PUBLIC ENEMIES (Michael Mann 2009)

[Chris Knipp]

Michael Mann: PUBLIC ENEMIES (2009)

Review by Chris Knipp

The devil is in the details

It's as hard to get a grip on Mann's impressive but vaguely off-putting new movie about John Dillinger's last thirteen months as it is to project yourself into the coldly beautiful digital images. The title itself provides a clue to the problem: it doesn't focus on the star criminal embodied by the charismatic and -- here -- cooly dashing Johnny Depp, whose quips and provocations in the trailer draw us into the theater to see him, only him, and his bold exploits. It points instead to the wider focus of Mann's book source -- Vanity Fair writer Bryan Burroughs' 600 pages of meticulous research, Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34 . Relentless G-man Purvis (a convincing but bloodless Christian Bale) and his rising boss FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover (Billy Crudup, both droll and period) are part of another story as important as the bank robber's final wide ride, the story of the growing cruelty and relentlessness of the forces of American law.

Look at another title of a movie about a doomed but spectacular crime spree: Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde. That 1967 classic works so well because it's character-driven. Even in the sketchy but powerful scenes that outline John Dillinger's romance with French-Native American hatcheck girl Billie Frechette (Marion Cottillard, working wonders with limited material), character is subsidiary to function: "I rob banks," Johnny says. And then: "What else you need to know?" Well, quite a lot, actually, for a rounded character to emerge. Mann's movie is meticulous as to period look, to facade, but not to essence. Its street scenes are full of detail, its clothes immaculate and accurate. Taking place in 1933-34, however, it provides too few overt signs of the Great Depression. The film is also misleading in showing the Dillinger gang only robbing grand, marble-hall-and-column banks, when in fact they mostly robbed small and middling-sized ones.

The overall result is a collection of contradictions. There is romance, but the effect isn't romantic. There's precise realism, but the overall effect isn't realistic. Perhaps the only unmitigated pleasure that remains is the images, the digital with its cold precision, its crisp edges even when many of the cameras are jiggly and hand-held, the depth of detail in darkness, the color that is neither bright nor faded, the sheer satisfying crispness of everything and everybody. And in this one aspect, a sublimely heightened verite' whose look is something quite new, Public Enemies matches Bonnie and Clyde: it makes us feel we're seeing period scenes with contemporary eyes. The best and most memorable images are the complex ones you won't see in stills where many actors are running back and forth in front of the camera, the gunshots are popping realistically in every direction, and there is no hint of the usual film chiaroscuro or highlighting, but the light is somehow beautiful. The cameras move too much, but they do rub your face in the action. What's gong on you may figure out later.

Maybe you can't avoid mythologizing when you shoot a movie about a famous Thirties bank robber and shouldn't try to, but Mann does. He's working, with great accomplishment, from that meticulous historical account, involving dozens of players on both the cop and the crook sides. Dillinger (and alternatively the totally unappealing Purvis) stay in the foreground. But there too is a contradiction, because the way Depp plays his part, witty, cold, and focused rather than warm and down-to-earth, his character ends up being impressive, but ultimately absent. (Contrast Warren Beatty's impotence and blinking charm as Clyde Barrow, an absence you yet want to cuddle.) Even when the characters are strong in Public Enemies, they don't get enough chance to interact. Dillinger is rarely with Frechette. His chance to confront Purivs is too brief, the moment when Purvis tells him he's to be extradited to Indiana and he quips, "There's absolutely nothing I want to do in Indiana." He's not facing off Purvis; he's playing to the audience.

This should have been one of the showpieces of the season, and it is a blockbuster with class in a world of junk. Its virtuoso look and complexly orchestrated scenes will hold up with time, but despite a freshness in approaching familiar genre material, it's missing that certain je ne sais quoi. Even though it's different, it lacks style, movie-making panache, playfulness, suspense, the ability to push a climax, the capacity to take a breather so the momentum builds up again. There's an impressive twittering machine functioning here on all its Ford V8 cylinders. But the light touch is missing, the capacity to make you say "Yeah!", to simultaneously stand apart and admire while utterly caught up in it all.

[cinemabon]

Johnny Depp for all of his fresh "hipness" in the media is a cold fish in real life. I wonder if that is why he has underplayed so many of his characters. He emotes enough for line delivery and that is all. He gives his audience very little. His interview with David Letterman was downright absent. Unlike the witty yet underscored Gene Wilder in "Willie Wonka," Depp's Wonka is cold and lifeless, like a walking corpse. Even his pirate has little to say, sort of emotionless romps through sets. So it doesn't surprise me that when Dillinger says, "I rob banks..." (aka Bonnie: "We rob banks!") the delivery should be underplayed. Real life John Dillinger seems a flamboyant character and sought out fame as part of his public persona. In the so called "Jail house interview," he kept the press and the warden fascinated for over an hour with stories of his exploits. They loved him. Depp does not impress me that he grasp that aspect of Dillinger (as your review reflects). I anticipated seeing this film. I believe I've changed my mind.

[Chris Knipp]

I would not blame anything on Depp. I can't say what he's like in person with any authority, but my impression of him from interviews is of a surprisingly good-natured man, very much his own person, quite forthcoming and with an excellent sense of humor. So "a cold fish in real life" strikes me as presumptuous and also inaccurate, unless you can correct me because you know the man personally.

I think Depp gives Dillinger the degree of bravado and flamboyancy that the script of the film provides. And if you look at many scenes there is planty of bvavado and flamboyance Nonetheless this Dillinger does emerges as somewhat cool and absent. But I tried to make clear that that is because the screenplay is based on the Burroughs book, which doesn't focus exclusively on Dillinger. And the way the film is shot.

To say that an actor of the caliber of Johnny Depp "gives his audience very little" is a complete travesty. I think this is to misunderstand the kind of actor Depp is and the kind of parts he has played. Not everybody has to be the Actors Studio type. Depp in Jarmusch's Dead Man is impressive and riveting, but the character is a mute, passive creature; Depp channels Buster Keaton there.

Did Buster Keaton "give his audience very little"?

[cinemabon]

You contradict your own review, Chris.

[Chris Knipp]

Maybe, but I do not like the idea of blaming the lack of appeal of the character on Johnny Depp personally. If so then my review requires revision, and it is a work in progress; I may add to it, if I get the time. But at the risk of seeming to quibble, I think my references to "the charismatic and -- here -- cooly dashing Johnny Depp" and "the way Depp plays his part, witty, cold, and focused" hardly depict him as a cold fish in person nor did I imply that he "gives the audience very little". But his character as written and directed doesn't deliver the bravado you speak of, I quite agree, and that bravado is conveyed misleadingly in the trailer, which gives all his best quips and boasts and his most dashing words to woo Billie Frechette.

