Cinematical

Dang. That doesn't sound to good. I'm off to the screening any minute now. Maybe I can find more fun in it. Wasn't it at least good-looking and stylish?

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After watching Mann's Miami Vice and subsequently reading a few of its reviews, I was reminded of bands like The Fall and Yo La Tengo, or albums such as "Trout Mask Replica" and "Bitches Brew", the thing they have in common is – either you get them or you don't.

Unlike most filmmakers who works in crime drama, Mann's interests lie not in overt emotions (Scorcese, Woo, Coppola), bombast (Scott brothers, Michael Bay, Donner), schematics (Hitchcock, De Palma, Fincher) or didactic/polemic (Spike Lee, Tarantino, Oliver Stone) but in mood and psychology. His lineage is that of John Ford, Kurosawa, Leone and Anthony Mann, along with contemporaries such as Cronenberg, Mamet, Chris Nolan as well as a few non-genre world cinema directors, such as Wenders, Wong Kar Wai and Johnnie To.

In Mann's hyper-realistic worlds, characters are defined by the careers. Like their creator, they are artisans, consummate professionals and borderline obsessives. They rarely let each other, let alone the viewer, into their world and motivations. The viewer is left to observe them at work, and the detail is God environment they inhabit. As UK critic Nick James noted in his essay on "Heat." In Mann's films, the Style IS the substance. From the negative reviews, this doesn't sit well with critics weaned either on Sundance humanist aesthetic or more traditionalist/literary-bias where story is king. It almost like listening to a Steve Reich movement or a percussion piece and complaining that they couldn't get the melody when it's the rhythm that they should be appreciating in the first place. I am interested in seeing whether reviews from other parts of the world, say Japan and parts of Europe - where a monastic "work ethic" is still widely practiced and held in high esteem by their culture – would see things differently.

As most critics and viewers realised by now, Vice 06 is not Miami Vice at all, save for the character's names and Nonpoint's cover of "in the air tonight". What they hadn't pointed out is that it is actually an expanded and retooled hybrid of 2 stories in Mann's 2002 series "Robbery Homicide Division" which starred Tom Sizemore and Barry Shabaka Henley. The 2 episodes in question are episode 8 "Wild Ride" and episode 9 "Life is Dust". In "Wild Ride" – in which Tom Towles (Coleman in Vice) played a White Supremacist drug dealer on a crime spree which culminated in a crackdown in a trailer park which ended in a thug blowing up a trailer/meth lab. Then "Life is Dust" - based on a "story by Michael Mann" but directed by Mario Van Peebles, had Sizemore going undercover to track down a Vietnamese arms dealer, fell for his Vietnamese lawyer wife and ended in a gunfight at a sting gone wrong. As the two synopsis illustrated, the episodes served as the "LA Takedown*" to Vice 06.

In fact, the interpersonal dynamics and characterisations of Vice 06 drew more from the Sizemore/Henley and co, than 80s Vice. Like many relationships in workplaces and unlike most cliched "buddy movie" pair ups, there are those which you hung with and there are those who you could rely on to get the job done, and 90% of the time they are not the same person. Like RHD, in Vice 06 C/T appeared to be working partners rather than friends.

On the dvd commentary of "Collateral" Mann mentioned that he is interested in developing that film as "a third act" of something larger. I feel that this tactic was quite subtle there, as there were plenty of exposition - both visual and aural, to establish the story. In Vice on the hand, this structure was made explicit, the viewer is literally dropped, mid-scene, into Vice's world, almost like "finding" a show whilst channel surfing. Mann's conscious and deadpan homage to tv viewing? Maybe. Mann then propelled you into their mission in a "fly on the wall" manner. What happened over the next 2 hours was the cinematic equivalent of riding a stripped down sports car.

The film itself was all about deceit, from playful lies of Tubb's love scene, Crocket/Isabella's relationship, to Crockett/Tubbs persona and posturing, towards both the dealers and to the FBI. The surface sheen of the jargon, big boats, big guns and fast cars are also part of the lies/facade. Truth and character were gleaned through work and action – trademarks of Mann's pop existentialism. For those who didn't catch RHD, a natural non-Mann companion to Vice is Mamet's Spartan. Like Mann, Mamet is another artist who revel in dealing with machismo and professionals (Glengary Glen-Ross, Homicide, Heist, House of Cards and more recently, the Heat/Mann-like tv series, The Unit) yet Mamet's worlds had two things which made them more "mainstream" and "populist" than Mann – his "gift of gab" (quotable lines) and schematics (plot twists). One can only imagine what might happen if their worlds collide!

Like a pre-Michael Moore documentarian, Mann captured this "Mann-made" world and all its lies for the viewer to experience, the editoralising is done not through conventional dialogue but through purely cinematic/technical means. Visually, what is most uniquely Mann is that, despite his affinity to the handheld aesthetic – often seen in cinema verite, documentaries, reality and procedural shows like Homicide, NYPD Blue, Cops or the Shield – the results, to this viewer at least, were always perfectly composed and considered as opposed to frentic. Its usage stemmed not from the desire simulate kineticism but rather to visually illustrate the interior of the characters, this was true in Heat, The Insider**, Ali and by and large in Vice. The same applies to the soundtrack which serves to underscore the emotions, and songs were used to define the time and place.

