Gotta Have It

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Most depression-era gangsters had coarse features -- puffy, rough-looking, scarred, pockmarked -- with feral, pitiless eyes. Some were flat-out ugly. Movie stars tend to have appealing, often pretty faces and are pretty much unable to walk into a room without engaging audience empathy. So there's a Hollywood b.s. factor going in when you cast anyone genetically gifted as a gun-totin' psychopath.

Johnny Depp during filming of Michael Mann's Public Enemies

Like, for example, when Bonnie and Clyde producer Warren Beatty cast himself as the short, dorky-looking Clyde Barrow. This worked, obviously, because the equally pretty Faye Dunaway played Bonnie -- she and Beatty at least made for a balanced fantasy -- and because the film sold them as a couple of rebellious '60s kids. But the movie star-gangster thing is basically trouble.

Did anyone believe Tom Hanks as gangland assassin in The Road to Perdition? I was able to roll with it because director Sam Mendes and cinematographer Conrad Hall did a superb job together, and because Hanks gave it hell -- but nobody bought it deep down.

I'm as willing to be suckered by Hollywood flotsam as the next guy, but I know right now I'm going to have trouble accepting the dark-eyed, still boyishly good-looking Johnny Depp as the notoriously impudent and snarly-looking John Dillinger in Michael Mann's adaptation of Bryan Burrough's "Public Enemies."

John Dillinger

Nobody is a bigger fool for Mann films than myself. I fell for the fumes in Miami Vice, and took a lot of heat for that. And I'm fairly certain I'm going to love (or at least be impressed by) Public Enemies. But Depp-as-Dillinger seems almost surreal in its physical (and possibly spiritual) wrongness. The only '30s gangster Depp could realistically play, maybe, would be Pretty Boy Floyd (who wasn't that pretty, by the way).

The best Hollywood facsimile of all time was Warren Oates in John Milius' Dillinger ('73). He looked like the real McCoy, he had the internals, and he was Warren Oates. I never saw Lawrence Tierney's portrayal in Dillinger ('45), but I'll bet it was fairly on the money. I don't think you can't "play" a gangster. On some level you have to actually be one, or the audience will smell it.

I don't know what this says about Jude Law, but his most convincing screen role by far was a gimpy, twitchy, odd-looking assassin in The Road to Perdition.

George Raft, James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart totally looked and acted like real toughs. But some guys just don't have it. Look at that shot of the real Dillinger above -- there's a world of hurt and rage and vengeance in that beefy Midwestern face. There's a reason why Pat O'Brien or Franchot Tone or Jimmy Stewart almost never played villains. (Until they got older, I mean.)

Depp is much more in the delicate, ethereal, sensitive-guy realm. There's a reason why he was so good as Edward Scissorhands and Ed Wood and Jack Sparrow, roles that are partly about tapping into a certain otherness (including a female side) that pretty much runs away from any sort of brawny machismo. This isn't a precise analogy, but Depp is basically a 21st Century Franchot Tone with a little perversity and eye shadow on the side.

I'm mentioning this because AICN ran some shots last weekend of Mann, Depp and others shooting a bank-robbery scene somewhere in Wisconsin. (It happened in Columbus, Madison, Baraboo...one of those.) And your first thought is that Depp and his tommy-gun-brandishing cohorts look like actors playing gangsters in their 1930s hats and overcoats. Unfair to judge from a few cheap-ass snaps, I realize, but that's what they look like.

Public Enemies is an adaptation of Bryan Burrough's book," which is about the gangsters who shot up the midwest in 1933 and '34 -- Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, Alvin Karpis and the Barker family. Mann's film may be a full-on adaptation, although reports have so far suggested it's mainly about the bloody and raucous crime career of Dillinger, which lasted a little less than 18 months (early '33 until his death in July '34).

