#132
Post
by karmajuice » Thu Jul 02, 2009 3:08 pm
I saw this last night and liked it. I don't think I liked it a whole lot, but I liked it. Some of the sequences were just astounding -- I like how we feel the weight of death every time one of Dillinger's gang dies. They don't glaze over it, Mann lingers on those moments. It's also interesting that people have talked about Depp's performance and how it compares to other gangster performances (whether it's genuine or borrowed from gangster films) because the movie seems very much concerned with the gangster as celebrity. This is most obvious in the cinema at the end, where Manhattan Melodrama is playing, but other moments point to it as well: Dillinger self-consciously considering his publicity and public image ('the public doesn't like kidnapping'), people lining up along the road to watch him ride past, the flashbulbs and crowds whenever he's arrested and put on trial. New mass media like film, radio, and wider newspaper circulation nurtured the folk hero gangsters the same way it nurtured (and continues to nurture) celebrities. Mann is equating the gangster not only with celebrity, but with movie stardom. The two seem interchangeable. I read Depp's performance as very self-conscious, but in a good way: not Depp being self-conscious, but Depp as Dillinger being self-conscious. He's very concerned with his image and the movie mimics that concern. It straddles a fine line between historically accurate drama and an investigation of gangsters and gangster movies (I'm thinking of the over-dramatic shooting at the end with its indulgent slow motion and extreme close-ups; not sure how I feel about that scene but it alludes to other similarly romantic gangster movie endings).
As for the digital versus film argument, I'm not sure how I feel about it. I pivoted between the sentiment Foam expresses and the idea the others have mentioned -- at times it feels artificial (in such a way that I become aware of its artificiality) and at times it feels more immediate, realistic. And then at times I couldn't even tell it was digital. Some of the cinematography in this film was gorgeous, the camerawork was often engaging and occasionally inspired. The orange glow of the scenes with the flares, the gang members hanging onto the car as it drives away, the tour de force shoot-out in the forest (and the fantastic shot of Depp in the extreme foreground adjusting his gun while the agent approaches from the background). So the use of digital video seldom bothered me.
On the other hand, I think digital video will rapidly become a relic (as it exists now, in the sense that the technology will rapidly improve), so while Mann's technique of using digital as an attempt to obtain immediacy (in the sense that it recalls home video, etc) is effective now, I don't think it will be for long. Ten years from now, we won't be accustomed to digital video so much as digital video will gradually progress to the quality of film. Leaving films like this to look a bit antiquated, in the sense that silent era films or home movies from the 50s look antiquated, though obviously not to that extent.