Michael Mann directs "Manhunter", a 1986 thriller which sees actor William Petersen playing an FBI specialist tasked with tracking down a serial killer. The film was based on Thomas Harris' "Red Dragon", the prequel to "Silence of the Lambs".
Though he directed "Thief" some years earlier, it was with "Manhunter" that Mann's distinct style first appeared. This style, which I call "Armani decorum", seems to have a preference for clean, uncluttered compositions. Elsewhere Mann trades the "old noir" look of "Thief" - with its dirty alleyways and grimy, rain swept cities - for 1950's modernism, block colours, expansive glass panes, geometric divisions and contemporary, linear houses.
With "Manhunter" we also see Mann's first experimentations with colour. Consider the sterile whites assigned to master criminal Hannibal Lecter, the sick green hues of the Tooth Fairy's home (the film's serial killer) or the cool blues of our hero's bedroom (watch how blues slowly turn to whites when we investigate a crime scene).
All these stylistic traits lend Mann's films a unique look. Rooms are divided into flat surfaces, characters are dressed in pastels, scenes are assigned panels of light, compositions are inspired by Alex Colville and Edward Hopper and buildings are relentlessly modernist, with fluorescent bulbs and geometrical, flat surfaces.
The shooting locations are carefully chosen as well. Atlanta's Museum of High Art acts as a sand-in for a prison, artist Robert Rauschenberg's home is used prominently, and the stylish Marriott Marquis hotel pops up several times.
Like Antonioni, Mann uses architecture and urban settings to emphasise, not only the psychology, but the alienation of his characters. His characters seem as hollow as the surrounding decor, and are always gazing, somewhat naively, out toward some fantasy horizon. Like the heroes demonstrate in "Thief" and "Collateral", this fantasy always takes the form of a simple beach or ocean. Mann treats water as a kind of tranquil haven, a sense of serenity which his characters aspire to but which remains forever out of reach.
And of course windows and glass feature prominently in Mann's films. They act as a container or insulator, the "noir cages" of early film noirs, with their brick walls, dark shadows, cramped spaces, iron bars and tiny windows, neatly transformed into an aesthetic of vast window panes and transparent sheets; commit a crime and the whole world is made of glass.
In this way, Mann seems to have reversed the very aesthetics of noir. He has re-imagined noir, transforming clutter, confinement and darkness into a world of slick neons, expansive spaces and transparent walls.
These glass windows/walls seem to themselves pop up frequently throughout Mann's filmography. They induce a sense of paranoia, his characters always under observation, suspicion and/or vulnerably exposed. They also provide little protection, offer only false security and of course allow his characters to gaze longingly out at that distant horizon. Think those fleeting gazes in "Miami Vice", "Heat" and "Manhunter"; glass facilitates the existentialist's desire for escape.
And so "glass" plays a big role in "Manhunter". Indeed, The Tooth Fairy specifically preys on homes with large glass windows. These windows allow him to spy on the inhabitants inside. Once he kills his targets, he then places shards in their eye sockets. Toward the end of the film, our hero then dramatically breaks through a plane of glass, entering the inner sanctum of The Tooth Fairy and finally confronting that which he has been trying to keep at a distance throughout the film.
Narrativewise, "Manhunter" adheres to genre conventions. It does one interesting thing, however. The film's hero, Will Graham, spends most of his time attempting to delve into the mind of his opponent. By "becoming the killer" and "entering his darkness", Will is able to understand The Tooth Fairy and effectively hunt him down. But in becoming that which he hates, Will only distances himself further from humanity and further from those he loves.
While Will falls further and further into this abyss of "evil", The Tooth Fairy begins to re-connect with humanity. He falls in love with a blind woman and for the first time in his life experiences a "normal" human relationship. So on one hand we have a good man spiralling into darkness, and on the other we have a serial killer climbing back towards humanity. The implication, of course, is that if the monster is capable of being a man, then so too must monstrosities lie within Graham.
A braver film would have really delved into these issues, would have focused more on the Tooth Fairy's response to normality, but "Manhunter" ultimately resists humanizing the monster and seems content to keep things on a surface, superficial level. But then, Mann's story is itself preoccupied with surfaces, told more with music, mood and visuals, than dialogue.
The film's big flaw, though, is its lacklustre shoot out, in which Mann uses weird editing and jarring subliminal jump cuts. This scene was filmed with a skeleton crew on the final night of shooting and it really shows. But perhaps Mann is attempting some odd symbolism with this scene. Consider the way Will breaks through the glass, the way the shots are all shown twice and the way The Tooth Fairy dies in a pool of blood visually similar to William Blake's "Great Red Dragon". Perhaps the odd jump cuts signify that this event has happened twice; we know Will was similarly slashed in the past by Hannibal Lecter.
8.5/10 – Mann's minimalist visuals and music lend this film a unique edge. While later serial killer films ("Lambs", "Zodiac", "Seven") continue to fetishize a sense of Gothic darkness, "Manhunter" dares to paint a prison cell brilliant white. Incidentally, while these later serial killer flicks would prove influential on 90's TV (X-Files), "Manhunter" led to the birth of such flashy forensics shows as CSI (also starring William Petersen).