Trailer. (http://www.publicenemies.net/?__source=ggl|imgcnt&sky=ggl|imgcnt)

[cinemabon]

What are you doing up so late? Ah, you're not in New York... are you? I do like Johnny Depp personally. Have I ever met the man? No. Would I like to? Not really. Has he met some really cool people and hung out with them... like Brando? Oh, yes he has. Of that, I envy him. Have I liked him in other films? Yes... some. I don't have to equate my actors to Stanislav to make them great. Acting comes from utilizing imagination and translating that into action (facial expression or lack of...) Directors are not responsible for hiring actors, they only have to make them act on the set.

"I didn't hire you to question my authority... I hired you to act... so when I call action, act! If you do your job, we'll get along just fine."

Cecil B. DeMille

[Chris Knipp]

No, I'm in California. It's not late. I might like to meet Johnny Depp but it seems too fantastic, he's too much of a star. I would really like to know Francis Coppola, I think. He seems like a really interesting man. Plus he lives around here.

I think the casting of Depp as Dillinger was somewhat unusual. He actually looks like Dillinger, only more handsome, of course. He is beginning to show some age at last and that also adds a certain hardness to the character in Public Enemies.

Speaking of hardness I think I have been a little hard on the movie. But that's just the way it came out. And as I've said elsewhere, I might rate it and Tetro equallly (gave them both a genrous 8/10--though Metacritic rates Public Enemies well higher than Tetro), but Tetro fills me with warmth and hope and enthusiasm, and Public Enemies has no such positive effect on me.

I realize you don't demand Stanislav effects from every film actor. But I think in some ways Depp is more like a mime, and that's unusual. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a stunt of that kind and also Ed Wood and Edward Scissorhands and Benny and Joon and most of all Dead Man, which I consider a masterpiece and to which he is essential. . Donnie Brasco is a different sort of role, more "realistic," that he does very well. But I would not blame him for being "absent" or miming, which he does well and few actors can do as he does. But if that's what he's doing in Public Enemies it doesn't work so well there, but I still don't blame that on him. Blame the casting director. That's who's responsible for hiring actors.

[tabuno]

Chris Knipps has produced a insightful and well argued commentary on PUBLIC ENEMIES that captures the inconsistencies as well as the highlights of this movie. The only point that I would differ is the underplayed performance of Dillinger by Johnny Depp which I felt was dead on for the movie (without knowing anything about the real John Dillinger). I appreciated and way Depp dealt with this character given him a conflicted moral center that actually brought both the public in the day and myself with a sympathetic but twisted guilt complex over Dillinger in the movie. I do agree with the problem of character development and the emphasis of style over substance in this movie. I enjoyed it, but it had too many small problems to make this movie a classic. However, it is one of the best movies I've seen this year.

[Chris Knipp]

Some have said it's the best big movie we're going to get this summer, the "class" blockbuster film. That may be true. I'm not sure whether we disagree on Johnny Depp or not. My problem is not with Depp. I called him "charismatic" and "cooly dashing" in my review. I assume he plays the part the way the filmmakers, Michael Mann in particular, wanted him too.

[tabuno]

I actually thought Michael Mann's directed Johnny Depp's John Dillinger's character in a way that I bought into and felt that his direction along with Mr. Depp's own subtle charisma created just the right balance. Any more flair and flamboyancy might have transformed the character and the movie into a melodrama, comic-hysterics that wouldn't really keep with the tone of the movie. What was great about Mr. Depp's character was that the meaningful subtext was available for those who were able to capture the nuances of Dillinger's self-congratulatory gratification at the public's adulation. Pushing Mr. Depp's usual characterization any more could have easily transformed this movie into one of those popular, brainless, cheesy movies and losing the serious and more tense-filled atmospherics that seemed to ooze outwardly thoughout most of the movie. It was this atmospherics that enabled the shot out scenes to be so vividly intense and richly captivating by its potent cinematic style of realism.

[Chris Knipp]

It's a good film. It just leaves me wanting something. As Ebert says it's good but not great and he tries to figure out why and says it frustrates in him "of some stubborn need for closure." My interpretation is at the start of my review, that the problem is the source book's multiple focus, which is literally on the phenomenon of "public enemies" and not on Dillinger alone.

I would not say that Depp has a "usual characterization." He's surely a better and mroe versatile actor than that.

[tabuno]

PUBLIC ENEMIES (2009)

Summary: Compelling and Gripping But With Weaknesses

Until the very end, this movie had enough technical weaknesses to become a disappointment in terms of how great this movie could have been. Yet, it delivered enough by the closing credits to make this a quality period police drama. Michael Mann who directed MANHUNTER (1986) starring William Petersen in a CSI movie predecessor delivered his usually sharp, colorful, and even gritty production as expected for this new movie. But the series of technical oversights contained in PUBLIC ENEMIES had the potential to drag this movie down. Namely, (1) Strangely African music near the beginning of the movie seemed at odds with the American time period. (2) The shaky photography, at times, during the first third of the movie made the characters seem to bounce unnaturally up and down, out of focus distancing the audience from the characters (until the hand shaking camera work was put to good use a police raid sequence). (3) The were a number of shots during the first third of the movie where the characters are heard but not seen talking which almost felt like they could have been dubbed. (4) They relational development between Dillinger and Billie didn't quite seem to have sufficient screen time to really cement the relationship. (5) The introduction of a new FBI agent from another office with great hype later in the movie was underdeveloped (who seemed like an early form of FBI profiler). (6) The high tech FBI gadgetry didn't seem to provide a direct connection with the sudden second arrest of the Dillinger. (7) The interplay between Christian Bale and Johnny Depp was never really given a strong emphasis like HEAT (1995). (8) The night time raid was also awfully artificial with an impossibly bright lighting set scheme which might have been much for successfully handled with a darkened set (using as in a horror genre) to heighten the fear element. (9) The interrogation of the severely injured cohort and his subsequent disposition (whether he lived or died) was left too unclear. (10) Billie's interrogation scene left out the physical humiliation shot that would have provided an even more outrageous emotional reaction. (11) The actual demise of Dillinger in the movie was surprisingly confusing and awkwardly shot.

Nevertheless, the whole tone of the movie, the strong underplayed performance of Johnny Depp kept a strong, underlying sense of heightened tension throughout the movie. The gun fights were actually even more compelling that the blockbuster, extravaganza, special effects driven TRANSFORMERS: THE REVENGE OF THE FALLEN (2009) in which PUBLIC ENEMIES uses sound effects to great use and the you-are-there-realism was potent and riveting. Emotional and intimately intense with excellent physical action, this movie is one of the strongest of the year even though it falls short of being great.

