i am actually looking forward to "collateral"

this was my thought too--my thought exactly. no matter how much the trailer tried to make the movie look like a routine thriller, there was something very unusual and arresting in the images mann got of the city.

i hope the hyperrealism of the photography and the hollywood stylization of the characters don't clash in unproductive ways.

xpost

Film negative format (mm/video inches)
Video (HDTV)

Cinematographic process
HDTV (1080p/24)

Aspect ratio
2.35 : 1

mann, in the press kit (i filched this from some website):

"Film doesn't record what our eyes can see at night. I wanted to see into the night, to see everything the naked eye can see and more...[to] see this moody landscape with hills and trees and strange light patterns."

interestingly "once upon a time in america" is in the academy ratio--maybe producers wanted it to look like "the godfather"??? or maybe leone had something in mind...

i'm sure at the end we'll find out he was planning to kill jamie foxx as soon as his "work" was done

"shot by shot, scene by scene, mann, whose recent work includes 'heat' and 'the insider,' may be the best director in hollywood. i don't mean that he's the greatest artist. he lacks such qualities as the tormented humanism of scorses, the generous showmanship and warmth of spielberg, the moral curiosity of the clint eastwood who directed 'unforgiven' and 'mystic river.' but mann has become a master builder of sequences, the opposite of the contemporary action directors who produce a brutally meaningless whirl of movement. methodical and precise, he analyzes a scene into minute components--a door closing, an arm thrust out--and gathers the fragments into seamless units; he wants you to live inside the physical event, not just experience the sensation of it."

why does rosenbaum dump on denby all the time?

i saw Heat just recently for the first time. muy bueno. im excited for collateral

that said:

as for spielberg's "warmth" i'd say it's mostly queasy sentimentality and middle-aged cuteness so i don't know about that.

also to say that mann lacks "moral curiosity" doesn't make much sense to me, although i'm not really sure what denby means by that.

I can't imagine what sort of French people Denby hangs out with, because this cosmic description of 'the French' excludes virtually every French filmmaker, critic, and filmgoer I know--many of whom are even more delighted by 'the philistine exuberance of American entertainment' than Denby is."

The coyotes were a brief, nice touch -- Cruise's hair was the exact same color.

Michael Mann Loves His Work
By A. O. SCOTT

ICHAEL MANN'S new movie, "Collateral," which opened on Friday, is about two men, Max and Vincent, trying to get through a hard night's work. Max, played by Jamie Foxx, is a Los Angeles cabdriver, while Vincent (Tom Cruise) follows the more esoteric vocation of hit man. Arriving from out of town with the assignment of killing five people by morning, Vincent recruits Max — kidnaps might be another word for it — to drive him from victim to victim, a journey across Los Angeles that turns into a long noir nightmare. The two men's jobs and their contrasting temperaments place them at fatal and obvious cross-purposes: Max, who has been "temporarily" driving his taxi for 12 years while deferring his dream of starting his own limousine company, is timid and indecisive, character traits that the steely, self-confident Vincent readily exploits to turn Max into his helpless accomplice.

If Vincent were simply the domineering bad guy and Max his innocent hostage, the movie would be a dull and sadistic exercise in violation and payback. But Mr. Cruise and Mr. Foxx are as immersed in their work as Vincent and Max are in theirs, and it is this instinctive, obsessive absorption that binds the two characters together and gives their encounter a shiver of genuine and unpredictable drama. Taking account of Max's spotless, orderly Crown Victoria, and noting his authoritative command of the city's geography and traffic patterns, Vincent understands he is in the presence of a kindred spirit, a professional whose drive to be good at what he does is less an ambition than a reflex. Much later, as "Collateral" regresses to the generic mean with a predictable climactic standoff, Vincent points his gun at Max and barks, with marvelous exasperation, "I do this for a living."