Michael Mann during filming of Public Enemies

One synopsis says the focus is on FBI agent Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale) and his attempts to stop Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, and Pretty Boy Floyd. Marion Cotillard will play Dillinger's girlfriend Billie Frechette. I've read about Channing Tatum playing Pretty Boy Floyd, Stephen Dorff as Homer Van Meter, Jason Clarke as John "Red" Hamilton, John Ortiz as Frank Nitti, David Wenham as Dillinger gang member Harry Pierpont, and Stephen Graham as Baby Face Nelson.

Principal photography on Public Enemies began in Columbus, Wisconsin on 3.17.08 and will continue in various Wisconsin and Chicago locales until late June. Some parts of the film will reportedly be shot in Crown Point, Indiana, the town where Dillinger escaped from jail.

comment #1

Mgmax says ...

I don't think Depp's physically wrong for it; Dillinger had a kind of roughhewn Gable-esque glamor and was savvy enough to play that up in how the public saw him. Whether he's as tough as Dillinger, well, that's another question. There's a great scene in the Milius where he comes unglued on the phone and you see the dangerous, hairtrigger sociopath; that'll be the challenge.

Even if the movie focuses on Dillinger, part of the point of Burrough's book is showing how connected all these guys were, to each other, to the Chicago and Kansas City mobs, etc. (At one point the police chased Pretty Boy Floyd through some Chicago backyards, and just happen to cut through the yard of the place where Dillinger was hiding out at the time.) Apart from Bonnie and Clyde, these guys actually operated in a very small portion of the country.

comment #2

diesel says ...

i'd like to have seen christian bale and depp in opposite roles. bale's performance in the machinist is one of the most underrated one in recent years. not sure it even earned him a n academy nomination. plus, he scared the shit out of me in harsh times.

comment #3

mutinyco says ...

John Stockwell. Like 20 years ago.

comment #4

mutinyco says ...

I meant Dean Stockwell. Duh.

comment #5

christian says ...

I still have not seen DILLINGER. Must fix that. Otherwise, the best Dillinger movie is THE LADY IN RED, written by John Sayles, featuring Robert Conrad as a more gentlemanly JD. Terrific flick.

comment #6

Rosebudsthesled says ...

Screw MIAMI VICE. There, I said it. One of the most pointless movies ever made. Maybe that's the fourth film to add to my worst list.

comment #7

Mr. Muckle says ...

Beg to differ.

More convincing Jude Law roles than the one in "The Road to Perdition":

1) Artificial Intelligence: AI
1a) Gattaca
2) The Talented Mr. Ripley
3) Enemy at the Gates

comment #8

Geoff says ...

They should have gone the Jude Law ROAD TO PERDITION route and made johnny look a little bit uglier. I think it could have worked.

Everyone I know loves Jude Law's performance in Perdition....so I don't really know what that says either.

comment #9

cjKennedy says ...

Mann always makes things slicker and less gritty than they really are, no?

comment #10

vansmith says ...

No cj, mann makes it better...

comment #11

abuseintake says ...

Mann is to film what Richard Meier is to architecture. Cold, alienating and infused with a beguiling misguided, confidence. Mann is Malick without soul. His talents would be put to better use doing Audi commercials.

comment #12

vansmith says ...

mann is for men, focused lonely men, men alone in crowds, watching waiting..come on you guys smartin up..

comment #13

gruver1 says ...

Wells to abuseintake: There's been a soul a'plenty in many Mann moments. I've been touched deeply, quite deeply, by scenes in his films, and by the themes within. The moment when Tom Cruise dies at the end fo Collateral -- "Think anyone will notice?" -- was shattering, I thought. Pacino holding the dying De Niro's hand on the LAX runaway at the end of Heat brought me close to tears. James Caan trying to get through emotionally to Tuesday Weld in that diner scene in Thief. The finale of The Jericho Mile. I even felt lamenting currents under Colin Farrell and Gong Li's relationship in Miami Vice. You've either blocked yourself off or you can't feel this stuff for some reason, but to call Mann's films soul-less is way, way off. The only soul-less film he made was The Keep.

comment #14

Mgmax says ...

