, and honest.  Pialat's final film might not be my favorite of his, but it's still a very strong work.  

12/9/12 I watched Charles Burnett's When It Rains.  At times, you might feel watching this short film that it's among the most amateurish things you've ever seen.  But Burnett straddles the line and by the end delivers the Bressonian punch he's after.  A difficult film to find but certainly worth seeking out.

5/30/15 I watched Noah Baumbach's Kicking and Screaming.  Baumbach.  It's funny at times, familar to my own life and intermittently playful and likable.  But he can also be a little meandering, irritatingly verbose and emotionally cheap.  Glad I saw this though.  Feels like an important piece of the American indie story in the 90s. 

12/2/21 I watched Joao Cesar Monteiro's God's Comedy.  It's my first experience with the Portuguese filmmaker's work.  It reminded me of Moretti yet a little darker, a little less political and a little less funny.  I look forward to seeing more of Monteiro's work as he's clearly a cinephile who is bold and unafraid to take the medium into challenging places. 

3/11/22 I watched Frederick Wiseman's Ballet.  Not one of the more involving Wiseman films for me.  Sure it has some extraordinary passages but I never felt like I knew anyone all that well.  

7/17/22 I watched Mark Rappaport's From the Journals of Jean Seberg.  This essay bears interest in the way it examines stardom and the splintering of an important figure in the history of film.