And the movie is, at root, passionately, even morbidly concerned with what people — men, mostly — do for a living and what it means to them to do it. Which may just be another way of saying that it's a Michael Mann picture. Though he is by no means a prolific director, having made five films since 1992 and only eight features in all, his characters seem to be perpetually busy. In "Collateral" 's after-hours world of blinking headlights and bleary neon, nearly everyone is at work: not only Vincent and Max, but also the lawyer who was Max's earlier fare (Jada Pinkett Smith), the detective who stumbles upon the scene of Vincent's first murder (Mark Ruffalo) and the various drug kingpins, nightclub owners and F.B.I. surveillance operatives who round out the movie's nocturnal population. (The only people who seem to be at home or out on the town are Vincent's designated targets.)

"Collateral" is, above all, a study in professionalism, an idea that registers not only in its meticulously composed frames and disciplined performances but also in the psychological grounding of its story. Max and Vincent's accidental partnership suggests a diabolical variation on a classic buddy-movie conceit, but the fact that it comes about while they are both at work somehow gives their relationship its jarring, fascinating complexity. Their strained chats — grim riffs on the kind of idle palaver that occupies urban cabbies and their clients — gather nuances and shadows in the grainy darkness, overtones of rivalry, collaboration, aggression and sympathy. What Max and Vincent are to each other does not quite have a name: not friends, obviously, but not entirely enemies either. If they are, at the beginning, perfect strangers linked by a passing transaction, they somehow end up understanding each other better than anyone else does. Are they soul mates? Sublimated lovers? Or just, in the end, improbable colleagues?

These questions might just as well be asked about Lowell Bergman and Jeffrey Wigand, the real-life characters whose crusade against big tobacco was the subject of Mr. Mann's tense and prickly 1999 movie, "The Insider." They could also apply to William Petersen's F.B.I. man and Brian Cox as the first Hannibal Lecter in "Manhunter" (also known as "Red Dragon"), Mr. Mann's 1986 adaptation of Robert Harris's novel (pointlessly remade by Brett Ratner two years ago). Shot in high-definition digital video with a story strictly limited in space and time, "Collateral" lacks the sprawl of "Ali," the operatic grandeur of "Heat" or the thematic depth of "The Insider." But for all its modesty of means and narrowness of focus, it demonstrates that Mr. Mann has not shed his characteristic preoccupations.

He cut his teeth on television police shows, notably "Starsky and Hutch," and he has returned to the form, as a producer, periodically since his heyday in the 80's with "Miami Vice" and "Crime Story." Cop dramas may have a lot to say about our ideas of crime and punishment, but they have even more to say about our fears and fantasies regarding work — its deadening routines, and also its moments of terror and inspiration.

Mr. Mann's work shows a particular concern for the tensions and pleasures of collaboration. Most of the urban crime fighters of the 1970's were maverick loners, like Kojak and Baretta, whose big-screen patron saint was the incorrigibly solitary Dirty Harry Callahan. Starsky and Hutch were a maverick pair, their overheated and cooled-out personalities shaken together like oil and vinegar. Crockett and Tubbs, in "Miami Vice," were a smoother mix, and Don Johnson with his stubble and pushed-up sleeves eventually overshadowed the less tormented double-breasted suavity of Philip Michael Thomas. But their partnership was nonetheless the emotional center of the show.

In the history of cop dramas, "Miami Vice" remains an intriguing anomaly, a sleek postmodernist detour on the genre's march toward ever more emphatic realism. Television police work in "N.Y.P.D. Blue" and in the "Law and Order" and "C.S.I." franchises has been relentlessly procedural, caught up in the often impersonal intricacies of weekly casework. "Miami Vice" was cavalierly unconcerned with such matters. At its best, it was not about the techniques of crime fighting so much as it was about its existential challenges. The series, which never much troubled itself with realism, was both vivid and abstract, like an Antonioni movie in prime time.

As a film director, Mr. Mann has developed a greater regard for naturalistic detail without sacrificing the hyperreal intensity — and unworldly beauty — of his visual compositions. His characters are much more attuned to the nuances of craft than Crockett and Tubbs. (It may help that they also tend to be played by better actors.) Daniel Day-Lewis's character in Mr. Mann's rousing, revisionist version of "The Last of the Mohicans" (1992) is, true to his literary roots in James Fenimore Cooper, a natural woodsman and warrior, which is to say a highly trained and disciplined tracker and marksman. But he practices his craft with a grace and concentration that are nearly unconscious, which makes him the ideal Michael Mann hero, linked both to James Caan's safecracker in "Thief" (1981) and to Will Smith's heavyweight champ in "Ali" (2001).

