Originally Posted by The Alexor That’s what I’ve been preaching for years. Not enough people have seen this film and those who have do not appreciate it for what it truly is.
Indeed. Especially the moment between Wes Studi and Jodhi May at the ledge where Mann lets the camera rest on her close-up for about a minute or so…sublime.
SPOILER:
MAGUA
moves on Alice. His knife is low, about to strike. She stares at him. Her eyes are like
pools of deep water, calm, open, almost beatific. It stops Magua …
MAGUA
inexplicably, drops his knife hand. He’s riveted by her. About him, there’s a glimmer of
something else. He wears a human face for this one moment. He reaches out with his
other hand to offer her safety. To bring her back from the edge …
ALICE
looks down at Uncas, her lover, dead on the rocks below. She turns to Magua with
enigmatic calm. Her eyes seem to see into him. She steps off the edge.
Originally Posted by RathBandu Heat’s got a lot of good moments for Pacino, too. For example: “You might get killed…WALKIN’ YO’ DOGGIE!” “You can eat in my house. You can fuck my wife. But. You. Do Not. Get. TO WATCH. MY FUCKING. TELEVISION SET!”
Interestingly enough, this scene, like a lot of others in “Heat”, can be found almost verbatim in “Crime Story” the TV show. Farina’s character catches his wife cheating too, has the same dialogue, and the same stop by the road to kick the TV out of the car. There’s a lot of other similar scenes, some with exact dialogue, which is pretty neat for “Heat” lovers.
And I’ll echo the love for “Last of the Mohicans”. The battle is masterful, I love how he pulls back at the beginning to just watch is escalate from afar, the muted sound and confusion. I love the scene under the stars, and the final monologue by Russell Means. A terrific film.
And I’ll soon post my initial post in my “Ali” appreciate thread, as it seems to be the one few people can muster up much love for.
I watched LOTM again last night because of this thread, and damn if it isn’t great. I can’t believe it didn’t make the the CHUD 100 kills list, cuz there are some fantastic ones:
Chingchacook chucking his big, gnarly whatever-the-fuck-it-is into the back of the fleeing Huron.
Redcoat #9 getting scalped (although maybe not technically a kill because he’s still alive when it cuts away)
The Huron who threatens Cora during the battle and gets a couple of tomahawk chops (forehand and backhand) to the grillpiece from DDL in return.
Magua. The cracking sounds when he guts hit is what sells it. The sound design on this film is top-notch. The best sound effects for people getting stabbed/hacked/bludgeoned of any movie I’ve ever seen.
That’s not even mentioning the sacrifices of Duncan and Uncas.
Also. I can’t seem to find the old “Best Closing Lines” thread, but if this wasn’t mentioned, it’s a crime:
(From the expanded director’s cut)
Chingachgook: Great Spirit, Maker of All Life. A warrior goes to you swift and straight as an arrow shot into the sun. Welcome him and let him take his place at the council fire of my people. He is Uncas, my son. Tell them to be patient and ask death for speed; for they are all there but one - I, Chingachgook - Last of the Mohicans.
The frontier moves with the sun and pushes the Red Man of these wilderness forests in front of it until one day there will be nowhere left. Then our race will be no more, or be not us.
Hawkeye: That is my father’s sadness talking.
Chingachgook: No, it is true. The frontier place is for people like my white son and his woman and their children. And one day there will be no more frontier. And men like you will go too. Like the Mohicans. And new people will come, work, struggle. Some will make their life. But once, we were here.
