I'm actually a little disappointed in that it looks like it over-embellishes some of the actual events, which as described in the book were plenty dramatic and action-packed enough...
I trust Mann enough to save judgement, but where the book emphasizes these guys' humanity, their brashness, stupidity, humor, strengths, and weaknesses, this trailer, at least, makes everyone look too slick and suave and cool for me.
Love Michael Mann. Great choice of music as usual.
Depp looks great and I actually like this high def look for a period film.
Posted by Geoff at March 4, 2009 2:59 PM
comment #5
cinefan says ...
As a fan of the book, I'm really hoping the film doesn't focus only on Dilinger while completely ignoring Bonnie and Clyde, "Baby Face" Nelson, "Pretty Boy" Floyd, etc. I am very dubious based on what I saw in the trailer that that's exactly Mann what Mann has done in his adaptation.
The digital look makes me want to puke. Will someone please call The Emperor's New Clothes already. This should have been shot on film to evoke a classic period in time. I fucking hate digital - all of it. You can shove the Viper, Red Cam, Genesis and all the rest of these mediocre systems up your asses. That trailer was so distracting, I had to pause it after a few seconds - I couldn't believe after the Miami Vice (looks like shit) fiasco, he went back to digital. At least Fincher made Benjamin Button look film-like for 90 percent of that one. This just looks cheap.
I like after all our belly-aching yesterday, Depp looks to be the strongest thing about this. Crudup, sadly, looks like a disaster. How did it take Michael Mann to figure out how awesome gunfire looks like on digital video? I'm fairly stoked.
Hmmm...it just looks too slick and modern. Call me old-fashioned, but if something is set in the 20s/30s, it should actually feel like something that could have come out during that period, to add to the verisimilitude...."L.A. Confidential" comes to mind as a fairly recent example of a film that definitely had a stylistic eye (and ear) aimed towards the period it depicted. The overall look, pacing, and music here (I realize it's the trailer, and needs to be a "grabber", but still...) just seems at odds with the fact that everyone's dressed in 1920s garb and shooting tommy guns. The use of modern music in a period film trailer has always bugged me, and it sure does here as well. So, I'm wary, but as someone else said, it is Michael Mann, so I'll hope for the best....the man did give us "Heat", after all.
On the one hand, the digital looks crappy with all those period details.
On the other, I have to wonder if once one starts to get into the film, the use of such a modern looking approach will actually help immerse the viewer into the world of the 30's in a fresh way. I've never sat through an entire period film that is so blatantly shot on video.
Now, the cast still make me want me to make Mobsters II jokes...
The fact that this was shot in digital will separate it, at least from a visual standpoint, from every other gangster movie. This is a prime example of Mann pushing his form, doing something new and probably brilliant (like Miami Vice), and creating something utterly unique. That lost shot of the gunfire from Bale's tommy-gun is electrifying. This is clearly going to be the movie event of the summer.
"Call me old-fashioned, but if something is set in the 20s/30s, it should actually feel like something that could have come out during that period, to add to the verisimilitude..."
That makes no sense. Sounds like those people who insist that when someone is playing a foreigner they have to speak English in a German/Spanish/French accent. Absurd. Imagine how dumb it would sound saying this if you were talking about a film set in the Middle Ages.
"On the other, I have to wonder if once one starts to get into the film, the use of such a modern looking approach will actually help immerse the viewer into the world of the 30's in a fresh way. I've never sat through an entire period film that is so blatantly shot on video."
I think you're onto something here.
I bet the cheesiness factor of digital here will be far less of a factor on a huge screen.
Also, I saw at least two reminders of Heat in this trailer alone - the sliding moneybag and one of the lines was a takeoff/reverse play of Voight telling McCauley "he can shoot and miss - you can't miss" or something to that effect.
Mann, if you're going to shoot digitally, use the fucking Red or even the Viper. The look you've got going on here is destroying what looks like it could be an awesome movie.
And for all the naysayers that say shooting digitally inherently brings out this kind of shitty video look, watch Che, shot on the Red. It looks AMAZING.
How refreshing, how fucking refreshing it is to see a trailer of a big studio film that has real characters and isn't based on some bullshit comic book loaded with CGI. Fucking amazingly refreshing! And a story. The trailer has a fucking story arc! Incredible! It actually tells a story instead of soaking your brain numb with a cartoon sensibility. God damn, thank you, Michael Mann. You remain the single most interesting studio director left working today. God bless you for making this movie.