Though he directed "Thief" some years earlier, it was with "Manhunter" that Mann's distinct style first appeared. This style, which I call "Armani decorum", seems to have a preference for clean, uncluttered compositions. Elsewhere Mann trades the "old noir" look of "Thief" - with its dirty alleyways and grimy, rain swept cities - for 1950's modernism, block colours, expansive glass panes, geometric divisions and contemporary, linear houses.
With "Manhunter" we also see Mann's first experimentations with colour. Consider the sterile whites assigned to master criminal Hannibal Lecter, the sick green hues of the Tooth Fairy's home (the film's serial killer) or the cool blues of our hero's bedroom (watch how blues slowly turn to whites when we investigate a crime scene).
All these stylistic traits lend Mann's films a unique look. Rooms are divided into flat surfaces, characters are dressed in pastels, scenes are assigned panels of light, compositions are inspired by Alex Colville and Edward Hopper and buildings are relentlessly modernist, with fluorescent bulbs and geometrical, flat surfaces.
The shooting locations are carefully chosen as well. Atlanta's Museum of High Art acts as a sand-in for a prison, artist Robert Rauschenberg's home is used prominently, and the stylish Marriott Marquis hotel pops up several times.
Like Antonioni, Mann uses architecture and urban settings to emphasise, not only the psychology, but the alienation of his characters. His characters seem as hollow as the surrounding decor, and are always gazing, somewhat naively, out toward some fantasy horizon. Like the heroes demonstrate in "Thief" and "Collateral", this fantasy always takes the form of a simple beach or ocean. Mann treats water as a kind of tranquil haven, a sense of serenity which his characters aspire to but which remains forever out of reach.
And of course windows and glass feature prominently in Mann's films. They act as a container or insulator, the "noir cages" of early film noirs, with their brick walls, dark shadows, cramped spaces, iron bars and tiny windows, neatly transformed into an aesthetic of vast window panes and transparent sheets; commit a crime and the whole world is made of glass.
In this way, Mann seems to have reversed the very aesthetics of noir. He has re-imagined noir, transforming clutter, confinement and darkness into a world of slick neons, expansive spaces and transparent walls.
These glass windows/walls seem to themselves pop up frequently throughout Mann's filmography. They induce a sense of paranoia, his characters always under observation, suspicion and/or vulnerably exposed. They also provide little protection, offer only false security and of course allow his characters to gaze longingly out at that distant horizon. Think those fleeting gazes in "Miami Vice", "Heat" and "Manhunter"; glass facilitates the existentialist's desire for escape.
And so "glass" plays a big role in "Manhunter". Indeed, The Tooth Fairy specifically preys on homes with large glass windows. These windows allow him to spy on the inhabitants inside. Once he kills his targets, he then places shards in their eye sockets. Toward the end of the film, our hero then dramatically breaks through a plane of glass, entering the inner sanctum of The Tooth Fairy and finally confronting that which he has been trying to keep at a distance throughout the film.
Narrativewise, "Manhunter" adheres to genre conventions. It does one interesting thing, however. The film's hero, Will Graham, spends most of his time attempting to delve into the mind of his opponent. By "becoming the killer" and "entering his darkness", Will is able to understand The Tooth Fairy and effectively hunt him down. But in becoming that which he hates, Will only distances himself further from humanity and further from those he loves.
While Will falls further and further into this abyss of "evil", The Tooth Fairy begins to re-connect with humanity. He falls in love with a blind woman and for the first time in his life experiences a "normal" human relationship. So on one hand we have a good man spiralling into darkness, and on the other we have a serial killer climbing back towards humanity. The implication, of course, is that if the monster is capable of being a man, then so too must monstrosities lie within Graham.
A braver film would have really delved into these issues, would have focused more on the Tooth Fairy's response to normality, but "Manhunter" ultimately resists humanizing the monster and seems content to keep things on a surface, superficial level. But then, Mann's story is itself preoccupied with surfaces, told more with music, mood and visuals, than dialogue.
The film's big flaw, though, is its lacklustre shoot out, in which Mann uses weird editing and jarring subliminal jump cuts. This scene was filmed with a skeleton crew on the final night of shooting and it really shows. But perhaps Mann is attempting some odd symbolism with this scene. Consider the way Will breaks through the glass, the way the shots are all shown twice and the way The Tooth Fairy dies in a pool of blood visually similar to William Blake's "Great Red Dragon". Perhaps the odd jump cuts signify that this event has happened twice; we know Will was similarly slashed in the past by Hannibal Lecter.
8.5/10 – Mann's minimalist visuals and music lend this film a unique edge. While later serial killer films ("Lambs", "Zodiac", "Seven") continue to fetishize a sense of Gothic darkness, "Manhunter" dares to paint a prison cell brilliant white. Incidentally, while these later serial killer flicks would prove influential on 90's TV (X-Files), "Manhunter" led to the birth of such flashy forensics shows as CSI (also starring William Petersen).