These men approach their work like artists, and the boundary between superior technique and genuine art traces a shadowy line through Mr. Mann's films. It is hard not to see some of his impulsive, perfectionist characters, twisting between joy and self-doubt, as his surrogates. They are trying — Ali may be the purest, headiest example — to transcend the distinction between getting the job done and reinventing it altogether. When they succeed, their flourishes of style and invention will look not only inspired but efficient. When Al Pacino's detective is asked by a subordinate, early in "Heat," if he recognizes the M.O. of the supercriminal who heisted millions of dollars in bearer bonds from an armored truck, he replies with a shrug. "His M.O. is, he's good." Good work, whether cabdriving or contract killing, explains itself.

The easiest knock against Mr. Mann has always been that his M.O. is a little too good. The style of his movies — his bravura tracking shots through crowded rooms, his juxtaposition of blurry background images with supersharp close-ups, his synesthetic sense of color and sound — has often seemed out of proportion to their stories or their subjects. "Heat" takes a story of Los Angeles cops and robbers and blows it up into Kurosawa or Shakespeare. "The Insider" is as nerve-rackingly suspenseful as any serial-killer picture, and yet it deals with broadcast journalism and scientific research, topics that in the unsupersaturated light of actual life are perhaps more mundane than the mise-en-scène allows.

But style in these movies serves more than a decorative function. It's a window into the souls of the heroes, whose perception of the world is abnormally bright, busy and dangerous. Most of the time, work is drudgery, compromise, frustration, but in Mr. Mann's films it carries a thrilling charge of sublimity, danger and grace. Whatever his heroes do for a living, they do as if it were a matter of life and death, which it often literally is. That may, in the end, be the only difference between them and the man whose work they inhabit.  

"Cop dramas may have a lot to say about our ideas of crime and punishment, but they have even more to say about our fears and fantasies regarding work — its deadening routines, and also its moments of terror and inspiration."

And you say you object to Law and Order "on principle"... what principle? It's a police procedural!

Looked incredible though. Made me proud to be a "Californian".

it's strange: usually when you have a director who is a bravado visual stylist, the complaint is that they shouldn't write their own scripts. but i hope mann writes his next film himself.

it was amazingly gorgeous. the effect of light shifts and fast movement on the dv was interesting. and yeah, l.a. has never looked better.

was he dozing off periodically? he gets a few important plot points awfully wrong. not that it matters terribly, but still.

I enjoyed the first thirty minutes - Mann always know how to open a film (Full disclosure:the first 5-10 minutes of Ali is possibly my favorite opening sequence ever), but my desire to enjoy this film was taken over by frustration, boredom, and ultimately, disappointment. It seems like a very odd film for him to make right now.

And Tom Cruise's suit was naggingly identical to De Niro's in Heat.

poss. SPOILERS...

the shots where smith & foxx were getting off the train, with the light of the dawn behind the electrical towers, were really beautiful. so were those gliding helicopter shots. oh and the most stunning shot of the whole movie: the bottom of the helicopter. do you remember that? wow.

I do remember that, and I thought, "Wow." It reminded me of Chicago's new bean sculpture.

the last 30-odd minutes were full of the kind of implausibilities and nonsense typical of thrillers

OTM. Possible spoilers here, too...

So he stops to take an axe to the lights in the building? What the hell for? And more importantly, why was he ordered to kill the person he's trying to kill? After the other targets are dead, there's no point in killing that character.

I like Edelstein's review:

http://www.slate.com/id/2104824/

Warwick Davis ..... Oberon

They didn't, but I didn't notice that until after the movie. As in, "You know, movies like that usually make we want a cigarette very badly, but that one had no smoking in it at all!" I appreciated it in retrospect.

Also, could have done without that Cliff Notes last line, spelling out the previous reference.

The shot of the marble floor as TC goes down the escalator is a beaut.

all 5 seconds of him?

what was that all about? he's the male gina gershon: he makes any scene instantly unbelieveable.