Yeah, that's crazy, Abuseintake.

Ten million 90s action movies end with a guy getting blown away, and the one you remember is Val Kilmer driving away, knowing he's gotten away from the cops, and just has to serve his life sentence in the solitary confinement of his own soul.

comment #15

abuseintake says ...

Well it might be the Membutol I put on my popcorn....

comment #16

Rich S. says ...

I had read the first couple of paragraphs of this post and hadn't scrolled down, when I thought, "But what about Warren Oates in Dillinger?" Bingo! My favorite scene is when he's making the gun out of soap and blackening it with shoe polish. I grew up near Crown Point. No offense, but it's pretty easy to see how Dillinger pulled that off in that town.

I think the problem is that few leading men today have any real "character" in their faces, like Bogie and Cagney. You are either a leading man or a character actor- no in between (at least not in big Hollywood productions).

I may be wrong, but as I recall, they never actually pinned a murder on Dillinger. He was more of a "gentleman bandit." Didn't help him as he walked out of Manhattan Melodrama, though.

comment #17

Rich S. says ...

Plus, I loved Mann's Crime Story before they moved the setting to Vegas. I'm really looking forward to this one.

comment #18

CinemaPhreek says ...

At least twice a year now I end up having a conversation about "Where Are the Man's Man Actors of Today?" There are very few of these guys anymore, those who are cut from the Burt Lancaster, Steve McQueen, Clint Eastwood type of wood.

What we mostly have are BOYS who like to play dress-up men. The fact that Mann is willing to fill a movie from top to bottom with such actors suggests that the slide that began with COLLATERAL and MIAMI VICE is only getting worse.

Can you imagine the Mann of HEAT casting that film like this? I can only be thankful that this was the first I heard of this, because otherwise I would have been anticipating with fervor the arrival of Mann film about that period.

comment #19

Geoff says ...

Anyone who sees HEAT and proclaims it's devoid of any emotion is missing a few screws in their head.

comment #20

Jeffrey Kunze says ...

I totally agree with Jeff and the rest of the Mann-lovers here (no pun intended).

I think he's an exceptional filmmaker who always displays tons of emotion underneath all that slick exterior.

Despite hating Collateral and Miami Vice after my first viewing, they have grown on me tremendously. His films truly deserve repeated viewings.

I greatly look forward to Public Enemies and I hope he makes it epic.

Screw the public and the critics. Mann is all about his fans.

comment #21

CinemaPhreek says ...

With the casting of PUBLIC ENEMIES, the message is clear:

Screw the fans, Mann is all about his bank account.

Consider the money his last three films did not make, I can even understand his rational.

comment #22

rockne says ...

abuseintake:

Stand up for yourself, man!
Wells is WAY OFF.
The scene at the end of Heat? Pure emotional PAP. Want a way to destroy a great crime thriller? Have the antagonist and protagonist hold hands at the end. Awful.
Gong Li and Colin Farrell in Miami Vice? Vapid. soulless filler to try to make that movie something it had no chance of being.
James Cann made that scene with Tuesday Weld good.
He shouldn't even do Audi commercials. He'd probably shoot with so many cameras so shaky you wouldn't know what car it was.
I like older Mann somewhat...very enjoyable.
But abuseintake is more on the money than anyone else in the talkback.
And the Insider? A lot of moody music with a fat Russell Crowe rolling down the hill in his yard. Numerous shots of car windows and doors and motorcycle lights and random shots of rain and the beach and...never mind...Wells thinks John "Battlefield Earth" Adams is good compostiions. Did Mann direct that? It does put ridiculous camera angles over letting us into the story. Probably him.

comment #23

rockne says ...