[Chris Knipp]

VISUALS: It's funny views on the images and lighting of PUBLIC ENEMIES vary so widely in reviews and comments here and elsewhere. Some people think the dark scenes are way too dark, and others think they're way too light. I thought the visuals were the film's best and most original aspect.

Would agree on the gun fights -- mostly realistic and fresh in approach, particularly the gunshot sounds. Was not troubled by the night raid, though it could have been better; compare the one in L.A. CONFIDENTIAL.

Also agree the hand-held camerawork is obtrusive at times, though also adds a contemporary feel, no doubt the purpose.

Agree with your point #4: not enough of the relationship between John and Billie.

I also mentioned your #7: Purvis and Dillinger have too few confrontations.

Your #11 is probably true--finale confusingly shot. By this point, the film being overlong, my concentration had faded and I hardly cared.

A lot of good specific points here, tabuno. I agree with many of your observations, though I don't think I agree on the visuals.

[tabuno]

One thing that Michael Mann does probably as well as anyone is visuals. His photography in MANHUNTER (1986) which remains my second all-time favorite movie is so spectacular that it still sets a standard for me when it comes to judging other movies. In PUBLIC ENEMIES, the visuals are one of the strongest film elements of the movie and it really only becomes a problem during the night scenes.

THE DARK KNIGHT (2008) was too dark and one couldn't really see much of what was going on. But with PUBLIC ENEMIES, Michael Mann created a hypocritical inconsistency with his night shots because while his day shots reflected a true authenticity, his night shots were so blatantly lit with likely high intensity lamps that it really detracted from the visceral realism of the whole sequence. There was no explanation of where the lighting was coming from, not even the usually full moon ploy. It's so frustrating when the shooting started because in the night it's practically impossible to see anything, much less hit anything. A great director can do both, allow the characters and the action to be visible with effect but at the same time use the night time lighting scheme to one's benefit and retain the emotional dripping suspense at the same time. Ridley Scott was able to work well with his dark footage sequences in both ALIEN (1979) and BLADE RUNNER (1982).

Perhaps, Mr. Mann if he had been stuck with black and white film footage, he might have been able to come up with an alternative light intensity scheme for his night shots. A more compelling alternative would have been to depict the real challenges and difficulties of a night shoot out and chase scenes with everybody just almost frantically bewildered by the darkness, crashing into trees, feeling their way around, getting cut and bruised, shooting without knowing who they were actually shooting at. The Civil War was rampant with such instances of night battles, but it was so dangerous. I would say that the night scenes were opportunities lost but at the same time perhaps so challenging and too difficult to really shoot. Nevertheless, it is a tribute to Mr. Mann that because of his overall realization of the visuals along with the strong storyline, and Johnny Depp that so many of these distractions and weaknesses were such that the movie as a whole still resonates with power and intensity. Like THERE WILL BE BLOOD (2007), the problems with the movie were minor compared to the great acting, production values and talented direction making both movies solid cinematic achievements.

[Chris Knipp]

THIEF had a noirish look, but I became more appreciative of Mann's visuals with COLLATERAL, in which digital imagery was specially processed in a way that made the light and color of the Los Angeles night images quite beautiful. In her promising debut NYTimes review, which was of COLLATERAL, Manohla Dargis, who had worked on the LA Times before, describes Mann thus:
Filled with incessant rhythms, washes of gaudy color and heartbreaking beauty, the films boldly convey the passions and deep feelings the director's men rarely voice. It's the sort of expressionistic gambit that pointedly makes the case that movies create meaning both with what's on the scripted page and with images of palm trees bobbing against a moonlit sky and the everyday Los Angeles surrealism of coyotes prowling an otherwise urban street. COLLATERAL according to Metacritic got marginally more favorable reviews than PUBLIC ENEMIES (71 vs. 70).

[Johann]

Public Enemies is probably the best film of the year.
I know Scorsese and DiCaprio are waiting for us, but man...Michael Mann is an absolute Master filmmaker.

The cinematography and editing are beyond superb.
This is the pinnacle in terms of shots, camera movement (I was instantly thinking of the Dogme manifesto. Seriously.)
The camerawork in Public Enemies is flawless.
I don't care what anyone says.
I might even say it rivals Kubrick.
It's that fucking great.
Any film buff will admit that the cinema on display here is to be greatly admired. I was in rapt awe of the beauty of Mann's cinematography. Best in the business.

But to get to the story, Chris, I felt that the "romance" was effective, given what John and Billie were dealing with.
Especially the scene right after Billie is apprehended (and subsequently brutally interrogated). Johnny Depp should get an oscar nomination for that. That was the first time I've seen him really cry onscreen. And it was powerful. He knows what's going to happen to her and the anguish over the situation is brought home. Marion Cottillard was an angel. What a gorgeous face, what a beautiful soul she is. Love her.

Christian Bale is a dead-serious Melvin Purvis.
He's got his mission. And his life seemed empty by the end credits, when we get a title about how he ended his own life in 1960. Did he realize that Dillinger was Larger than him, at least in myth? Or did he have regrets about how he handled everything? Or was it nothing? I have to look it up. The story of John Dillinger is fascinating to me. This movie got me interested in knowing more.

I love the scene where John sings in the car. Greatness.
I love eveything about this film, actually.
Should get a ton of oscar noms. If it doesn't, somebody's asleep at the wheel. This film thrilled me from beginning to finish, and the screening last night was awesome because there were like, only 2 peeps in the theatre.

And what shootouts!!!!
Holy shitballs!!!

[Chris Knipp]

Your enthusiasm is welcome and I'm glad you like Public Enemies so much. Yes, the shootouts are great, probably more worth a re-watch than anything else in this highly accomplished film. And the romance of John and Billie is fine, just not enough of it (a place where I missed the magic of Bonnie and Clyde). Yes, Marion is a doll and a swell actress. I just saw a recent snapshot of her in Paris and she's a very pretty lady. I like Depp and always do.

As for ratings, I'll stick by my choices of Gray's Two Lovers, Bahrani's Goodbye, Solo, and Jarmusch's The Limits of Control. I also loved Coppola's Tetro and had a very good time at David Yates's new Harry Potter, to my surprise. Right now I'm digesting Bigelow powerful and tremendously accomplished The Hurt Locker, the prime contender for best Iraq war movie and another tremendously accomplished film. So there's lots of competition for best American film so far and these that I've just mentioned set Public Enemies down a peg or two.