You're kidding me: he'd have been even worse in that role.

Except he doesn't grin in the movie. Not at all, if you think back on it. He grimly commands, and reticently sympathizes, and arrogantly instructs. "Charm" isn't in any way a requirement for the role.

Ha! Except without "Horse."

I haven't seen After Hours. One of the many, many gaps in my film education.

What phone number can I call you at right now?

Which is just as well, because I have to get up in six hours anyway.

Although there is a broad kind of charm

You said it, man. Broad. There is a charm so broad in almost every Tom Cruise role that it always makes me think of actors with more charm and more talent. There certainly is a quality about Tom Cruise that is innately "broad" -- I'll grant you that. That doesn't make hin Jimmy fucking Stewart. Combine this "broadness" with his arrogance, his superior smirk, and the way he is extremely limited in his talent, and he's more like George W. Bush than like any actor with any acutal talent.

xpost

fuck washing a cat

Right, to a point. The character doesn't rely on *his* texture, though, it just relies on *texture.* It doesn't depend on mega-star power to make it work -- I'd get very depressed if I thought any role did. It's a personality role, sure. Many, many actors have personality. Think... oooh, I like this one... think Benecio Del Toro in that role. Wouldn't that just be thick and delicious?

Truth is, this character is all texture. And a more subtle actor would have provided a more subtle texture. Tom Cruise is incapable of being thick and delicious.

mann went to the london film school y'know.

Yes! I know.

kyle, there is no formula for suckiness. It just happens. I blame the script.

I have decided that Mann must have seen this film as some kind of back-to-basics logistical challenge - (relatively) small budget, location shooting, mainly at night, small cast, etc. I don't think he could have done any better with this material, actually.

Resisting joke.

Anyway, once I have more time, I am going to comment on the Film People! Explain Yourselves! thread because I think my enjoyment of Collateral may have something to do with my relationship to Hollywood these days.

*cellphone hand*

Yes. Although Miami Vice is the show Manhunter *could have been*.

Actually, he does grin very briefly. The camera doesn't hold on it so I wonder if it was a reflexive action that Mann left in and not anything deliberate.

The real star of the movie is the City of Los Angeles - obviously fitting for a neo-noir about anonymity. Each frame could have easily been blown up into a coffee table-sized book of photographs.

Absolutely OTM.

I think it's a Michael Mann thing. I didn't mind it too much - heck even the Oakenfold during the scene at the Fever club was pretty effective. Really the only time I found the music intrusive enough to kick me out of the moment was the idiot song that comes on during the coyote sighting.

I really liked the sequence when Ruffalo seems to save the day, then takes three in the chest, Foxx's shoulders slump and he gets in the cab. Ruffalo's death was unexpected, even under "the good guy automatically gets killed" logic.

Anyway, I went to see it because I love the way his movies look on a big screen. I wasn't disappointed. His movies are like giant video installations, and it was way cooler than anything I saw at the Whitney Biennial.

whoa. lop off the last 30 minutes and the film could easily have gone this route.

spittle, you are cool..

Vincent was just such a weird character, wasn't he? And the way no one in the office building at the beginning or in the hospital reacts at all to this silver-suited dude wearing shades indoors after dark? He was like the most conspicuous hitman ever. But then he wants to be all "anonymous", and has the whole riff about the guy dying on the train and no one even noticing, as if there's anything remotely overlookable about him. But I guess that's what Edelstein got at with that line about the lonely man in the great suit.

spittle, it's funny that you say vincent = imaginary; the other day there was some cruise bio thing on E, and i started cracking up at the thought that he was delivering his interviews to noone, just an empty room with a camera, for hours. there's something abt cruise that invites that kind of dislocation.

i liked the shootout at the club even tho i could feel the movie heading south during and after; cruise (even if he doesn't 'get' his character the way welles got harry lime) does understand the kinetics of that kind of thing. his chilly gunhandling was fantastic.

Actually, I liked that about the character. He *doesn't* get it, not completely. He's ex-special forces, not a natural, charming philosopher like Lime. He's resigned himself to the fact that killing is his job, but in several scenes, it's made clear that he's not at peace with it.