Originally Posted by Duke, Raol I watched LOTM again last night because of this thread, and damn if it isn’t great. I can’t believe it didn’t make the the CHUD 100 kills list, cuz there are some fantastic ones: 1) Chingchacook chucking his big, gnarly whatever-the-fuck-it-is into the back of the fleeing Huron. 2) Redcoat #9 getting scalped (although maybe not technically a kill because he’s still alive when it cuts away) 3) The Huron who threatens Cora during the battle and gets a couple of tomahawk chops (forehand and backhand) to the grillpiece from DDL in return. 4) Magua. The cracking sounds when he guts hit is what sells it. The sound design on this film is top-notch. The best sound effects for people getting stabbed/hacked/bludgeoned of any movie I’ve ever seen. That’s not even mentioning the sacrifices of Duncan and Uncas. Also. I can’t seem to find the old “Best Closing Lines” thread, but if this wasn’t mentioned, it’s a crime: (From the expanded director’s cut) Chingachgook: Great Spirit, Maker of All Life. A warrior goes to you swift and straight as an arrow shot into the sun. Welcome him and let him take his place at the council fire of my people. He is Uncas, my son. Tell them to be patient and ask death for speed; for they are all there but one - I, Chingachgook - Last of the Mohicans. The frontier moves with the sun and pushes the Red Man of these wilderness forests in front of it until one day there will be nowhere left. Then our race will be no more, or be not us. Hawkeye: That is my father’s sadness talking. Chingachgook: No, it is true. The frontier place is for people like my white son and his woman and their children. And one day there will be no more frontier. And men like you will go too. Like the Mohicans. And new people will come, work, struggle. Some will make their life. But once, we were here.
Chingachgook wields a Delaware Tomahawk, definitely an awesome weapon that invariably winds its way onto CHUD lists of best killing tools.
Brendan, you should get in touch with George Merchan and write a chewer column about this. You’ve already got most of the meat.
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Originally Posted by Dragon Ma Russell Crowe should’ve won the oscar for ‘The Insider’ there’s no debating that, him winning it for ‘Gladiator’ is almost like a slap in the face, it was still a good performance but it in no way was it oscar worthy, it was just a shame Crowe lost out due to hollywood politics, they’ve been pulling this ‘you didn’t get the oscar for the performance you should’ve gotten it for so here’s an oscar to make up for it’ for ages.
I couldn’t agree more. Crowe’s a great actor and he’s done great work, but I still think Wigand is by far his best work to date.
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Originally Posted by RathBandu I’m thinking, of course, of the controversial ending to Collateral.
I don’t know if this necessarily speaks to the point you’re making, but I never quite understood why the ending got lambasted so much (as some dumb, formulaic shoot-em-up showdown), when the entire movie is building to it. It’s a story about Max taking control of his life, and a one on one showdown with Vincent, who challenges Max and represents his opposite, is inevitable.
To anyone who enjoys Mann’s work and has yet to see THIEF, take the plunge. It’s a little rough around the edges but it’s fantastic, with one of James Caan’s greatest (and arguably most underseen) performances. It also features Robert Prosky in one of the more complex villain performances you’re likely to see. Caan’s scene in the diner with Tuesday Weld is worth the price of admission alone.
Originally Posted by Duke, Raol Also. I can’t seem to find the old “Best Closing Lines” thread, but if this wasn’t mentioned, it’s a crime: (From the expanded director’s cut) Chingachgook: Great Spirit, Maker of All Life. A warrior goes to you swift and straight as an arrow shot into the sun. Welcome him and let him take his place at the council fire of my people. He is Uncas, my son. Tell them to be patient and ask death for speed; for they are all there but one - I, Chingachgook - Last of the Mohicans. The frontier moves with the sun and pushes the Red Man of these wilderness forests in front of it until one day there will be nowhere left. Then our race will be no more, or be not us. Hawkeye: That is my father’s sadness talking. Chingachgook: No, it is true. The frontier place is for people like my white son and his woman and their children. And one day there will be no more frontier. And men like you will go too. Like the Mohicans. And new people will come, work, struggle. Some will make their life. But once, we were here.
Truly one of the best closing speeches in film history. I have seen the director’s cut far more than I ever saw the original cut, so does anyone know how much of this speech was not in the original? It is so perfect, it just sums up the entire story so well, and it’s so poetic.