[tabuno]

In observing the relationship between John Dillinger and Billie Frechette in PUBLIC ENEMIES (2009), I look back on the depiction of the relational development and depth that came about in THE READER (2008) between Michael Berg and Hanna Schmitz. While I admit that such depth might not be appropriate in a crime drama with more intense action sequences, the basic elements of connective interaction and exchanges between John and Billie if allowed to have been evolved into a more mature/developed relationship would likely have meant even more in regards to the ending of the movie.

[Johann]

I'll see this one again in a theatre. Probably three times.
Seriously, the cinematography just knocked me sideways.
Those are the shots I want in a movie.

Extremely high quality production design.
I got the feeling that Michael Mann was making his Masterpiece.
Everything seemed charged with "My Legacy".
And that is something that gets my blood pumping.
The opening images had me saying to myself: "this is it. this is gonna blow my mind".
And it did.
It just kept getting better and better as it went along.
Intense film, man.
Better than DePalma's Untouchables. (which rocks, BTW)
The sound of the gunfire is like you're right there.
I was in the Infantry, and I know what bullets sound like when they fly by you. I did many live-fire section attacks.
This movie has the best sounds of gunfire I've ever heard.
You're ducking in your seat!

[tabuno]

Johann's glowing technical cinematographic remarks while perhaps right on target for most of this movie, still seem to overlook the terrible lighting scheme during the night shots in this movie.

[Johann]

I don't know what you're talking about.
"Terrible lighting scheme"?
You mean "Brilliant lighting scheme"...

[Chris Knipp]

I have said that I particularly liked the way the digital photography worked in the night sequences.

[tabuno]

Let me post here some of my earlier comments regarding the night lighting problem with this movie:

"The night time raid was...awfully artificial with an impossibly bright lighting set scheme which might have been much for successfully handled with a darkened set (using as in a horror genre) to heighten the fear element." (7/13/09)

"...with PUBLIC ENEMIES, Michael Mann created a hypocritical inconsistency with his night shots because while his day shots reflected a true authenticity, his night shots were so blatantly lit with likely high intensity lamps that it really detracted from the visceral realism of the whole sequence. There was no explanation of where the lighting was coming from, not even the usually full moon ploy. It's so frustrating when the shooting started because in the night it's practically impossible to see anything, much less hit anything. A great director can do both, allow the characters and the action to be visible with effect but at the same time use the night time lighting scheme to one's benefit and retain the emotional dripping suspense at the same time. Ridley Scott was able to work well with his dark footage sequences in both ALIEN (1979) and BLADE RUNNER (1982).

Perhaps, Mr. Mann if he had been stuck with black and white film footage, he might have been able to come up with an alternative light intensity scheme for his night shots. A more compelling alternative would have been to depict the real challenges and difficulties of a night shoot out and chase scenes with everybody just almost frantically bewildered by the darkness, crashing into trees, feeling their way around, getting cut and bruised, shooting without knowing who they were actually shooting at. The Civil War was rampant with such instances of night battles, but it was so dangerous. I would say that the night scenes were opportunities lost but at the same time perhaps so challenging and too difficult to really shoot." (7/13/09).

[oscar jubis]

I hope to return with some personal opinions about the movie. Maybe I'll touch on issues relating to the morality of movie violence (something I've been thinking about since the 1970s). For now, perhaps readers would find it interesting to consider these comments by J.R. Jones (Chicago Reader) regarding the book source, issues of adaptation, adherence to historical record, etc.:

"Separating the movies from reality was a prime objective for Bryan Burrough, whose hefty nonfiction book Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34 was the basis for Michael Mann's new movie about Dillinger. "To the generation of Americans raised since World War II," writes Burrough, "the identities of criminals such as Charles 'Pretty Boy' Floyd, Baby Face Nelson, 'Ma' Barker, John Dillinger, and Clyde Barrow are no more real than are Luke Skywalker or Indiana Jones. After decades spent in the washing machine of popular culture, their stories have been bled of all reality." Armed with newly released FBI files containing nearly a million pages of reports, witness statements, and correspondence, as well as numerous unpublished manuscripts and interviews, Burrough produced a scrupulously factual book that still reads like a hell-for-leather action story.

Burrough also blows away several decades of G-man mythology dispensed by J. Edgar Hoover in books, magazine articles, and movies like Mervyn LeRoy's The FBI Story (1959). In an author's note Burrough writes that he wanted to "reclaim the War on Crime for the lawmen who fought it," yet his book is an endless catalog of the FBI's missed opportunities and near-criminal incompetence. Melvin Purvis, director of the Chicago office, became a legendary figure after Dillinger was iced, but the record shows he was in way over his head. At one point he got a surefire tip to expect Machine Gun Kelly at a tavern on South Michigan, but incredibly he forgot about it and Kelly slipped away. Long after Dillinger had become America's most wanted man, Purvis neglected to put the Dillinger family farm under surveillance. Purvis's biggest fiasco came in May 1934, when he and 20 other agents converged on a rustic lodge in northern Wisconsin where the Dillinger gang was hiding; there was no clear plan and the raid descended into chaos, leaving one agent and one bystander dead. Dillinger and his crew escaped unharmed.

Burrough may have set out to dispel the fictions created by movies like Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and Bloody Mama (1970), but his book originated in a development deal for an eight-hour HBO miniseries that never got off the ground. When it was published in 2004, the movie rights were immediately picked up by Mann, director of Heat (1995), The Insider (1999), Ali (2001), and Collateral (2004). Public Enemies is a natural screen property, with its meticulously chronological narrative, hurtling momentum, and sharply focused reconstructions of daring bank jobs and kidnappings. Yet at 500 pages, it's so stuffed with incident that no theatrical feature could possibly cover it all; in a recent New York Times story, Mann's coproducer, Kevin Misher, referred to the book as a "research bible" for the movie he and Mann had in mind, which would center on the cat-and-mouse game between Dillinger and Purvis.

As it turns out, Mann and Misher aren't exactly bible thumpers. Public Enemies begins with Dillinger (Johnny Depp) arriving at Indiana State Prison and engineering the escape of several inmates, among them his criminal mentor, Walter Dietrich. After one inmate gratuitously kills a guard, setting off a chain of events that leaves Dietrich dead, Dillinger pushes the inmate out of a speeding car. This gripping sequence establishes both Dillinger's loyalty and his ruthlessness, but it's largely fiction: although Dillinger helped set up the Indiana escape by smuggling in some guns, he was locked up in Lima, Ohio, when it actually went down.

In the movie's next sequence, FBI lawman Purvis (Christian Bale) personally guns down Pretty Boy Floyd in an Ohio apple orchard, a feat that wins him the top job in Chicago; in fact, Purvis was among several agents firing on Floyd, and the incident happened four months after Dillinger's death, when Purvis's star was falling, not rising.