Oh, and Tom Cruise in Collateral? Will anyone notice? NO. Because we're tired of watching the sunset through the train window. He's a frickin' contract killer. Who's gonna miss 'im? Should we miss 'im? Oh, hell, should the director make us wonder that? Why not give that line to Jamie Foxx? Make it a different kind of...ya know....we went through all of this, will anyone know what we just went through? I built up this relationship with a contract killer...will I miss him?
Whatever. We don't get that, because Mann wants his stars to shine, at the expense of the story.
Plus Tom probably threatened Scientology-craziness if he didn't get the line.

comment #24

actionman says ...

All of Mann's theatrical releases (except for The Keep) are four star works in my book.

I expect Public Enemies to be no different.

Dante Spinotti is shooting this flick! They haven't worked together since Heat.

comment #25

JohnCope says ...

CinemaPhreek, I think you're missing part of Mann's entire point and much of what I value most about his work. For one thing, Heat was a very different situation. And Kilmer basically acted as an early representative for what you think is currently going so wrong. Pacino and Deniro had to be older, more heavy weight actors, though there is little doubt in my mind that the cultural cache they brought into the project with them merely worked to obscure the fact that they were, in fact, just older versions of the types you seem to disdain.

Here's my point. Mann's films have always been partially about how his characters appropriate the surface finish of their respective worlds: the attitudinizing, the posturing, the essential role playing. Vice confronted this theme most directly and is my favorite of his films for that reason--I happen to like that theme. In other words, part of what Mann is trying to get at is the way in which these are always boys playing dress up but it's never "just" that. His great achievement resides in his power and skill as a filmmaker, making us see how ultimately irrelevant the notion of "falseness" is. The self made myths perpetuated and driven by the fantasies of these pragmatic men reveal a greater dimension of truth and significance than if Mann was simply fastidious about the need to have grizzled "real men" portray his characters. I suggest that what he does has power exactly because it does not submit itself to banal notions of realism. It's all super elevated personal mythology which we're given access to and yet that fact never invalidates the drama of what we are seeing. Far from it. In fact, it adds to it because we can see their desperate need and understand the vulnerability that creates.

Oh, and rockne, the supposed "soullessness" of Farrell and Gong Li's relationship is the whole point. We recognize the tragedy that it can never be anything but. And it is not simply because it's based on false identities but, more profoundly, because the confusion of whether any genuine feeling emerges from the positions created by that false reality casts existential doubt over their entire lives.

And the end of Heat is an acknowledgment of the film's true melodramatic heart. The fact that Mann takes this essential melodrama seriously, as revealing something grave and important to do with the fatalistic circumstances of his characters, is what sets him apart as a great artist.

comment #26

christian says ...

"Oh, and rockne, the supposed "soullessness" of Farrell and Gong Li's relationship is the whole point. We recognize the tragedy that it can never be anything but. And it is not simply because it's based on false identities but, more profoundly, because the confusion of whether any genuine feeling emerges from the positions created by that false reality casts existential doubt over their entire lives."

I think this applies more to his relationship with his boat and alligator. We're talkin' MIAMI VICE here!

comment #27

BurmaShave says ...

Also THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS, which is fused with emotion and which leads to a shattering conclusion.

comment #28

Mgmax says ...

"Mann's films have always been partially about how his characters appropriate the surface finish of their respective worlds: the attitudinizing, the posturing, the essential role playing."

I disagree that there's anything going on in that lifestyle-show-on-the-drug-dealer-channel, but you're very right about his viewpoint in Heat. Specifically in regards to Pacino's character, everyone always says Pacino's performance is too over the top but if you notice he's only big when his character is putting on a show for somebody, getting loud to throw his weight around as a cop-- when he's with people he knows, he's quiet and thoughtful.

comment #29

Mr. Gittes says ...

Anyone else a little surprised that Depp doesn't look a little...rougher? Mann seems to be obsessed with facial hair( Cruise in Collateral, Farrell in Vice, De Niro in Heat...) I'm a little shocked that Depp looks so clean cut. However, as the film progresses, Depp might slowly transform and look more worn out, tired; facial hair and all. At the end of the film, Depp might have that mid-west angry look that Wells is talking about. Too early to judge right now, folks. Mann is the man.

comment #30

JapAdapters says ...