"private sector? six years"

And while the blacked out building is illogical (though, no more than anything that precedes it), it (including the subsequent train chase) disposes with the plot irregularities in favor of pure mood, and, further, it's exquisitely brought off -- there's no musical score to distract from the level of suspense. And TC (or a stuntman) bailing on the window-thrown chair. That counts for something.

i don't think i mean this.

i dont know, ive maybe seen half an episode of homicide in my life. but if you mean the faux-amateurish hand camera style, constantly zooming in and out and moving around, thats not it. its one long take, the camera is fixed on bardiem and the zoom-ins are microscopic, hardly noticable. crosspost.

DVDs. Rent 'em. Seriously.

We kept thinking it'd end up like Se7en where Max phones up Jada Pinkett Smith right at the end only to discover that Vincent had killed her right at the beginning of the movie and they'd been driving around LA all night without him finding out.

i get that weird Japanese vibe from all of Mann's post-HEAT stuff. No clue as to why.

i don't think it was a really great movie in any way except the visuals. but i really enjoyed nonetheless. largely because it is maybe the best-looking movie i've seen in a really long time, save for perhaps bad education. what a great look. i love the way this movie looks. great-looking movie. movie=great looking.

i thought it looked great.

this dialogue is excruciating

ive seen this film probably 7 or 8 times

i ching

tom cruise empowers jamie foxxxxx

he does

look at us talking about digital video upthread like it wasn't about to completely engulf all filmed entertainment.

(and big lols at us being all like, "widescreen tv isn't gonna be a thing for a LONG time")

diggin this no belt look

maybe in the end... it will be jamie foxxxxxx who teaches tom cruise about ~lyfe~

Yeah, this is a fun thread to read seven years later. Maybe the only time a post of mine was part-composed by a cat?

cool dog crossing street

underselling a COYOTE TROTTING ACROSS THE ROAD TO CHRIS CORNELL

I think tom cruises facial hair is growing at a millimeter a minute

lol @ cgi cruise

RUFFALO

"How are things?"
"Mezzo-mezzo."

bardem was dope in his small role, and how ruffs got sonned in this movie was a nice touch. appreciate the statham cameo, too.

there are a few scenes in this that are just completely stunning

the one in the glass office building at night, and the first few minutes or so when they're in the train towards the end

iirc

Definitely the glass office blackout scene is amazing, especially on the big screen.

RUFFALO

"How are things?"
"Mezzo-mezzo."

― your way better (Eazy), Friday, October 28, 2011 11:58 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

hah I don't think I've ever consciously noticed ruffalo in a movie before, didn't know that was him until I checked the credits

kind of felt like "oh, so that's who the ladies on ilx go crazy over?" :\

this gives me an idea - create "dinner party" cuts of films like this, all the shots of LA cut and driving cut together with no people in 'em, and you just loop it on the 57" plasma hanging on the wall of your 60th floor penthouse while you berate the porter for insufficiently chilling the shrimp cocktails

haha @ this piece of trivia

To prepare for the movie, Tom Cruise had to make FedEx deliveries in a crowded LA market without anyone recognizing him as Tom Cruise.

i think the ruffalistas would probably remove his 'collateral' look from consideration

still he is pretty great in his small role

Didn't see this when it came out, watched it two or three times on DVD, saw it at the Lightbox tonight. I think the first half's as good as Heat, starts to drag the last half hour. I like seeing Ruffalo and Bardem a couple of years before Zodiac/No Country. IMDB says Debi Mazar plays a Young Professional Woman; missed her completely, tonight and every time. Same godawful rock song shows up a couple of times. Some funny lines scattered about.

The rock song is Audioslave, right?

Ha, OK, yes, as people have said upthread.

Yeah, that's it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DKX-2pa-UE

Ugh. I did find a great YouTube title searching for it: "Collateral Cab Scene."

sometimes I wonder if Audioslave made it to three albums because Michael Mann was secretly bankrolling them

Debi Mazar is half of the arguing couple that's Foxx's first fare of the day, right at the movie's start.

