Mann and DePalma

The Black Dahlia- DePalma's latest is an adaptation of James Ellroy's take on the famous unsolved Black Dahlia murder in post-war L.A. In spite of all DePalma's directing troupes, it still comes off as a standard pot-boiler detective thriller. It's frustrating in retrospect, how DePalma resolves the murder (corrupt landowner throws his partner a young ingenue to rape and torture as a 'reward') given that the plot winds up with so many red herrings. Also using 'Bucky' Bleichert's (Josh Harnett) point of view as opposed to 'Lee' Blanchard's (Aaron Eckhart) P.O.V. is really unfulfilling. It seems Blanchard had more at stake in the murder than Bucky, who, really, was always on the outside. Also, Hillary Swank isn't my idea of what makes a femme fatale. She's more Faye Dunaway in 'Chinatown' than Kathleen Turner in 'Body Heat'. Still, it's worth a look if at least for DePalma's stylistic touches (the discovery of Elisabeth Smart's body while Bucky and Lee investigate an unrelated case, and the perversely funny dinner with Madeline Linscott's family shot from Bucky's point of view, for example) and Dante Ferreti's production design.

The thing is, this got a real thumping in the press when it came out that I don't think it really deserved. One charge that's dogged DePalma his entire career is that he's a misogyist, since women tend to get the worst of it in his films. I don't see that as being the case with DePalma. As an audience, we're inclined to empathise more for a woman that a man. For example, in 'Dahlia', there's a scene where Elisabeth Short is seen shooting a screen test while an offscreen director (played by DePalma-the man talks in italics!) berates her. Without missing a beat, she gives him the seductress that he wants to see. In this world, Short could've had a film career if her luck had held out... I suspect that DePalma's main theme in his movies, voyerism, carries a sting in it most critics don't like to have rubbed in their face. Well, what the hell is watching a movie but an act of voyerism?

Miami Vice- If you really want to nitpick, I suppose you could make a case that Michael Mann's been making the same movie over and over again since "Manhunter". Dedicated professionals butt heads, break hearts, kill and are killed in the line of their job. The center conflict arises when the pros have to block one another's path. In Mann's case, it's a pleasure to watch him at work because he's as aware of that trap of repetition as we are. He shows us the process in which the cops chase the robbers, and the process in which the robbers elude the cops, and how both sides grant the other a grudging respect. (They'd have to, or they'd be dead.)

As proof, I'd point to "Miami Vice", which is light years in style and content from the goofy t.v. show in the 80's. I watched some episodes of that a while back and it devolved pretty quickly into self-parody. Pastel suits, anyone? In the movie's case, it's a conflict between the Miami-Dade county vice squad and multi-national drug cartels. The only reason the cartel loses is because its side blinks first. If I have any complaints, Mann's use of long takes to set a mood can slow the pace of the film down to a parody of itself, as well as kill the pacing. Also, digital video looks cheap, no matter how you shoot it. (I'll admit it worked better in Collateral than here.) Still, you got to give Michael Mann props for trying...