I’m going to throw out a little love for “Ali” too. People seem to bemoan the fact that it is a biopic, but I don’t know how you do a story about Ali that doesn’t follow that structure. I think Mann did a grea job at accentuating what made him relevant and important, a true icon the world over. The boxing scenes are, IMO the best ever filmed for a movie. Technically brilliant, utterly real and believable, and I love the way he adds in the music to subtly mark the changing tides of the fights.
Mario Van Peebles as Malcolm X is as great a performance as an of Mann’s other famous supporting parts. I love the opening which spans many years, multiple characters, and just throws you right in as they are all perfectly edited together. The monologue by Malcolm about the Birmingham bombing is compelling, and I love how Mann uses on of his patented, off centered close ups.
And I agree, Russell Crowe has never been better than “The Insider”.
Man Grofield, and I thought your bashing of Peter Hyams a few weeks ago was uncalled for. Why don’t you start telling me how bad Dwight H. Little is while you’re at it!
Originally Posted by Grofield I’ve never understood the appeal of MOHICANS – which defiles Fenimore Cooper and was solely responsible for me hating Daniel Day-Lewis until Bill the Butcher –
Maybe Mann is a Mark Twain fan…
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Cooper’s gift in the way of invention was not a rich endowment; but such as it was he liked to work it, he was pleased with the effects, and indeed he did some quite sweet things with it. In his little box of stage-properties he kept six or eight cunning devices, tricks, artifices for his savages and woodsmen to deceive and circumvent each other with, and he was never so happy as when he was working these innocent things and seeing them go. A favorite one was to make a moccasined person tread in the tracks of a moccasined enemy, and thus hide his own trail. Cooper wore out barrels and barrels of moccasins in working that trick. Another stage-property that he pulled out of his box pretty frequently was the broken twig. He prized his broken twig above all the rest of his effects, and worked it the hardest. It is a restful chapter in any book of his when somebody doesn’t step on a dry twig and alarm all the reds and whites for two hundred yards around. Every time a Cooper person is in peril, and absolute silence is worth four dollars a minute, he is sure to step on a dry twig. There may be a hundred other handier things to step on, but that wouldn’t satisfy Cooper. Cooper requires him to turn out and find a dry twig; and if he can’t do it, go and borrow one. In fact, the Leatherstocking Series ought to have been called the Broken Twig Series.
Darn straight! Dwight RAPID FIRE Little deserves respect, too!
But seriously, it’s good to have a few “detractors” in the thread, even if I disagree with every single comment/point Grofield makes aside from the MANHUNTER ones.
And for every hater of Mann’s treatment of Fenimore Cooper’s work there’s a person to defend it (see above). Ol’ Coop is hardly the most revered scribe as far as his prose, structure, characterizations, etcetera go.
Subotai - a lot of Hawkeye’s one-liners were cut in the Expanded Edition, but the “We face to the north…” one made it in.