Atmospherically, the word foreboding comes to mind, like Heat the slow burn and dread were all consuming. Mann and his cinematographer's complete mastery of HD (not to mimic film but as a new medium) serve to instill the ambience with heat and texture. Violence is portrayed realistically and had deadly or traumatising effects, this reminded me of Cronenberg's "History of Violence" in this respect.

So, on the surface at least, this makes for a ultimate Mann film, and while it is true in some ways (visual realisation, mise en scene often rivals The Insider and Heat), there were serve lapses of judgment that for me, made it a "flawed" piece. A few minor ones are "fixable" in the eventual dvd release (Nonpoint's cover, relooping of some of Gong's dialogue, awkward timing on a few transitions), unfortunately, all but one of these flaws have to do with the four major "unfixable" flaws – the film's name, Colin Farrell, Jamie Foxx and Gong Li.

I cannot say that the actors lack acting chops, rather, I feel that they were let down by their "newness". What made Heat so remarkable and affecting, even to non-Mann admirers – despite the similar like of overt backstories – was the audiences' collective memory of DeNiro and Pacino's past works. Their twenty-odd year or so of baggage that helped to inform the audience subconsciously of who the characters were. Neither Farrell nor Foxx had that history for viewers to latch onto, thereby the viewers were forced to see them as extensions of the persona created by Johnson and Thomas. Had the film went for a different title or had Mann chosen either more established actors or complete unknowns the result might be altogether more positive. Then there's Li, who, besides her difficulty in mastering English (a big problem in the US, but definitely less in the rest of the world), seemed miscast and was unable to fully convey the harsh yet tender aspect of her character. I couldn't help but imagine what someone like Maggie Cheung might bring to the role.

As someone who admired most of Mann's output, (in fact my least favourite were his more "traditional" work like "The Last of the
Mohicians" and the 80s Miami Vice), I find this cinematic version of "Robbery Homicide Division – Miami Vice" to be an engrossing cinematic experience, and his output has been underappreciated by both the mainstream, critics and film scholars alike.

* "LA Takedown" was Mann's little seen tv movie from which Heat was derived from.
**Compare Mann's Insider to Stone's JFK, Nixon or even the earlier works of Alan J Pakula, and you'll begin to respect Mann's masterful riff on paranoia films, transforming a "ripped from the headlines" docu-thriller into an intense character study, by subverting the visual/aesthetic cues of a Stonesian conspiracy thriller.

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Dangermaus has an interesting take. Unfortunately, he (she?) resorts to a tired device, the "either you get X or don't (and of course Maus gets it)"

It's a vacuous defense. That's what every artist who ever lived says about their work. Just as easily, I could say that Maus doesn't get it. Anyway.

Maus states that Mann is about mood and psychology. I agree and disagree, in that order.

But all critics understand that Mann is about mood - attitude, style, etc. Everyone agrees that he does it well, too. The issue is whether there is anything more to his film than that.

With respect to psychology, this is where Maus errs. In a general sense, all movies have psychology, but the real hole in Vice is precisely the lack of any rich psychology.

Vice is a stereotype from start to finish - tough, cool, ultra-competent cops who are strong and get the beautiful girl. A drug deal goes bad, they go in deep, too deep; the obnoxious boss, the sauve super villain, the lackey who double crosses them, the kidnapped girlfriend who requires saving, the tragic romance that must be given up. All of this totally, completely cliche. Not new.

The thing I would say is that Vice adds nothing at all new to any of this. I liked Vice, but it is not a study in psychology. There is nothing new in it that wasn't already in Heat. Or even the TV show. Motivations feel skin-deep in this show.

As to another point you made, that the story is told through style, and visual and aural cues, that's a neat idea. I've been thinking about this myself with respect to Kubrick. Lee Siegel's review of Eyes Wide Shut is online and it'd be interesting to see what Maus thought of it.

Siegel too defends Eyes with precisely the same tactic - critics don't 'get' it, the dialogue is not the medium of expression, etc. And that might be so.

I don't think there's enough in Vice, though, to really sustain an argument. The details Maus provided are accurate, true enough, it's just that pointing out that Farrel's relationship is deceitful, etc - well, these don't seem all that insightful or fresh. Just the tried and true points of the cliche - Mann didn't add anything to them.

My guess is that Maus would dismiss this. I think the problem is that it's cool and arty to state that your story is told through visual cues, not story. That sure sounds good.

But for me, a great movie is told through both the visuals, sounds, backgrounds, mis en scene, narrative, characters, etc - the whole thing. My ideal is a complete, integrated movie, not one that isolates one stratum and rides on cliche in the rest.

IMHO, that's what made me so abivalent about Vice. I liked it. I liked its world. That's Maus's 'mood'. But there wasn't any interesting psychology going on there, no more than any episode of the tv show that is. Vice's world is all it has going for it, though.

The story and characterization (hot shot, cool shot (Tubbs)- are the SAME hot and cold as in Heat with Pacino as hot, Deniro as cold)were stale, the mood, the visuals, the sounds, were not.

And so it opened Vice up to the exact same criticism the show had - all style, no substance. No, the sizzle isn't the steak, and can't made to be.

R

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What was the name of the song and artist that was played durng collin farrell's love scene, please and thanx

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