Definitely has me intrigued. Depp looks great as Dillinger. I wonder about Bale as Purvis, because according to the book, Purvis was more of a screw-up than was originally reported.
For my money, the look of this thing reminds me of DePalma's The Untouchables, and that's not bad at all.
Dillinger was a larger than life character. Maybe Mann has chosen to emphasize the myth over "gritty reality." If so, so be it. He's a fanatic about period detail, so odds are he got those right. If so, he can make the movie look any way he wants.
I'm amazed about the number of people ready to write this off because the cinematography in the trailer doesn't "look right." Holy mackerel.
bless you Hickenlooper! what this thread needed was a director injecting a sense of filmmaking into this study of dv vs film ---- good god - Dante Spinotti is the DP, and this is Michael Freaking Mann! both of these guys have enough of a resume to have the benefit of trust in their expertise and vision...I will be on line all day waiting for the first showing of this film!
I really really hope all of those criticising the look of the trailer are doing so after seeing it in a theater or on one of the high quality internet versions out there - not the low-res, low-bitrate, badly-compressed version that Jeff embedded above.
It's interesting that so many people have picked up on the digital look of this trailer. Interesting to me that is.
Of course, given that Michael Manns last two cinematic outings were shot (at least in part) digitally primes that expectation but I must confess that I'm surprised at his choice here. Collateral and (possibly to a lesser degree) Miami Vice were both films where one could make an argument for the technology offering new opportunities - shooting under available light in L.A. at night for instance - and also seemed to fit with a modern 'bleeding edge' synthetic aesthetic that resonated with the subject matter.
Dillinger is a character associated with an era of cinema and cinematography that is wholly celluloid and it just seems obtuse to try to represent him on screen with such an indelibly contemporary acquisition media.
If Mann were recreating a period that was pre-cinema then I think there would be validity in the argument that a 'video' look was every bit as legit as film. Though I'd never wish for it Last of the Mohicans could have fallen into that bracket.
Incidentally Public Enemies was entirely shot on Sony F23 CineAlta cameras save for a smattering of above 60fps shots that were film. Quite why Mann would favour a camera that utilizes a 16mm sized 1920 x 1080 CCD over a Genesis/RED ONE/Viper, beyond his familiarity with the Sony family of cameras, baffles me. The look is distinctly 'video' with smeary motion and seemingly infinite depth of field. Dante Spinotte's usually exemplary cinematography (Wonder Boys is one of the most elegantly shot American films of the last decade IMHO) looks brash and slipshod as a result and night interiors where they've whacked up the gain and opened the shutter creating itchy noise and dubious focus seems lazy and cheap.
I've no doubt that Manns skill as a film maker will mean that over the duration of a feature film, as opposed to a trailer, I'll forget my irritation at what reads as an inappropriate look. As a two minute sampler though the look is vile.
Posted by prairie_oysters at March 5, 2009 1:09 PM
comment #36
prairie_oysters says ...
Oh, I almost forgot to say...
Didn't John Milius and Warren Oates nail this to the wall good and proper 35 years ago?
Posted by prairie_oysters at March 5, 2009 1:12 PM
I strongly suggest you guys a H - O T site for tall chix and guys-- ____Tall kiss C om ____ Im sure it will work for-- you. End your loney life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have to wonder if once one starts to get into the film, the use of such a modern looking approach will actually help immerse the viewer into the world of the 30's in a fresh way. I've never sat through an entire period film that is so blatantly shot on video.
comment #1
Teacher's Pets
says ...
I'm actually a little disappointed in that it looks like it over-embellishes some of the actual events, which as described in the book were plenty dramatic and action-packed enough...
I trust Mann enough to save judgement, but where the book emphasizes these guys' humanity, their brashness, stupidity, humor, strengths, and weaknesses, this trailer, at least, makes everyone look too slick and suave and cool for me.
Posted by Teacher's Pets
at March 4, 2009 2:55 PM
comment #2
Teacher's Pets
says ...
There were about four too many uses of punctuation in that last sentence.
Posted by Teacher's Pets
at March 4, 2009 2:57 PM
comment #3
Mr. Gittes
says ...
AWESOME.
So Bale takes a supporting role to work with Mann and Depp, rather than demanding a bigger part like other A-listers do...