Originally Posted by Grofield I’ve never understood the appeal of MOHICANS – which defiles Fenimore Cooper and was solely responsible for me hating Daniel Day-Lewis until Bill the Butcher –
I couldn’t disagree more about Collateral, but here’s Mann’s take on the LOTM story, from the site I linked above:
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GF: Had you read James Fenimore Cooper’s Leather-Stocking Tales when you were young? MM: Absolutely not! I’d probably read a classic comic-book version or something when I was young. But I’ve read a lot of history and this period has fascinated me for a long time. I saw the movie when I was a kid. It occurred to me recently that it may have been the first film I saw that made an impression on me. It was after the war, around 1948 or 1949, when I was four or five years old. There was a church in my neighborhood, about a block away, and they used to show 16mm films in the basement - and they showed the 1936 version with Randolph Scott as Hawkeye. I remember the corollary tragedy of Uncas and Alice at the end, plus I remember the fearsomeness of Magua, and the uniqueness of the period. I couldn’t identify what was so fascinating then, but I can now - it’s the combination of three discrete and very exciting cultures in the same motion picture, which happens to be a tightly plotted war movie. One is the extremely formal culture of the European ruling class. Secondly, even Magua in the 1936 movie was an expression of a fascinating Native American, northeastern woodlands culture of Hurons and Mohawks, men with their heads shaved and tattoos. Thirdly, the familiar image of the frontiersmen - Hawkeye, incidentally, is the progenitor of all the American western heroes in a direct evolutionary line from Last of the Mohicans through Stagecoach to My Darling Clementine. Then there’s Hawkeye the character: what made him, where he came from, what kind of man he was, what he would have though and felt, what his rhythms would have been, being able to move through and survive in the wilderness forest, how sophisticated or unsophisticated, how ‘urban’ his attitudes may have been, given the volatile times and incendiary ideas ‘blowing in the wind’. How close was his culture on the frontier to the ideas being preached from Albany, New York or Boston pulpits. In researching the period, I found that events in 1757 moved as fast as in 1968. And suddenly this period became as alive to me as, say, seven or eight years ago. Ultimately, for me, it’s about trying to make Hawkeye as real as if I was writing and directing a picture about a man who is alive today. The big encounter in the movie is between Hawkeye and Cora Munro, effectively a meeting of people from two different planets. It’s a collision between the child of scottish-irish immigrants - people who were probably impoverished tenant farmers from the borderlands in the north of England - and a woman who thinks she’s going to New England - almost an extension of Grosvenor Square - only to discover that this is a vast new continent, and that attitudinal changes and ideas are sweeping across it. But the characters do not come from an upper-middle-class intelligentsia. Hawkeye comes from a grass-roots level, from Iroquois culture - as if produced its own John Locke 200 years ago but nobody knows about it yet - and from the experiences of poor people on the frontier. It’s like hearing the new music before anybody else - the man who sings the songs is Hawkeye, and the woman who hears them is Cora. Suddenly she’s no longer in narrow New England, she’s in a whole new world. The big challenge for me was to work that Cora-Hawkeye story into a tapestry of a full-blown war with three other conflicts going on at the same time. As it becomes a romance I hope the audience will track with the romance and want it to survive. This woman goes through a great change and so does Hawkeye, but for him it’s a transformation from being a Mohican to becoming a frontiersman - a synthesis of the European and native cultures - which is a transformation from son to man. Chingachgook realizes this before Hawkeye does and talks to him about it at the end of the film. GF: Was there a point when you were writing the screenplay where you abandoned Cooper’s novel? MM: Yes, very early on, though not at a specific point but in specific areas. For example, I based [Major] Heyward on Cooper himself, not on Cooper’s character. Cooper believed in static hierarchies, a kind of political harmony of the spheres: If people and classes stay in place, there’s a harmony; if they don’t, there are problems. In Cooper, Hawkeye is constantly apologizing or reassuring total strangers that he’s not of mixed blood!: ‘Hi, I’m Hawkeye, how are you? I’m not of mixed blood.’ So the whole notion of races crossing, of miscegenation, of people moving into different classes, was anathema to Cooper. I decided to take all these characteristics and stick them into Heyward. If you read the novel very carefully, the daughter, Cora, who falls in love with Uncas and dies, is a mulatto. Her father, Colonel Munro, wanted Heyward to marry Cora but Hayward preferred Alice; Munro was initially insulted and went into a two-page diatribe about the fact that her mother was an aristocratic woman. I switched it around so that it’s Cora and Hawkeye who fall in love. GF: You’ve also eliminated some of the more fantastical elements from the book - the character of the psalm singer, Hawkeye dressing up as a bear, that kind of a thing. MM: The silly stuff. In fact, the structure of the story for this film is based 50 percent on Philip Dunne’s screenplay. GF: Why did you use it as a source? MM: Because it’s a terrific piece of writing. Dunne did a very interesting thing. He was writing at a time of tremendous political struggle in the United States, a country caught in a depression and at the same time seeing events in Asia and Europe. The view here was isolationist, although some people with political agendas saw the need to take part in international struggles against the rising tide of fascism. Also, there was a heavy dose of anti-British sentiment among the isolationists, led by the Chicago Tribune. Dunne essentially gave Hawkeye the political attitudes of the isolationists: independent, anti-authoritarian…anti-British. But then at the end of the movie, in 1936, both men - Hawkeye the proto-American individualist, and Heyward - both in love with Cora, march of to war together to face a greater common enemy.
