Mann among men

‘Your kid is mine’
The quintessential Mann hero is the well-named Frank in “Thief.” An independent jewel thief, he attracts the attention of the Chicago mob just as he’s trying to attract the attention of a restaurant hostess played by Tuesday Weld. With them he’s uninterested and brusque; with her he’s interested and clumsy; with both he’s brutally honest. But the only way to win the girl, he finds, is to collaborate with the mob so he can make that one big score and get out. He gets in deeper when mob boss Leo (Robert Prosky) helps him adopt a kid. Now he has something to lose and Leo knows it and goes back on his word. Leo wants him not for one score but for life. When Frank balks, Leo kills his friend and Frank is beaten. “Your kid is mine because I bought it,” Leo tells a prone Frank. “You got him on loan. He is leased, you are renting him. I'll whack out your whole family. People will be eatin' them in their lunch tomorrow, in their Wimpyburgers, and not know it.”

Frank’s journey is from feeling nothing (and having nothing to lose) to feeling something (and having everything to lose). So he journeys back. He destroys his life so Leo can’t; then he destroys Leo. It’s a great storyline arc. There’s a sad irony to it. It’s Frank’s independent professionalism that attracts the group, resulting in the collaboration and the subsequent lack of independence. And it’s the needs of the family that spur the collaboration, even as the collaboration winds up destroying the family.

Does this irony seem familiar? It should. It’s yours. Mann’s men may have cool jobs (jewel thief, FBI agent, heavyweight champion of the world), but their dilemma is every man’s dilemma. Most of us start out with some token of independence; but to survive, and to benefit our families, we collaborate with a group or company or corporation. Once we’re in, they’ve got us. Once we need it, we’re lost.

It’s also — no coincidence — the director’s dilemma vis a vis the studio. We all want a little independence.

‘Corporate has some questions’
This is the main tension in a Mann film — between the I and the we, the individual and the group. Mann’s protagonists find themselves drawn into partnerships they don’t desire: Frank with the Chicago mob, Will Graham with the FBI (and later with the Tooth Fairy Killer), Nathaniel Poe (Daniel Day-Lewis) in “Last of the Mohicans” with the British Army, Muhammad Ali (Will Smith) in “Ali” with the U.S. Army, Max (Jamie Foxx) in “Collateral” with the professional killer Vincent (Tom Cruise).

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The most complex example of this tension is seen in “The Insider,” Mann’s best movie. At the beginning of the film, Jeffrey Wigand realizes dramatic differences with his group, Brown & Williamson Tobacco, and walks out its doors in slow motion. He is an “I” again. But he soon finds himself drawn into a partnership with his professional counterpart, “60 Minutes” producer Lowell Bergmann (Al Pacino), on whether to betray his original group for a larger principle. Wigand winds up risking everything — family, name, freedom — to do this. Then CBS balks. CBS wants to risk nothing and refuses to air Wigand’s interview. Now it’s Bergmann’s turn to risk everything. He betrays his group — CBS, Don Hewitt, Mike Wallace — for a larger principle. He’s successful. The interview airs. But in doing so he realizes dramatic differences with CBS, and at the end of the film walks out its doors in slow motion. He is an “I” again.

Both men don’t quite fit in with their group. Wigand is a man of science who finds himself in a sales culture that uses science to harmful effect. Bergmann is a radical New Left journalist who works for a news division with increasingly corporate concerns. Sure, there are benefits to being with the group. Wigand makes good money; he goes to golf tournaments; he provides for his family. “What the hell is wrong with that?” he asks.

Bergmann makes good money, too; he has access. “I’m Lowell Bergmann, I’m from ‘60 Minutes,’” he says late in the film, then muses, “You know, you take the ‘60 Minutes’ out of that sentence nobody returns your phone calls.” Still, he leaves. Still, Wigand leaves. For most of us, corporations creep further into our lives. The film is about two men who win a battle in a war we are losing everywhere else.

‘Ed Sadlowski’s steel workers local’
Who is Michael Mann? He is one of his characters: a professional who does his homework. Listen to his actors. In AFI’s “The Directors” documentary series, Christopher Plummer says of Mann, “Michael’s intense attention to detail is extraordinary” Tom Sizemore says, “He knows the color of his character’s socks.” William Peterson adds, “His vision is the movie. I’ve never experienced that kind of detail work from a director. Ever.”

Listen to Mann himself. In his commentary for “Heat,” he points out a dead bird in a corner of a pool and talks about the difficulty of setting up that shot. “It’s a small detail,” he adds. “I don’t know if anyone picks up on it.” It’s what every detail man wonders.

In his commentary for “Collateral” Mann talks about Vincent’s backstory — stuff that, at best, is communicated indirectly onscreen. “Tom and I did a lot of work in trying to understand where this guy came from,” he says. “If he was in a foster home, if he had an institutionalized childhood, and he was back in the public school system at age 11, that would have been sometime in the ’70s. He would have been dressed very awkwardly. He would have probably been ostracized cause he looked odd, and the kind of brutality, you know, pre-teens and early adolescents [have]. We postulated an alcoholic abusive father who was culturally very progressive. He was probably part of Ed Sadlowski’s steel-workers local in Gary. He was a Vietnam Veteran. He had friends who were African American on the south side of Chicago. The Checkerboard Lounge is 30 minutes away at the Calumet Skyway, so the father probably, in the ’60s and ’70s, was an aficionado of jazz.”

In most films you sense nothing behind them. In Mann’s films you sense the other seven-eighths of the iceberg.

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