Writing in Vanity Fair as production on the movie began, Burrough admitted the script was "not 100 percent historically accurate" but declared it "by far the closest thing to fact Hollywood has attempted." Unfortunately, what suffers most from Mann's narrative compression and invention is Burrough's detailed exposé of the FBI's lurching performance. A master of the action set piece, Mann re-creates some of the bureau's big debacles, but they fly by too quickly to allow a true appreciation of how bungled they were, and in the case of the Wisconsin raid Mann polishes the FBI's record—in the movie one of Dillinger's men is fatally wounded by one of the feds as they flee through the woods.

The liberties Mann takes with the facts are reminiscent of Brian De Palma's in The Untouchables, where Eliot Ness decides to get tough with Capone by policing outside the lines. Mann has Hoover (Billy Crudup) ordering Purvis to "take off the white gloves." Subsequently Purvis's men torture a suspect in his hospital room by applying pressure to a wound and try to beat a confession out of Dillinger's loyal gun moll, Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard). Neither incident is in the book".

[Chris Knipp]

This is interesting and good to know, especiallly about the FBI "bungling." However it doesn't preempt my point about the book and the film, and I'll explain why.
Unfortunately, what suffers most from Mann's narrative compression and invention is Burrough's detailed expose' of the FBI's lurching performance. Doubtless so, from what he says in his review. Nonetheless the book's structure still detracts from the focus on Dillinger himself, his romance with Frechette, and the relationships among the gang membes, etc. That despite the fact that dramatic incidents in the movie were invented for the screen and not taken from Burrough's account.

It's not surprising that the opening jail break seauence fabricates John's direct involvement. It feels fabricated -- and rushed. It's confusing and not very convincing.

[Johann]

I discussed the merits of Public Enemies over Untouchables with a friend and he agrees that Public Enemies is way better:
Connery took so many bullets it was ridiculous!

I can find very very few flaws with this film.
Probably because Mann's style is something I really love.
That opening jailbreak/shootout may seem fabricated and rushed, but who cares? It's riveting to watch!
The sky!
The camera angles!
The gunfire!
Huzzah!
I loved it.
Great way to open a MOVIE.
Of course it didn't happen like that in real life.

This was a beautifully staged film.
A Masterpiece in my humble.
Everything was letter perfect (in terms of CINEMA).
And that's all you can ask for.
Thank you Michael Mann and everybody who worked on it.
It was a priviledge.

[tabuno]

Theatrical film releases about crime dramas are about action, drama, sometimes relationships, and finally perhaps a dose of reality. But for reality that is what documentaries are for, fact- based recreations of reality. So when it comes to adaptations of from any source for the purpose of entertainment and cinematic beauty and quality the facts and fiction are whatever seems to work the best, its pick and choice, select, make up and discard - its about what composition and pacing and editing make for the most seamless, tight, compelling two hour film experience. Perhaps the closest one might come to incorporating serious elements of history are docudramas which attempt to insert actual facts along with fictional or dramatic elements that help to heighten or nurture the essence of the historical reality. But with PUBLIC ENEMIES, there doesn't appear to be any strict adherence to even a docudrama format...but a story plot outline based on or inspired by the crime period and incidents that happened and then developed into a movie script that would have a beautiful impact of a story told on film.

[cinemabon]

BO fell off fast

[Chris Knipp]

Despite Johann's enthusiasm, which I can understand, I was disappointed, even though you can classify it as a classy blockbuster. I was much more excited by Collateral. And that was his biggest grosser. Of course Insider, Ali, and Thief are worthy, and Heat has cult elements, by pairing Pacino and De Niro.

[Chris Knipp]

Filmleaf people may be interrested in viewing the website Mashable ("The Social Media Guide") for its list (http://mashable.com/2009/07/18/movie-social-networks/) of "Top 10 Great Social Sites for Movie Lovers." Filmleaf isn't there, maybe because it has too few members. The Auteurs is, plus the obvious big ones, Netflix, BoxOfficeMojo, and IMDb. I can't say I'd ever heard of the other sites. This was sent me by Borys Musielak ("Michuk"), a Czech film enthusiast living in England who has started a new film social networking site called Filmaster (http://filmaster.com/) with a nice layout and a lot of functions. It's just getting going. Anyone is invited to join.

I'll post this in a new thread but put it here too where it may draw more attention.

[cinemabon]

Most of the "fan" sites resemble the hodge-podge over opinionated high school blogger available to the open public. Many people post truly vulgar things, spout inexperienced monologues, and do not sound nearly as knowledgable as our esteemed membership.

In other words, they are crap compared to us.

[Chris Knipp]

cinemabon, see also here (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=22395#post22395) for a thread just on this subject. I will post your comment over there and comment on it.

[oscar jubis]

WHERE IS THE PUBLIC IN PUBLIC ENEMIES?
By Oscar Jubis

Hollywood films which are expected to appeal to an adult audience and deemed to have potential to receive awards from industry or press associations are typically released in the fall. Films released during the summer season have broader popular appeal. Their publicity and marketing are directed towards teenagers who constitute the most profitable audience for commercial movies. Summer movies, generally speaking, emphasize spectacle, action, and star appeal. The films directed by Michael Mann, one of Hollywood's A-list filmmakers, have traditionally had fall premieres (The Last of the Mohicans, Heat, The Insider, Ali). Mann's last three films are summer releases. I do not mean to suggest a simplistic, seasonal dichotomy between good and bad films. I do see a tendency in Mann's recent films towards downplaying character nuance and thematic depth in favor of spectacle, forward motion and surface pleasures. Mann is making "summer movies" now.

Public Enemies, his latest film, concerns the pursuit of John Dillinger (Johnnie Depp) and gang by a law enforcement team led by Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale). At the macro level, Mann's film relates how the crimes and notoriety of Dillinger and other 1930s lawbreakers like "Baby Face" Nelson and Clyde Barrow were pivotal to the historical development of the F.B.I. It is a cops and robbers tale that privileges the chase over social context and characterization. It stands in marked contrast to the emphasis placed on character psychology in Mann's own Heat (1995), a film with a similar narrative thread. The script, loosely adapted from a research-based book by Bryan Burrough, does not feature verbal exchanges geared toward providing depth of character. The approach called for a warmer, more expressive central performance from Depp; perhaps something along the lines of James Cagney's career-making turn in The Public Enemy (1931). Depp needed to suggest thoughts and feelings insufficiently developed in the script. Instead, he opts for a cool, understated demeanor reminiscent of Alain Delon in Jean Pierre Melville's stylish-to-a-fault Le Samourai (1967). Like Melville's film, Public Enemies fails to involve the viewer emotionally.