Originally Posted by Grofield I wasn’t bashing on Hyams – it seemed like everyone else was, so I just named a few titles from his resume that I enjoyed (STAY TUNED, SUDDEN DEATH, TIMECOP). We disagreed as to whether SUDDEN DEATH was intended to be funny. As for Dwight Little, I’d give him props for MARKED FOR DEATH and RAPID FIRE – as clearly awful as they are, I had fun.
To me, listing STAY TUNED as one of Hyams’ better films is close to bashing, but I digress.
I think I need to watch MOHICANS again. Nothing, good or bad, really left much of a dent with me in regards to that film. Daniel Day-Lewis sure did run a lot, I’ll tell you that much!
Originally Posted by Balmudo I’m a fan of the guy, but I will also say that I think that Heat and Collateral are severely overrated.
About the only flaw I can maybe see in HEAT is when Pacino finds Natalie Portman in the bathtub. Other than that it’s flawless. Is there another film that does a better job of exploring both sides of the law?
I also didn’t see the Portman scene coming but I don’t think it did much more than offer shock value to a film that didn’t need it. It’s like they had to show that Pacino is more than just a great cop but a loving father-figure as well, but the scenes he had with Portman earlier in the film told me that so the bathtub stuff seemed tacked on.
You’ve got me on THE DRIVER because I haven’t seen it which truly stinks for me because I like Walter Hill a lot. But does that movie really give the details on how criminals carry out a heist and how the police attempt to stop them in a better fashion than HEAT? If so then I’ll rent it ASAP, because I’ve heard good things about it but it usually has to do with the chase scenes and not as much about the story.
He’s the best director working today, bar none. When it comes to combining a kickass musical aural experience with blitzkrieg action scenes, Mann is a sublime artist. You can bet MIAMI VICE will be getting much attention from me come 2006.
LAST OF THE MOHICANS deserves props just for its astounding beauty.
Last of the Mohicans deserves astonishment for its beautiful props. I know that the director’s cut at least contains a scene where a character steadies himself on a rock face as he runs past it only to have the mineral sink in from the strain. It’s a wonderful film, to be sure, but the scene with the foam slab takes me out of the story each time I watch it and I think the it warrants a bit more attention to technical details. I mean, after all, it’s not like it’s a Hellraiser set or anything.
Otherwise, ISS, I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Originally Posted by Moltisanti I also didn’t see the Portman scene coming but I don’t think it did much more than offer shock value to a film that didn’t need it. It’s like they had to show that Pacino is more than just a great cop but a loving father-figure as well, but the scenes he had with Portman earlier in the film told me that so the bathtub stuff seemed tacked on.
Well, she does spend most of the film being let down by a father she obviously rarely sees and barely gets any attention from her mother. It’s not really about Pacino being a loving father-figure as much of being about the nature of the pseudo-relationship he has with his family and about how everything boils down to it being affected by the job. This is when Pacino stands by his family and when he gets the call, he doesn’t want to go, and the person telling him to go is the one person who’s been most frustrated by his methods of living as a cop. Hence we see Pacino trying to deny himself the importance of the call which in itself is a metaphor for the fact that he can try and be that someone else, that loving father-figure or loving husband, but it would be all an act, which is pretty much self-admitted. Both he and Justine and everybody else knows that he’s not a husband, or a father, he’s just a cop.
All of that makes sense but the manner in which they portray it just seemed too much at that point in the film. It’s not a scene I cringe at, but if I had to think of something to be snipped that would be it.