Scots Taffer on 2/7/2009 at 04:09

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(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWof6CovHxI) Official trailer (HD)

Michael Mann's latest is all over the shop in terms of (http://au.rottentomatoes.com/m/10009526-public_enemies/) reviews but given that it's Mann and I adore enough of his back catalogue (Manhunter, Last of the Mohicans, Heat, The Insider, Collateral) that I'll pretty much always give something he does that looks good a go (hence why I haven't seen Ali or Miami Vice). However, looking good is a very hard quantifier to award to this movie...

Case in point: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pyZ0wgMQro&fmt=22) Night-time shoot-out(HD).

Nobody does shoot-outs like Mann. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zssZQBDUj-A) Heat remains the high-watermark (with the Collateral alleyway mozambique drill and club shoot-out coming hot on it's heels), but I think the Public Enemies shoot-out, while technically sound, looks like ass.

Why oh why does Mann feel it necessary to shoot everything since Collateral in digital? It's beyond faddish. Maybe I'm too traditionalist, but I feel like a genre film in a period setting deserves the richness afforded by shooting in film. From what I've seen (not much admittedly) this rough shaky footage doesn't give the immediacy Mann is searching for but instead due to natural lighting conditions and the raw aesthetic looks half-cocked, like an amateur filmmaker was given a massive budget for actors and set design but forgot to buy a camera so he used his miniDV.

Anyway, despite the mixed reviews and despite my cynicism, I'm going to see it when it hits.

Anyone in the States caught this yet?

Angel Dust on 2/7/2009 at 10:29

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I'm a fan of Mann's work, with The Insider being by far his best work imo, so I'm looking forward to this, even with the somewhat muted reception it's had so far.

Regarding the digital film thing: I agree that celluloid generally looks better but I think a significant part of digital film looking 'ass' is that we've been watching celluloid all this time and the change is jarring. I don't think we can really judge how well digital works until it's been around for much longer. Personally it's not something I really worry about as long as the image is clean. Sure when a film first starts up and it's digital I'm thinking in the back of my mind 'this looks funny' but if the film is firing on all cylinders than I quickly forget about that (eg Zodiac)

Thirith on 2/7/2009 at 10:59

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Did you like the look of Collateral, or that of Miami Vice? I thought that a lot of the dislike for those movies' look (at least from what I read) was down to people wanting or expecting something else and not getting it. Which is fair enough if you're talking about tastes, but I know that critics can be pretty reactionary, expecting Vermeer, getting Picasso and doing the equivalent of saying, "My three-year-old could've painted that one!"

In the case of Benjamin Button and Zodiac, those films don't have the distinct digital look IMO: they're made to look pretty close to celluloid in post-production. They both look great IMO, but personally I also love the hypnotic, hyper-real look and feel of Collateral and Miami Vice. There's a huge difference between those films and the look of Blair Witch Project, yet some critics don't get beyond what they think a film should look like.


Edit: With respect to the different feel of celluloid vs digital (at least without lots of post-production), film tends to feel softer and more nostalgic to me. Digital at its best has more of a here-and-now feel. The celluloid look makes me think of a storyteller opening his big book and telling me a story; the digital look, on the other hand, can have an immediacy that is very effective. (And yes, I know that all of this is highly imprecise and subjective.)

Thirith on 2/7/2009 at 11:12

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For the record: I'm not saying that Mann's decision to go for the digital look in Public Enemies automatically has to be lauded. It's definitely possible that I'll see the film and feel afterwards that going digital was more of an affectation on Mann's part than anything else. But at the same time I'm definitely willing to give any film-maker a chance who doesn't just go for what is expected and instead tries something new. As I've said, I've seen enough historical gangster movies with the burnished celluloid look and I'm curious to find out how well a different look works for me.

Muzman on 2/7/2009 at 11:34

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It's impressive that Collateral and Zodiac were shot on the same camera (the digital parts anyway). They couldn't be more different looking films.
I too thought Collateral worked well where the same approach in Miami Vice didn't. Collateral's very small sort of film and that sort of unvarnished, almost home video style works well. M.V. wasn't quite at home doing the same sort of thing, for me, and felt like a half-arsed Heat because of it.
The long and the short of it is that the style they came up with works best at night in the big city. Those bits of M.V. work great (if you go back and watch Heat you'll notice that there's the balcony shots at night with big city vistas that I'm pretty sure are composites. Mann's been peeing himself for years to do that sort of thing in one shot, I reckon, and there's a few quite ostentatious ones on M.V. from inside helicopters and so on).
It's a funny thing the impression it leaves. I know people who loved or loathed those more obvious digital flicks but didn't believe me that 28 Days Later was shot on an XL1 (an SD camera). It was obvious when they looked again, but they just forgot.