Geez, this is getting a little overdone, no?

I like Michael Mann (usually a lot) and LOVE some of his movies (THIEF, THE INSIDER) but there's something to this criticism. The point of MIAMI VICE (which, again, I liked) was not that Gong Li and Colin Farrell's relationship was tragic ... or if it was it was a poorly made point. What's tragic, IMO, is that Mann cast Farrell who did a bad Don Johnson impersonation and had ZERO chemistry with his female lead.

I love how people start projecting stuff (no offense to anyone in particular) onto movies when they're heroes get knocked. Michael Mann has my money anytime he makes a movie but there's something emotionally detached about his work, even if I get off on the machoness of it all (and I generally do). Oh yeah, and his female characters (or should I say character ... since it's the same fucking woman in every movie) are trite and somewhat misogynistic constructs too!

Personally, I've always found HEAT to be a ridiculously overrated movie. It's about an hour too long and has way too many sub plots. Plus, the fact that DeNiro doesn't get away even though he does exactly what he tells Pacino he will do/and had done to do so (walk away from what he cares about) irks the shit out of me. And what is it about Pacino either spotting (HEAT) or being spotted (CARLITO'S WAY) in crowds that NO ONE who wanted to get lost in could be found? Completely unbelievable ... to me.

comment #31

corey3rd says ...

I've been hooked on the Untouchables series. Gavin MacLeod was a great hoodlum. Also Frank Sutton and Steven Hill.

comment #32

dangovich says ...

And what is it about Pacino either spotting (HEAT) or being spotted (CARLITO'S WAY) in crowds that NO ONE who wanted to get lost in could be found?

I think in the case of Heat, a veteran cop/detective has instincts that the average person doesn't possess. He can detect guilt and shiftiness the way a night vision camera picks up body heat.

comment #33

JoeGreenia says ...

I just read Public Enemies, it was a gas. It follows that careers of a number of gangs, with Dillinger getting killed about two-thirds of the way through the book. If anything, Alvin Karpis is the book's central figure. Surely though, Mann's film will follow the Dillinger angle. I finished the book thinking Sam Rockwell was born to play him, but what do I know.

comment #34

Clark Perry says ...

Let's hope the period setting of this pic steers Mann way clear of Chris Cornell when it comes to the soundtrack.

Most of Mann's soundtracks are classic stuff, especially MANHUNTER and HEAT. When he started dropping Cornell's cliched faux-macho cock-rock over scenes, I was plumb aghast.

comment #35

Mgmax says ...

"Plus, the fact that DeNiro doesn't get away even though he does exactly what he tells Pacino he will do/and had done to do so (walk away from what he cares about) irks the shit out of me."

See: flaw, Tragic

comment #36

DotTheEyes says ...

Does anyone know if Mann is shooting this film with the Thomson Viper Filmstream Camera?

comment #37

p.Vice says ...

Is it just me, or did those Miami Vice comments give off the fumes of a classic Wells retraction?

comment #38

rockne says ...

MGMAX:
Running away from what you love and then running onto a part of the airport where he can crawl between the shacks and get into a shootout is a
flaw: Tragic?
It's more like a
crap: Manipulative
sense of getting your characters where you need them so they can HOLD HANDS! The fact that you all think that has some sort of deep emotional resonance is laughable.
I bet you'll be watching this and saying that the fact Johnny Depp looks so young points out the idea that all criminals, deep down...oh, never mind. Mann will just shoot it so...emphatically...that you won't have time to think about it.
The ending of Heat represents the point in Mann's career where he lost his footing.
After someone mentioned Last of The Mohicans, it made me think of how amazingly emotional that movie is. There's a shot of Uncas, by the waterfalls...and he steps into the camera in slow motion and then moves out of frame.
It makes you just want to yell to THIS Michael Mann and say "Get back to that!"
The scene of the bad Huron gesturing for Cora's sister to come to him after he kills Uncas...just amazing stuff...I have to go watch that again.
Anyway, this Heat debate is like Elvis. You either love him or you hate him, right? Nothing in between?

comment #39

actionman says ...