The relationship between Dillinger and Purvis, or lack thereof, is already being historically stretched enough, I think.
Posted by Mr. Gittes
at March 4, 2009 2:59 PM
comment #4
Geoff
says ...
Love Michael Mann. Great choice of music as usual.
Depp looks great and I actually like this high def look for a period film.
Posted by Geoff
at March 4, 2009 2:59 PM
comment #5
cinefan
says ...
As a fan of the book, I'm really hoping the film doesn't focus only on Dilinger while completely ignoring Bonnie and Clyde, "Baby Face" Nelson, "Pretty Boy" Floyd, etc. I am very dubious based on what I saw in the trailer that that's exactly Mann what Mann has done in his adaptation.
Posted by cinefan
at March 4, 2009 3:11 PM
comment #6
NotImpressed1Yet
says ...
I see lots of good things here.
And I agree the HD look is fine for the movie. No need for the sepia tone treatment that Ron Howard would give it.
Posted by NotImpressed1Yet
at March 4, 2009 3:12 PM
comment #7
Mr. Gittes
says ...
Stephen Graham looks fantastic as Baby Face Nelson, by the way.
Bonnie and Clyde are not in Public Enemies. Dillinger is the focus.
Posted by Mr. Gittes
at March 4, 2009 3:14 PM
comment #8
Dan Revill
says ...
Decent. Will see it. It's Mann and with that cast, how can one pass it up?
Posted by Dan Revill
at March 4, 2009 3:42 PM
comment #9
lawnorder
says ...
The digital look makes me want to puke. Will someone please call The Emperor's New Clothes already. This should have been shot on film to evoke a classic period in time. I fucking hate digital - all of it. You can shove the Viper, Red Cam, Genesis and all the rest of these mediocre systems up your asses. That trailer was so distracting, I had to pause it after a few seconds - I couldn't believe after the Miami Vice (looks like shit) fiasco, he went back to digital. At least Fincher made Benjamin Button look film-like for 90 percent of that one. This just looks cheap.
Posted by lawnorder
at March 4, 2009 3:47 PM
comment #10
D.Z.
says ...
Dammit, Mann, stop shooting in DV. It looks like Public Enemies was filmed in your backyard.
Posted by D.Z.
at March 4, 2009 3:48 PM
comment #11
CitizenKanedforChewingGum
says ...
lawnorder says...
"That trailer was so distracting..."
It's fuuuckin' distraaaaaaaactin'!
Posted by CitizenKanedforChewingGum
at March 4, 2009 4:22 PM
comment #12
Circumvrent
says ...
I can't wrap my brain around the juxtaposition of the HD and the period setting. Form is not following function here.
Posted by Circumvrent
at March 4, 2009 4:35 PM
comment #13
BurmaShave
says ...
I like after all our belly-aching yesterday, Depp looks to be the strongest thing about this. Crudup, sadly, looks like a disaster. How did it take Michael Mann to figure out how awesome gunfire looks like on digital video? I'm fairly stoked.
Posted by BurmaShave
at March 4, 2009 4:37 PM
comment #14
115thDreamer
says ...
Hmmm...it just looks too slick and modern. Call me old-fashioned, but if something is set in the 20s/30s, it should actually feel like something that could have come out during that period, to add to the verisimilitude...."L.A. Confidential" comes to mind as a fairly recent example of a film that definitely had a stylistic eye (and ear) aimed towards the period it depicted. The overall look, pacing, and music here (I realize it's the trailer, and needs to be a "grabber", but still...) just seems at odds with the fact that everyone's dressed in 1920s garb and shooting tommy guns. The use of modern music in a period film trailer has always bugged me, and it sure does here as well. So, I'm wary, but as someone else said, it is Michael Mann, so I'll hope for the best....the man did give us "Heat", after all.
Posted by 115thDreamer
at March 4, 2009 4:43 PM
comment #15
Deathtongue_Groupie
says ...
On the one hand, the digital looks crappy with all those period details.
On the other, I have to wonder if once one starts to get into the film, the use of such a modern looking approach will actually help immerse the viewer into the world of the 30's in a fresh way. I've never sat through an entire period film that is so blatantly shot on video.
Now, the cast still make me want me to make Mobsters II jokes...
Posted by Deathtongue_Groupie
at March 4, 2009 4:50 PM
comment #16
actionman
says ...