However, Mann and his skilled associates provide compensation in the form of clear storytelling, sustained forward momentum, obsessive attention to period detail, and awesome audiovisual stimuli. I have respect for film purists who decry the increased popularity of HD video, but I also think that the advantages of the use of the new technology become quite apparent in the capable hands of Mr. Mann. I am simply amazed at the amount of visible detail in the night scenes of Public Enemies. If you truly love movies, you owe it to yourself to experience the magnificent sequence which begins with Dillinger being jolted into consciousness by the sound of gunfire as he hides in a remote cabin in Northern Wisconsin. The freedom these little DV cameras have to be deployed through space at will and the montage of the shots creates a whirlwind, dynamic yet coherent visual experience. The audio design of the film is just as spellbinding. If this is not how actual bullets sound when crushing metal, wood, flesh and bone then this is the way they ought to sound.

These attributes notwithstanding, Public Enemies suffers not only from its lackadaisical attitude towards characterization, but also from its minimization of the social context. It is as if it was inconsequential that the country was stuck in the middle of an economic malaise of gargantuan proportions. One of the paradoxes of the designation of the criminals by the authorities that gives the film its title, is that a large segment of the public did not regard Dillinger and other Depression-era lawbreakers as enemies. One imagines that those who felt sympathy towards Dillinger were the poor and unemployed who had little money for basic necessities and nothing in the bank. They felt victimized by bankers and other big shots, not unlike we do today. Thus, Public Enemies wastes an opportunity to forge a deeper connection with a contemporary audience. It chooses to ignore the people who were for years ignored by their government. Public Enemies forgets that there is more to film than escapist, audiovisual entertainment, no matter how spectacularly rendered.

[Johann]

Well Oscar, I think if you had more focus on the people who were ignored by the government, people would complain that the focus shifted too much from John Dillinger. People always find something to gripe about...
I agree that an opportunity was lost for a more "social impact", but hey, it's hard work making a movie, Mr. Mann probably had much more pressing matters and concerns. Or maybe he just felt he had to have SOME mass appeal. (upping the action). Maybe he felt he had to try for a bigger box office by being less intellectual. Who knows.
Your point is well taken.

Thanks for the great post.
Loved it.

[Chris Knipp]

Oscar, I like what you say about the images and sound and thoroughly agree. I said that was what was best about the movie, and I noted the exceptional detail inn the niht scenes. I am a huge fan of Le Samourai though, and find it odd anyone would find Delon unengaging; would that Dillinger were anything like as fascinating and cool as Delon in Melville's film. But the comparison isn't very appropriate, because while Depp has a coolness about him in this, Le Samourai works alone, and Dillinger is the leader of a gang of bank robbers.

I also noted that the depression aspects of the era were not sufficiently present in Public Enemies,and that it's inaccurate to suggest all the banks the gang robbed were big marble columned ones when they were mostly small to middling, from what I've read. It was smart of you to make the comparison/contrast with Mann's Heat, which I omitted, but we agree as others have noted that personalities aren't strong enough. On the one hand, as you note, Mann and his crew handle a complex story with clarity, but on the other hand the movie gets somewhat bogged down in its attempt to present Dillinger as a charismatic hero and also follow through on the book's history of the rise of the FBI.

Also on the one hand plus and on the other minus, this is a highly accomplished film, and Mann's use of digital imagery is (as already shown in Collateral) particularly notable, but in various ways the project doesn't quite live up to its ambitions and our expectations.

[tabuno]

Oscar Jubis sees light where I see darkness in this movie. Oscar is "...simply amazed at the amount of visible detail in the night scenes of Public Enemies" While I am disturbed and incredulous at the amount of visible detail in the night scenes. If one has a bright enough artificial light to light up a football field, perhaps it's not so amazing that visible details show up at night. What is truly amazing is that there are visible details at night, amazing to the point of impossibility and unreality.

Additionally, I didn't find, as Oscar did, a problem with Johnny Depp's underplayed performance and found it fit well with the tone and authentic, understatement that avoided the overly dramatic action typically found in popular movies released during the summer. What was missing for me in terms of characterization was the lack of time spent on the development of the relational moments in the movie itself, especially between Dillinger and Billie.

[Chris Knipp]

tabuno,
All we can say is that digital is very different from film, and in my opinion going by this and Collateral (I did not like the muddy look of Miami Vice at all), Mann has a gift (if unevenly exploited) for using digital. Both digital and film are approximations of the visual and not exact duplicates of what the eye sees. We may see more, or less, than what the camera sees, particularly in the dark. (The artist David Hockney has written extensively about the inadequacy of photography to show what we see and explained why he thinks painting works better for that.) I fundamentally like the digital look of Mann's film, though it is strange, and though I liked the gorgeous enhanced digital images of LA in Collateral more than the images by and large used in Public Enemies.

I don't know if Depp is 'too' cold. All we can say for sure is that he plays Dillinger cool. The real weakness in my view as I said in my review, is in the writing, that doesn't give enough information about Dillinger, so when Depp delivers the speech (highlighted in the trailer, which I've seen more times than I'd like to say),
I like baseball, movies, good clothes, fast cars, whiskey and you. What else you need to know? that winds up underlining for me that we don't learn enough about him.

This is unlike Delon in Le Samourai, whom Oscar brought in for comparison. We know even less about Le Samourai, but the film provides a powerful sense of his mystique, that makes specific details unnecessary, starting with the sequences in Delon's austere apartment, with its twittering bird, and continuing with all the time the camera spends focusing on Delon's deft, balletic, silent, mime-like movements. Depp doesn't get a chance to develop his character visually, through mime, though he excels at that kind of characterization, as he shows in Jarmusch's Dead Man. And I agree with you, tabuno, and said in my review, that there isn't enough screen time for the relationship between John and Billie -- in contrast to Bonnie and Clyde in Penn's movie.

[tabuno]

Mr. Knipps comes through again.

As for the darkness, Alice Rains Trulock in a brief description the day after the Civil War battle at Gettysburg had this to say about darkness:

"The night of July 5 was so black that the Gettysburg veterans of the Twentieth Maine kept bumping into each other, stubbing their toes and falling as they tried to march through dense woods without a semblance of a road much of the way. The horsemen took blows on their heads from limbs on tress that they could not see and bruised their legs on the tree trunks as they felt their way along...Finally, after much swearing and effort by all, the order to halt gave them time to sleep in the dark midnight near Marsh Creek, only a few miles south of their starting place." In the Hands of Providence (1992), pg.159.

