THE POPCORN REEL
Director, producer and writer Michael Mann. (Photo: Steve Granitz/Wire Image)
At the 2005 Producers Guild Awards accepting the top award with Graham King for
producing "The Aviator"; fellow director Marc Forster at the same
ceremony.
(Photos: Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
THE LOOK, THE PROFESSIONAL, THE FOCUS, THE FILMS:
MICHAEL MANN AND HIS ACTORS WORK ALL-NIGHT DETAIL
ON HIS NEW FILM "MIAMI VICE"
by Omar P.L. Moore/The Popcorn Reel
"Miami Vice" will soon be on video in North America.
The film stars Oscar winner Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell as
detectives Tubbs and
Crockett. Mr. Foxx was nominated for a supporting
actor Oscar in Mr. Mann's last film, "Collateral", which saw tremendous
chemistry between
good guy cab driver Foxx and bad guy contract-killer Tom
Cruise during a 14-hour journey through the nighttime underbelly of Los Angeles.
"Collateral" crossed the $100 million mark in the U.S., and despite not doing much better
than that, it was the most successful film Michael Mann
has directed. Mr.
Cruise showcased his skills as a full-fledged villain and had some audiences
rooting for him as he tried to execute his mission as
Vincent, a hired gun.
Night and Day - on both sides of the law: Jamie
Foxx and Colin Farrell as Tubbs and Crockett in Michael Mann's film version of
his popular 1980's television
series "Miami Vice." (Photos: Universal)
Indispensable to Mr. Mann's films are their distinct look,
clinical and unstinting direction, meticulous character study and in-depth
preparation.
Mr. Mann has been known to devise character histories and
bios so detailed that they could be actual living people and not simply
characters. The
actors who have worked with him, including Tom Cruise,
Daniel Day-Lewis, Jada Pinkett-Smith, Val Kilmer, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro and
Will Smith have all praised his attention to the minutest details of character
and story, which they credit for helping to make their acting jobs easier and
bring the best out of the film. Mr. Cruise has said that Mr. Mann's style
of directing was perfect for him as they are both relentless perfectionists
who
try to put their best efforts into making sure things look real and right.
Mr. Mann has also done biopic dramas and works adapted from
novels, which have met with mixed results. For example, in the 2001 film
"Ali",
Will Smith portrayed the boxing legend Muhammad Ali and gained an Oscar
nomination the following year for his work, but the film itself fared less
than
well at the box office, making a shade under $60 million. It was difficult
to assess just why a film about the most recognizable face on the planet
failed
to perform as it should have. Some cited the events of 9-11-01 and even
theorized that because the main focus was a man whose religion was
Muslim that
it may have hurt the box office in North America. Others pointed not to
the surrounding factors but specifically to the essence of the film itself.
Spike Lee, who had openly made it known that he wanted to direct "Ali", had
decried Mr. Mann's direction as not deep enough to lend a
sense of the
soul of Mr. Ali. Mr. Lee had said that he maintains that white directors
are not as adept as black directors at directing stories about the
black
experience. Mr. Lee added that he wouldn't have done as a great a job as
Steven Spielberg did with "Schindler's List" if he was given a shot to direct
it. In his book "That's My Story and I'm Sticking to It", Mr. Lee recalls
being saddened at Columbia Pictures' and Will Smith in particular
when Mr. Smith told him that the studio needed someone to direct "Ali" who had a broader vision
than Mr. Lee.
Despite the bumps of "Ali", Mr. Mann, who has also directed
such films as "Manhunter", the highly-acclaimed prequel to "The Silence of the
Lambs" which starred Brian Cox as Hannibal Lecter, based on Thomas Harris' novel
of the same name, and the film "The Last of the Mohicans",
based on James Fenimore Cooper's novel, Mr. Mann remains one of the best and most-respected
directors in the world. Perhaps the film for which
Michael Mann should
have won greater audiences and an abundance of awards is "The Insider" (1999).
Based on the Vanity Fair article by Marie
Brenner entitled "The Man Who Knew
Too Much", the corporate drama about whistle-blowing tobacco company man
Jeffrey Wigand who breaks a
confidentiality agreement only to become a pawn
trapped in the corporate political battle between CBS Corporate and CBS News
garnered seven
Oscar-nominations including for best picture. Russell Crowe
gave a sterling performance as Mr. Wigand, for which he was nominated. Al Pacino
made his second appearance in a Mann film as Lowell Berkman the CBS
producer of the story on Wigand, as did Diane Venora as Lynne Wigand.
Mr.
Mann was nominated for best director, but lost out to Sam Mendes. Critics
hailed "The Insider" as a supremely intelligent adult drama that
posed classic
questions of exerting conscience and playing it safe.
Jamie Foxx and Jada Pinkett-Smith pause at a
dramatic moment in "Collateral", on the run from lethal assassin Tom Cruise in
Mr. Mann's "Collateral".