The fact that this was shot in digital will separate it, at least from a visual standpoint, from every other gangster movie. This is a prime example of Mann pushing his form, doing something new and probably brilliant (like Miami Vice), and creating something utterly unique. That lost shot of the gunfire from Bale's tommy-gun is electrifying. This is clearly going to be the movie event of the summer.
Posted by actionman
at March 4, 2009 4:57 PM
comment #17
BurmaShave
says ...
"Call me old-fashioned, but if something is set in the 20s/30s, it should actually feel like something that could have come out during that period, to add to the verisimilitude..."
That makes no sense. Sounds like those people who insist that when someone is playing a foreigner they have to speak English in a German/Spanish/French accent. Absurd. Imagine how dumb it would sound saying this if you were talking about a film set in the Middle Ages.
Posted by BurmaShave
at March 4, 2009 4:59 PM
comment #18
Yuval
says ...
The digital looks bad, it worked for me in Collateral, but this looks like a History channel reenactment with Johhny Depp and Christian Bale.
Posted by Yuval
at March 4, 2009 5:25 PM
comment #19
CitizenKanedforChewingGum
says ...
Does this need more grain?
Posted by CitizenKanedforChewingGum
at March 4, 2009 6:12 PM
comment #20
VoiceOfReason
says ...
ugh. the HD makes it look like recent masterpiece theater. I'll still be there opening day anyway.
Posted by VoiceOfReason
at March 4, 2009 6:14 PM
comment #21
Sabina E
says ...
sweeeeeeet!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by Sabina E
at March 4, 2009 6:24 PM
comment #22
Chicago48
says ...
Love it. Finally Depp is going back to non-costumey roles.
Posted by Chicago48
at March 4, 2009 6:56 PM
comment #23
NotImpressed1Yet
says ...
"On the other, I have to wonder if once one starts to get into the film, the use of such a modern looking approach will actually help immerse the viewer into the world of the 30's in a fresh way. I've never sat through an entire period film that is so blatantly shot on video."
I think you're onto something here.
I bet the cheesiness factor of digital here will be far less of a factor on a huge screen.
Also, I saw at least two reminders of Heat in this trailer alone - the sliding moneybag and one of the lines was a takeoff/reverse play of Voight telling McCauley "he can shoot and miss - you can't miss" or something to that effect.
I cannot wait for this!
Posted by NotImpressed1Yet
at March 4, 2009 7:16 PM
comment #24
ZayTonday
says ...
Mann, if you're going to shoot digitally, use the fucking Red or even the Viper. The look you've got going on here is destroying what looks like it could be an awesome movie.
Posted by ZayTonday
at March 4, 2009 8:21 PM
comment #25
ZayTonday
says ...
And for all the naysayers that say shooting digitally inherently brings out this kind of shitty video look, watch Che, shot on the Red. It looks AMAZING.
Posted by ZayTonday
at March 4, 2009 8:23 PM
comment #26
Hickenlooper
says ...
How refreshing, how fucking refreshing it is to see a trailer of a big studio film that has real characters and isn't based on some bullshit comic book loaded with CGI. Fucking amazingly refreshing! And a story. The trailer has a fucking story arc! Incredible! It actually tells a story instead of soaking your brain numb with a cartoon sensibility. God damn, thank you, Michael Mann. You remain the single most interesting studio director left working today. God bless you for making this movie.
Posted by Hickenlooper
at March 4, 2009 9:15 PM
comment #27
lipranzer
says ...
Definitely has me intrigued. Depp looks great as Dillinger. I wonder about Bale as Purvis, because according to the book, Purvis was more of a screw-up than was originally reported.
Posted by lipranzer
at March 4, 2009 9:19 PM
comment #28
Gaydos
says ...
"I think I kind of want it." Dewey Cox
Posted by Gaydos
at March 4, 2009 11:31 PM
comment #29
Rich S.
says ...
For my money, the look of this thing reminds me of DePalma's The Untouchables, and that's not bad at all.
Dillinger was a larger than life character. Maybe Mann has chosen to emphasize the myth over "gritty reality." If so, so be it. He's a fanatic about period detail, so odds are he got those right. If so, he can make the movie look any way he wants.
I'm amazed about the number of people ready to write this off because the cinematography in the trailer doesn't "look right." Holy mackerel.