[Johann]

I'm reminded of a discussion I had about The Passion of the Christ.
Shouldn't there have been a powerful "night" sequence to illustrate the pitch-black/no light sky that supposedly occured after the death of Christ on the cross? I think an opportunity to make night-scene movie history was lost, Mel Gibson...

But to get back to P.E., the digital is amazing. No one can deny that anymore. David Lynch used a digital handheld cam for Inland Empire and that was a marvelous, intense film as well.
Chris mentioned Collateral, which also has striking digital "night" photography. Both Lynch and Mann gave L.A a glory that few films have done...

Purists get their panties in a bunch over digital versus film but I see the merits of both. I use disposable kodaks for my personal photos. They're cheap and take great photos. Someone told me that actual film has a better "grain" than a digital picture, that film has better resolution. I don't know about that, but if it's true then I'm glad I use disposable cameras.

[Johann]

Great quote tabuno.
Thanks for that.

[Chris Knipp]

There's a difference between the consumer grade digital of Lynch'e Inland Empire and Mann's highly manipulated and finely polished form of digital imagery used in his recent films. Lynch's Sony PD 150 pro mini DV camcorder that sells for $1,250 gives a wonderfully eery effect. But Mann is playing with a whole orchestra instead of a single instrument. several separate professional grade systems which are then integrated in post-production.

Technical aspects of Collateral's imagery are discussed in some detail in an article (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0HNN/is_8_19/ai_n6171215/) from a techology site online, "Seeing in the dark for Collateral: director Michael Mann re-invents digital filmmaking". Excerpts:
"Film doesn't record what our eyes can see at night," says Mann. "That's why I moved into shooting digital video in high definition--to see into the night, to see everything the naked eye can see and more. You see this moody landscape with hills and trees and strange light patterns. I wanted that to be the world that Vincent and Max are moving through."
film's sensitivity falls off sharply at the bottom of the curve, transforming subtle shadows into deep rich blacks. But what if, he asks, you went into those shadows? "How do I record what the eye sees at the toe of the curve?" Where everyone is trying to make black, Mann decided he would go into those shadows and pull out information to create intense emotions.
"What you'll see in this film," continues Sonnenfeld. "is that it's a not a traditional Hollywood take on what night is. This is what we really see at night, not blue, that's not what night really looks like." Much of this article is tech gibberish, but the point is clear: that Mann sought (bulilding on eearlier efforts in Ali and TV) to exploit the special qualities of digital imagery, and post-production was highly coordinated and inventive.

[oscar jubis]

I am glad at the number of responses following my post.

Thanks, Johann. When you praise the shoot-outs, the camera movement, the sound design, etc. we are both 100% in agreement. Mann's skills are huge.

Which logically means I cannot relate to tabuno finding "technical weaknesses" in PEs. However, now that I've written my review and can read the thread, I find common ground with you when you make a number of observations. For example, you were the first to point out the contrast between PEs and Heat which coincidentally, I bring up on my review.

As an analogy between the behavior of film vs. digital video in the dark...Film looks at darkness the way your eyes do shortly after you turn your bedroom light off. The representations of dark spaces as recorded by DV, on the contrary, appear to record these dark spaces as our eyes do several minutes later, after they've had time to adjust to the conditions and can see "into" the dark. But there is a special quality to film stock that digital cannot duplicate. The answer to film vs. digital, as Johann stated, is: both. Whenever there's a nitrate print of anything being projected around town, I go. There's a special quality, a luminosity that comes off the images that is simply beautiful and unique to this material. I would miss that if the conversion to digital is total and absolute. But film cannot give you that amazing lodge cabin sequence in PEs.

Chris, obviously and for many reasons, we are "on the same page" regarding this film. To some extent, my review is rather unnecessary.

[tabuno]

Mann appears to have gone to the other extreme in the night shots in PUBLIC ENEMIES. Where once film couldn't see into the dark, Mann has now been able to probe into the darkness where human eyes can see and "more." It is the "more" that I find troubling. Mann has gone beyond reality, into superhuman abilities with bionic eyes that can see like the Terminator what humans cannot see. Therefore for us to see characters in PUBLIC ENEMIES accomplish in their acting as if they were super human, seeing more than what human eyes can see at night, Mann has created a movie that contains a sigificant portion of which is unreal and thus inconsistent with the tone and overall authenticity of the rest of the movie. Yes it would be nice to be able to have night vision and for all the action that is seen in the movie at night, but it's all fantasy and it even looks unreal as the light source and its reflections seem like they're coming from a full moon source, but not from the sky but from somewhere directly off screen.

[Chris Knipp]

I think I mentioned shadows and chiaroscuro in connection with film. These terms have been used by some writers, in contrasting the image queslity of film vs. digital. As I said above just now, neither really duplicates what the eye sees, though the contrast between gong into darkness from the light and how the dark looks after the eyes adjust makes some sense to describe the greater detail in dark areas of digital. Digital is less light-dependent. On the other hand, human vision is very light-dependent. Thus there is some sense in tabuno's remarks that the digital night images go beyond what the eye can see. There is no one answer to these questions. Some people have much better night vision than others, and some people's eyes adjust to darkness faster.

[Johann]

"NOW" magazine, a free rag here in T.O., had a capsule review of Public Enemies that went something like this:

Guys in suits with guns are chased by guys in suits with guns.

What do you think? Accurate?

[Chris Knipp]

You forgot the hats. A cleverly written little piece (http://www.nowtoronto.com/movies/story.cfm?content=170184), with an odd, interesting comment on what DV does to Bale's face ("it makes Christian Bale disappear. His cheekbones recede into his face, and those glittering gimlet eyes turn a dull black."), but an oversimplification and a distortion and too derogatory about the images.

[cinemabon]

Just to chime in on the night vision thing...

Hollywood solved the situation years ago by putting evey night scene in a "full moon" by shooting day for night.

When they moved to color, royal blue represented night (as it does on stage).

The use of current technology by using CCD devices, has some significant drawbacks, such as increased grain when blown up to 35mm. It is impossible at 65mm (negative). As the variety and sensitivity of such devices improves, so will "night" vision that more closely replicates how we visualize darkness.

The darkest place I ever saw? Mammoth Cave, Kentucky. During the tour, the guide shuts off the lights. Without any source of light from anywhere (remember outside there is always starlight except for extremely overcast skies), it was impossible to see ones own nose (to spite the face?).

[tabuno]

What film school does Cinemabon teach at? Not that I could afford to go to any.

[cinemabon]

Do I pontificate too much? Sorry... I'll try to avoid that.

I did attend film school at a big midwest college (hint: it is the biggest in the country) and then attended film school in LA (hint: George Lucas went there). I worked in film in the 1970's and managed a movie theater in LA. I used to frequent film festivals but never to the extent of our friends (Oscar and Chris have been on festival boards).