Mr. Foxx was nominated for an Oscar in the film.
(Photos: Dreamworks SKG)
As diverse as his resume has been as both a producer and a
director, Mr. Mann, a Chicago native who also has a solid sense of politics, has
been
at his very best in the crime drama genre. The 1981 film "Thief" with
James Caan exemplifies this with its intense character study. Many people
however, remember Michael Mann from the distinctive television series "Miami
Vice", which he executive-produced and occasionally wrote for all
six seasons in
which it existed from 1984 to 1989. (Anthony Yerkovich created the popular
series and has a credit as an executive producer on the
new film.) The
pastel colored suits and shirts worn by Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas in
their roles as Miami-Dade County detectives
Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs
were a trademark of the police drama, which featured beautiful women, beaches,
and the illicit goings-on in the
drug underworld of Miami. Edward James Olmos played the police department's chief, while Saundra Santiago played a
vice-undercover operative.
The opening credits of the show, which served
as a strong introduction to Miami, was one of the more enticing sequences to the
show, as was Jan
Hammer's distinctive theme music. Mr. Mann's visual flair
wove its way into the characters, but never overwhelmed them. Where some
directors
may sacrifice style for substance, Mr. Mann uses style as a core
element to deepen and enhance the rich character of the people his actors
portray.
Mr. Mann's "Heat" (1995) demonstrated that wardrobe was far
from the only thing going for the characters of that epic drama, considered one
of
the best ever in the cops and criminals line. The three-hour drama was
filled with depth and detail, right down to lines which revealed what smaller
less pivotal characters were feeling. When Diane Venora tells Al Pacino
that he "sifts through the detritus", that line reveals as much about the
shambles of the onscreen marriage she and Mr. Pacino are hopelessly locked in as
it does about Mr. Pacino's relentless pursuit of Robert De Niro.
"All I am
is all I'm going after," says Mr. Pacino in response. "When we got married
I told you that you were going to have to share me with
everything else", he
adds later. Lines like this show that we get a very intimate picture of
their relationship. There are similar lines between Ashley
Judd and Val
Kilmer, Mr. De Niro and Amy Brenneman, and Dennis Haysbert and Kim Staunton.
Towering giants: Veteran acting heavyweights Al
Pacino and Robert De Niro square off in two pivotal scenes in "Heat", Mr. Mann's
1995 film. It was the first
time ever that the two legends shared screen
time in the same film. (Photos: Warner Brothers)
In the case of "Miami Vice" the film, Mr. Mann has
culled together recognizable alumni from past Mann productions. For
example, Mr. Foxx is
back for his third go-round with the director, having
previously been in "Ali" and "Collateral". It is rumored that Mr. Foxx and
Mr. Mann will team
up yet again for a film tentatively titled "Damage Control",
but this is not confirmed. (Mr. Mann is confirmed however, to direct
"Collateral" star
Tom Cruise in a film called "The Few", to be released in
2008.) Barry Shabaka Henley, from the previous Michael Mann film
"Collateral" and the
Mann executive-produced 2002-2003 television series
"Robbery Homicide Division", hops on board in the Edward James Olmos role as Lt.
Martin
Castillo. According to some published reports, Mr. Olmos was
initially offered the role, but turned it down. Mr. Mann shot "Miami Vice"
with
"Collateral" cinematographer Dion Beebe in Miami, Haiti, the Dominican
Republic, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Paraguay and Uruguay. The texture of
"Miami Vice" (see the trailer below) is akin to the rich and subdued hues of the
night and the light which were present in "Heat" and "Collateral".
The
film was shot with the same digital high-definition camera that saw deep into
the dead of the Los Angeles night in "Collateral".
The new names on board "Miami Vice" are Colin Farrell as
Crockett, Gong Li as the woman on the other side of the law (a drug-runner's
girlfriend and accomplice) that he falls deeply for while on the undercover
assignment he and Tubbs are on. Included in the Miami-Dade Police
Department's ranks are Naomie Harris (of "28 Days Later"), as Tubbs' live-in
girlfriend who is also a criminologist at the Department, and Justin Theroux as
an assisting detective. The trailer also evidences a tension between the
two lead detectives that was not necessarily evident between the Tubbs and
Crockett characters on the television series. The film, which is rated R,
has a far harsher
edge, pushing the sex and sensuality envelope in ways that the occasionally racy
television series could not.
[Note: the North American Region 1 DVD release on December 5 will be an unrated
director's cut of Michael Mann's "Miami Vice" film, which underperformed in the
United States at the box office and fared only slightly better around the rest
of the world.]
Then and Now: The 1980's Tubbs and Crockett
(Philip Michael Thomas and Don Johnson) were all smiles and styles, while the
2006 Tubbs and Crockett
(Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell) are all business. (Photos: NBC/Universal; Universal Pictures)
The Popcorn Reel Review of "Miami Vice"
"Miami Vice"
Trailer