Deleted scene that must have cost a lot to make, considering they flew over LAX:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BisMTKjKgi4

Still love this movie. I know people complain about the last 30 minutes but there's good stuff there, even if it is more standard action fare. Was happy to see EW give it a ten year treatment last year. http://www.ew.com/ew/static/longform/collateral/desktop/

wow, that shot over the airport in the deleted scene!
now we all know how to shake a chopper in LA, thanks vincent

Mazar--of course, duh. I was having trouble last night even remembering any females in the film outside of Pinkett Smith; all I could come up with was the FBI woman and Jamie Foxx's mother.

genuinely the best movie ever

miami vice still my fave mann but every time i rewatch this i find it masterful, the way the successive escalations of the plot eventually push it into this dream/nightmare space that max is stuck in, and then a coyote walks across the road to an audioslave song

I guess I should finally watch this

There are elements of Collateral that have stuck with me for years, like the coyote at night, or the subtle detail that Foxx's cab driving skills, which get Jada to her destination early, are what throws off punctual ninja Cruise and set the whole movie in motion.

miami vice still my fave

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Wednesday, April 14, 2021 1:07 PM (one hour ago)

I like Collateral; it's as good as Heat, I'd say, and you don't have anything like Pacino's hammier moments.

heat is one of my favorite gay films of all time but yeah i think collateral is better. hard for me to choose between it, miami vice, and (the beguiling) blackhat

I don't love Heat as much as other people, though I haven't seen it since it played in theatres, so there's a fair chance I might have a different perspective on it these days. Collateral I liked better at the time, and would probably be more inclined to rewatch today.

it's definitely shorter

1) the funky new hi-def video michael mann is using looks totally amazing

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, July 23, 2004 3:24 AM (sixteen years ago)

it's gonna look awesome no matter what

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, July 23, 2004 3:40 AM (sixteen years ago)

Just watched this for the first time. It does indeed look awesome, Mann's use of available light (= hundreds of different types of artificial light) makes the early HD digital look like Super 16 saturated colour and grain.

noted earlier but lol at many of the OG posts itt. the past is a different country:

yeah, i find that whole "widescreen-on-TV" thing kind of weird. in the beginning (sopranos? E.R.? i forget which was first) it was obviously a sop to the idea that widescreen TVs would take over. but they obviously haven't, and won't for a while.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Friday, July 23, 2004 3:56 AM (sixteen years ago)

i'm sure at the end we'll find out he was planning to kill jamie foxx as soon as his "work" was done

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, July 26, 2004 11:17 PM (sixteen years ago)

And you say you object to Law and Order "on principle"... what principle? It's a police procedural!

― Harold Media (kenan), Saturday, August 7, 2004 5:15 PM (sixteen years ago)

so are hollywood movies really not supposed to show people smoking? cos strangely for a film involving taxi drivers and world-weary cops, i don't think ANYBODY lit up a cigarette. well, i guess smoking is banned in LA nightclubs/bars, so maybe it was a touch of realism...

― ||amateur!st|| (amateurist), Sunday, August 8, 2004 3:02 PM (sixteen years ago)

What phone number can I call you at right now?

― Harold Media (kenan), Monday, August 9, 2004 3:35 PM (sixteen years ago)

Funny, I just watched this again the other night. Holds up really well, not just the bits of comedy but Foxx playing against type, and Cruise, well, playing to type, but a different kind of type. I had forgotten about all the stuff with Jada again at the end, which is pretty generic, but Mann (and Cruise, actually) find some new ways of doing it. For example, one of my favorite moments is Cruise standing outside the train door at maximum pissed off intensity, gun raised, just waiting for Foxx or Jada to poke so much as a finger out. Memorable bits like that almost make up for the relative silliness of those last several minutes, even if Foxx-finally-as-hero does pay off, thematically.

Just rewatched this for the first time since it came out. I remembered it fondly — I'm a Mann fan — but it was better than I even remembered. So gorgeous. A fine entry in the it-all-happens-in-one-night canon, which is one of my favorite subgenres.

Just saw this for the first time! So good! I love LA at night

Fox and Cruz are very good , esp Fox

Ruffalo and Bardem too!