No p.vice, didn't sound like a retraction in the slightest to me.

From what I read, Public Enemies is being shot on film

comment #40

Mgmax says ...

Rockne,

Much as I hate to disagree with someone whose headless corpse was identified by my grandfather (that's entirely true, by the way), yeah, pretty much the whole movie is leading up to the inevitable moment when DeNiro, who claims that he's not a guy with jailhouse tats that say born to lose, and who has a plan for getting away, can't do it, has to get his revenge, has to tie up his loose end, has to live by the code of the hardcore criminal he is even though he knows he'll die by it, but that's who he is, and so he gets the job done, but there's no escape, there never is, if it isn't the prop plane blowing your money away, if it isn't the FBI guy in the car shooting your partner in the bank robbery between the eyes, if it isn't hanging around just a little too long in the roadhouse listening to the jukebox and watching the pretty girl dance, it's bound to be something, born to lose was tattooed on your soul and it's only a matter of time, your code will take you to your end at the airport and his code will mean that he forgets all that to offer another human being some tiny solace in the last moments before the big sleep.

Oh, and Depp, who looks so young, is nevertheless 14 years older than Dillinger was when he was killed.

comment #41

T. S. Idiot says ...

People playing Dillinger are always older than JD, even Nick Adams in Young Dillinger. The notable exception is the great Lawrence Tierney, only 26 and a pretty boy at the time.

comment #42

JapAdapters says ...

That's not a tragic flaw, or a tragedy of any kind. If you're going to have DeNiro make such a big deal about how he always skates then either have it work again (which would have been my preference -- he disappears into the night, Pacino screams "Damn" ... or "Hoo-Raw," whichever) or have him go against his normal MO, which leads to him getting caught. Either would make sense. Having him actually leave the girls and get (implausibly) spotted anyway is a gap in logic I put up there with Tom Cruise's character in MAGNOLIA being a misogynist because his father left and his mother was a saint (???). In other words, it's the absolute wrong psychology. Anyway, I obviously have issues with HEAT, which I think could/should have been a great movie. Still good, though, unlike COLLATERAL (blech) and ALI (eh).

comment #43

Mgmax says ...

"That's not a tragic flaw, or a tragedy of any kind."

Okay. That's the movie you saw; I saw the movie I saw.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXqy-bzd9O0

comment #44

JapAdapters says ...

Sure, it's all in the eye of the beholder.

As for the youtube clip -- and this is assuming I'm guessing right about what you were after -- shouldn't DeNiro's nature be something he can't help and it hurts him/other people. without him getting shot to death? And wasn't the point of his relationship with that woman that he was trying to change, because he isn't a snake/scorpion but a human being, who's at least supposed to be able to change?

For instance, it seems more tragic to me if the character finally has a chance at the thing (a woman, love) his lifestyle hasn't afforded him, and he has to walk away from it. That's his choice, and the price he pays for being a master thief, but it's also a prison of sorts -- in which case he doesn't really get away at the end, even though he escapes.

Btw, I actually sort of think Mann went for this in MIAMI VICE but was undone by not having characters I really gave a shit about.

Anyway, I've thought way too much about HEAT, but it's probably my number one 'if I could recut it' movies. I know most people think it's a classic but I thought it ultimately missed that mark. Then again, what do I know?

comment #45

Dave Polands Gut says ...

Yea, lets cast ugly people in leads. The box office would be huge. Wells you cant be serious.

comment #46

Mgmax says ...

"For instance, it seems more tragic to me if the character finally has a chance at the thing (a woman, love) his lifestyle hasn't afforded him, and he has to walk away from it."

Um, that pretty much IS the ending of Heat, except the duration of how long he gets to live without it.

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