Michael Mann's MIAMI VICE (merged) - Page 8

Re: Michael Mann's Miami Vice: Teaser online

I couldn't have said it better myself. Here is a movie that ignores all the rules of taking time to 'teach' the audience- familiarizing us with the situation, the characters, clarifying side stories and background developments and ramifications of events- there is literally no exposition in the entire picture. None. This is the first film I've seen to possess that trait, and it was difficult, challenging, and exhilerating to experience. I feel like I've just barely scratched the surface of this movie.

Mann eschews the idea of "telling a story" in favor of "dropping us into an experience" and delivering that experience in the most detailed, realistic manner possible. What we do see, we see in great detail. What we don't see, we don't see at all. We have no idea what these characters were doing the day before, or even a few hours before Mann drops us into that incredible opening (Much like Collateral, there isn't a single credit or title at the start).

He doesn't try to encapsulate the lives of the characters through dialogue and try to make them familiar to us; we learn about them by observing how they act and react to various situations. These are men of the present, who define themselves by their jobs. We don't learn of Crockett's longing for stability and peace through a dialogue scene, but rather by watching him look out the window (of the middleman's expensive condo with the big glass walls) for that brief moment in the middle of a negotiation. For a second, everything we (and Crockett) sees and hears is calm and quiet- and then he snaps back to reality. Moments like that, which pervade the movie, are as close as Mann comes to "character development" in this film.

I was reminded a lot of Good Night, and Good Luck, another film about people at work, in which we only learn about the characters by watching their actions in the workplace. Everyone in this film is a 'professional.' The only way to learn about the people and situation is by watching and listening intently- exactly as if we were actually there. This isn't Mann's version of a summer shoot-em-up; it's a very challenging movie, with a very unusual way of conveying its content. It's the first film that I wanted to see again immediately after seeing it. I feel like I've just barely seen the movie.

As far as the action is concerned, it's kept as low-key and realistic as possible. It's huge and intense for the audience and the characters, but it's small scale, realistic, sort of like the FOTR finale, in comparison to TTT or ROTK. There are no car chases through te city or shootouts in crowded areas; all the characters are professionals, and the meetings (action) take place at night, in abandoned shipyards and warehouses, where things like this actually happen in life. The events determine themselves, without regard for story and audience satisfaction. The more I think about this movie, the more I like it.

More later.

Regards,
Nathan

Re: Michael Mann's Miami Vice (merged)

Yeah, the whole time I was thinking, I can't wait to see this properly on dvd, even though I was at the Arclight in one of their biggest screens. I think I need to see it again, and somewhere other than the front row

Regards,
Nathan

Re: Michael Mann's Miami Vice (merged)

One more thing- Spartan is another film that assumes that its audience is completely knowledgeable about its subject matter.

Something else I should add is that there's an endless amount of quotable lines in this-

"There's undercover, and there's which-way-is-up?"

"This group goes from zero to high on the violence like nothing."

"They didn't do time with us, they're not doin' crime with us."

"Somebody's somethin's gonna go somewhere somewhen."

"This is the hand we have been dealt at 11:47 on a Saturday night."

The rhythms of dialogue are unusual and fascinating to listen to, especially in the scenes in which people are exchanging information. I'm thinking of the scenes with Ciaran Hinds (sp). The laconic dialogue helps sidestep a lot of potentially cliche situations. A friend was telling me, "this is the least cliched movie I've seen since the New World." I applaud Universal for letting Mann do his thing.

Re: Michael Mann's Miami Vice (merged)

Mr. Crawford,

If this was Michael Bay, Tony Scott, or even Jim Cameron, I'd be with you all the way. But I think the fact that this is Mann working from his own script, with final cut, demands some deeper contemplation. His obsession with thinking through and perfecting every element of his films is a rare trait in Hollywood. After all, there's a reason the guy's only made 9 films in 25 years.

In LA Weekly, he discusses filmmaking, saying, " 'Why would anybody want to slack off, take it easy, do it half speed? I can't imagine why anybody would want to, when you have the opportunity....Why would [characters'] lives be less than dimensional?' he asks, as if the answer were obvious."

Scott Foundas of LA Weekly and Village Voice describes what I like most about Mann's work, saying that

"what is powerful and moving in Mann's work (and, admittedly, rather hard to describe) is the way that style- which is to say everything that is in the frame, from the locations...to the movement of the camera itself- seems to grow out of the characters, to be expressive of something, as opposed to the vacant prettifications of [other filmmakers].... I am talking about the way, in Manhunter, that the sensual caress of a blind woman's hand against the skin of an anesthetized tiger tells us more about that woman than any dialogue possibly could..."

And so on. As with any type of filmmaking, this approach will appeal to some more than others. All I know is that it personally knocks me flat.

Regards,
Nathan