Posted by Rich S.
at March 5, 2009 3:38 AM
comment #30
Chicago48
says ...
I agree with Rich S., the Untouchables 2. Location, Chicago and the midwest. I so loved the Untouchables.
Posted by Chicago48
at March 5, 2009 4:28 AM
comment #31
Floyd Thursby
says ...
Bless Hickenlooper for being a voice of reason amidst all these nattering nabobs of negativism.
Posted by Floyd Thursby
at March 5, 2009 5:21 AM
comment #32
va
says ...
bless you Hickenlooper! what this thread needed was a director injecting a sense of filmmaking into this study of dv vs film ---- good god - Dante Spinotti is the DP, and this is Michael Freaking Mann! both of these guys have enough of a resume to have the benefit of trust in their expertise and vision...I will be on line all day waiting for the first showing of this film!
Posted by va
at March 5, 2009 5:32 AM
comment #33
High Chaparral
says ...
I really really hope all of those criticising the look of the trailer are doing so after seeing it in a theater or on one of the high quality internet versions out there - not the low-res, low-bitrate, badly-compressed version that Jeff embedded above.
Posted by High Chaparral
at March 5, 2009 6:32 AM
comment #34
maxfm
says ...
Amen, Hickenlooper.
And the cinematography looks fine.
Damn, folks -- lighten up: we have a new Mann film to look forward to!
Posted by maxfm
at March 5, 2009 7:41 AM
comment #35
prairie_oysters
says ...
It's interesting that so many people have picked up on the digital look of this trailer. Interesting to me that is.
Of course, given that Michael Manns last two cinematic outings were shot (at least in part) digitally primes that expectation but I must confess that I'm surprised at his choice here. Collateral and (possibly to a lesser degree) Miami Vice were both films where one could make an argument for the technology offering new opportunities - shooting under available light in L.A. at night for instance - and also seemed to fit with a modern 'bleeding edge' synthetic aesthetic that resonated with the subject matter.
Dillinger is a character associated with an era of cinema and cinematography that is wholly celluloid and it just seems obtuse to try to represent him on screen with such an indelibly contemporary acquisition media.
If Mann were recreating a period that was pre-cinema then I think there would be validity in the argument that a 'video' look was every bit as legit as film. Though I'd never wish for it Last of the Mohicans could have fallen into that bracket.
Incidentally Public Enemies was entirely shot on Sony F23 CineAlta cameras save for a smattering of above 60fps shots that were film. Quite why Mann would favour a camera that utilizes a 16mm sized 1920 x 1080 CCD over a Genesis/RED ONE/Viper, beyond his familiarity with the Sony family of cameras, baffles me. The look is distinctly 'video' with smeary motion and seemingly infinite depth of field. Dante Spinotte's usually exemplary cinematography (Wonder Boys is one of the most elegantly shot American films of the last decade IMHO) looks brash and slipshod as a result and night interiors where they've whacked up the gain and opened the shutter creating itchy noise and dubious focus seems lazy and cheap.
I've no doubt that Manns skill as a film maker will mean that over the duration of a feature film, as opposed to a trailer, I'll forget my irritation at what reads as an inappropriate look. As a two minute sampler though the look is vile.
Posted by prairie_oysters
at March 5, 2009 1:09 PM
comment #36
prairie_oysters
says ...
Oh, I almost forgot to say...
Didn't John Milius and Warren Oates nail this to the wall good and proper 35 years ago?
Posted by prairie_oysters
at March 5, 2009 1:12 PM
comment #37
jamesD
says ...
I strongly suggest you guys a H - O T site for tall chix and guys-- ____Tall kiss C om ____ Im sure it will work for-- you. End your loney life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by jamesD
at March 9, 2009 2:09 AM
comment #38
free online games
says ...
Incredible blog post!!!
Posted by free online games
at March 18, 2010 12:46 PM
comment #39
dd
says ...
I have to wonder if once one starts to get into the film, the use of such a modern looking approach will actually help immerse the viewer into the world of the 30's in a fresh way. I've never sat through an entire period film that is so blatantly shot on video.
Designer Handbags
Posted by dd
at May 11, 2010 6:31 PM
comment #40
Cheap Sunglasses 2011
says ...
Life is a flower of which love is the honey.
Posted by Cheap Sunglasses 2011
at May 14, 2011 1:47 AM