Mann among men

Michael Mann is aptly named. His movies are about men, and what men have to do in order to stay men. These guys are tough, cool, professional. They don’t talk much and when they do it’s to-the-point. Mann is from Chicago, and in the documentary “Chicago Filmmakers on the Chicago River,” film critic Gene Siskel said, “I think the Chicago style, if there is one, is very direct... People talk plainly.”

So with Mann. Even his titles talk plainly: “Thief,” “Heat,” “Ali,” “Collateral.” No wasted words. In “Heat,” a new member of a heist crew, Waingro (Kevin Gage), says a dozen unnecessary words and is told, matter-of-factly, “Stop talking, okay Slick?” Sloppy with words, Waingro is sloppy on the job and kills unnecessarily. When the crew leader, Neil (Robert De Niro), is paying off Nate (Jon Voight), the man who set up the score, the two talk business; then they have this exchange about Waingro:

Nate: What happened out there?
Neil: Don’t ask.

That’s it. They have a verbal shorthand that goes along with Mann’s visual shorthand. In “Thief,” a lawyer is holding his face in his hands as he talks to a judge. Don’t blink. He’s bribing the judge based on how many fingers he’s holding against his face. Just as Neil demands professionalism from his crew, Mann demands professionalism from his audience. He plops you in the middle of storylines. He explains little, or later. If you’re one of those “Who’s that guy? And why’s he after that guy?” type of moviegoers, you’re going to have trouble with a Michael Mann movie.

‘Nothing means nothing’

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Mann’s protagonists are often broken by life before the movie even begins. For Frank (James Caan) in “Thief,” prison breaks him. For Will Graham (William L. Peterson) in “Manhunter,” it’s Hannibal Lector. For Jeffrey Wigand (Russell Crowe) in “The Insider,” it’s Brown & Williamson Tobacco. Like Hemingway’s heroes, Mann’s heroes are often stronger in the broken places.

Emotional distance is the key. “You got to get where nothing means nothing,” Frank says in “Thief.”

“Do not let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat,” Neil says in “Heat.” This emotional distance gets them into trouble with their women. Lt. Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino) in “Heat” doesn’t share enough with his wife; ditto Jeffrey Wigand in “The Insider.” Both wives are high-maintenance and played beautifully by Diane Venora.

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There’s always a tension in a Mann film between the tough stoicism necessary to survive in the world and a warm embrace at the end of the day. Does the woman make the man stronger or weaker? Does she understand? Is she attuned to the verbal shorthand? This would seem to relegate women to second-class status, but at the least his female characters are real characters and often more interesting than female leads in other movies. Some of Mann’s best scenes are conversations between men and women: Caan and Tuesday Weld at the diner in “Thief”; Jamie Foxx and Jada Pinkett Smith in the cab in “Collateral.” His men reveal little; the point of the movie is to reveal something; women help.

The men who don’t have women (yet) gravitate toward that other great life-giver: the sea. After his initial heist, Frank shares a Danish with a fisherman on the pier and watches the sun rise over the ocean. “Look at that, huh?” Frank says. “That’s magic,” the fisherman agrees.

After his initial heist, Neil, bathed in blue, stares out at the sea, but you get a lonelier feeling from him. The sea is no longer enough. In “Manhunter,” Will Graham needs both life-givers — he makes love to his wife bathed in the blue light by the sea — but his subsequent investigation into the Tooth Fairy Killer endangers his family, necessitating a move to an apartment where the sea is only a thing painted on the wall. Jeffrey Wigand in “The Insider” is also forced from his family and into a hotel room where the sea is painted on the wall. This is not a good sign in a Michael Mann movie.

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