Basically, I'm a novel writer now (pulp science fiction) and not as current as y'all (ie, Oscar, Chris, Johann, and Tab). If my contributions get out of hand, just put me in my place. Trust me, I'll get it.

[Chris Knipp]

I don't know much about "day for night" beyond the 1973 Truffaut film title (AKA La nuit americainne) but I have sometimes seen night scenes being shot at night in lower Manhattan, so it happens.. A short Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_for_night) on "day for night" is confusing on the issue of whether it's used routinely now or not. First they say
While this technique has largely disappeared owing to advances in film technology, especially the use of digital intermediate post-processing, and increasing viewer expectations, it was recently used in the 2007 film 28 Weeks Later, due to the impossibility of shooting in an entirely dark London, and in a dream sequence in Lord of War for logistical reasons. It was also used in the 2008 film Mamma Mia! The Movie for the opening scene.

Interior day-for-night shooting can be more time consuming and labor intensive. but then it later says
While never fully successful in creating "realistic" night, the special visual style of day for night nowadays has many fans among historic movie buffs due to its frequent use in early B-movies, Westerns, and film noir. Day-for-night shooting seems to have become more common in recent years which goes against the trends of a decade ago. Sounds from this article like "day for night" is not the prevalent method now, and may have always had drawbacks, but has not been discontinued either.

Views online still seem to differ a lot on the Public Enemies night scenes, however they were shot. Some call them "grainy," many say they're too clear. People just don't all see them the same way at all. My understanding is that digital, which Public Enemies is definitely shot in, permits filmmakers to work in lower light than film.

[tabuno]

My problem with the nights shots weren't about the quality of the shots being either grainy or sharp. The night shots were beyond authentic, realism. It wasn't about being overly dramatic. The technology or perhaps the use of artificial lighting revealed the "artificiality" of the scene. Perhaps many in the audience might have been awed with this special night vision, getting a new voyeuristic look into something that they haven't been offered before. But unfortunately, being able to shoot a night scene as if all the performances were shot in the day, doesn't make the shot any more effective or brilliant. But it seems the acceptance level of the audience is key. Today, audiences are willing to be entertained by impossible stunt work and special effects as if they were within the realms of possibility (if perhaps only pure luck). So too, if the audience is willing to accept night shots that have an appearance of artificiality but are more interested in the action on screen, than that is the standard by which the industry will entertain. Yet with this movie, the overall composition of the movie seemed to be towards a sharp, visceral experience that transported the audience nearer to the action, not away from it (but some audience members didn't notice the technical relevance of the darkness of the night while I did and as such probably enjoyed more than they would have most movies).

[Chris Knipp]

That's a very valid point about the contemporary audience -- though at any time in movie history the audience must have accepted somewhat artificial conventions as to the look of a film. Anyway 'artificiality' and 'realism' are subjective when it comes to the look of the night shots. So while you have the feeling that the night shots in PUBLIC ENEMIES have "the appearance of artificiality," others, including (I think) me, have just the opposite feeling -- that they're more "accurate" than usual visually. You seem to differ on this, feeling that Mann's images show too much that the eye could not see at night. I thought on the contrary that conventional film images of darkness have more blocking out in shadows, whereas the eye once adjusted to the darness, can see into shadows, as the digital camera can.

[tabuno]

There is one scene where everybody seems to end up in this big field and the reflected shining light is bouncing off people and things from some unknown source off screen and it's so bright that one wonders how it's possible in the 1930s that there could be such a bright grayish tinge coming from so luminous light source out in some nowhere land. It is perhaps this break from reality relatively early in the morning that "broke" the movie magic and made remaining more "acceptable" night scenes all the more difficult to sit through. These guys didn't even need to squint at each other to see.

[Chris Knipp]

I'd have to see the scene again to comment.

[Chris Knipp]

This clip of the Chicago gunfight shoot gives an idea from YouTube of the lighting and the darkness.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swBuz4MXK6w&feature=related

[cinemabon]

Obviously, we see the street light being used as the key light with fill lights around the camera (as is often the case during a shoot, especially in dark scenes). The muzzle flash is actually created electronically to add extra punch to the gun fire. An actual gun does not give quite as much light. The "shot" sounds are also part of the blanks used on the set. If they use the right kind of powder, they can increase the muzzle flash that way also. The sound is later dubbed in post production by foley artists using real guns fired into a variety of objects that change the timbre of the sound.

Stanley Kubrick was obsessed with "film light as we see it" when he shot the movie, "Barry Lyndon" in the mid-1970's. He went to German lens maker, Zeiss, who had created the special 55mm 0.7 f-stop lenses for NASA. Kubrick "borrowed" the lenses so that he could photograph certain scenes with candlelight. The problem with shooting through such a wide open iris is depth of field and focus, a challenge for Cinematographer John Alcott. Kubrick likes to shoot with short focal lengths (such as 35mm lenses which give an almost "fish eye" look to scenes but when shot with an f11 or f16 lens create incredible wide depth of field, the area of focus. This allows the maximum range of moment in placing a camera). Normally, a 55mm or longer lens is used to create a "normal" look. Increased light, film stock and other factors must be considered when establishing depth of field. However, the wide open Zeiss lens used on "Barry Lyndon" changed the focal length. Alcott (who also shot "Clockwork Orange") was forced to use the short focal lengths with the specially coated light sensitive lenses to create an effect that no, I repeat, no cinematographer has tried to duplicate with the same effort since. For his diligent work (and patience for having to work with Stanley Kubrick under very difficult conditions), Alcott received the Academy Award that year for Best Cinematography.


Kubrick had to return the expensive lenes to Zeiss. They were never used in any film again. Digital cameras slated to be introduced in the next few years will use the new generation of CCD devices that will eliminate the need for fast lenses, since these light sensitive chips can operate as if film speeds were greater than 10,000 ASA without additional grain. You can read about these new APS devices on the link below.

sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Lyndon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_pixel_sensor

[Chris Knipp]

Thanks for the links and new info on night digital and for reminding us of Kubrick and the Barry Lyndon innovations. You don't mention candlelight but his object was to be able to shoot scene actually lit by candlelight since he was depicting the eighteenth century. As i recall the scense were closeups, due to the limited depth of field. Leica has the 50 mm f 0.95 Noctilux (http://us.leica-camera.com/photography/m_system/lenses/5915.html) lens, exceptionally fine for low light still photography -- very expensive. "Outperforms the human eye." The world's fastest high speed aspherical lens. I was originally f1.0, now is faster, and more expensive, $11,000.