Michael Mann (director)

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Michael Mann at the 2014 San Diego Comic-Con International

Michael Kenneth Mann (born February 5, 1943 in Chicago , Illinois ) is an American director , producer and screenwriter . He is counted among the few auteur filmmakers in Hollywood cinema. His best-known works include the films Heat , Insider , Collateral , Ali , Miami Vice and Public Enemies .

Life

Michael Mann was born in 1943 in Humboldt Park, a working-class neighborhood of Chicago . His parents, Esther and Jack Mann, were European Jews and owned a grocery store in the Budlong Woods neighborhood .

After graduating from high school, he studied English literature for four years at the University of Wisconsin-Madison . In 1965 Mann moved to London to study at the London Film School . He graduated with a diploma after two years, then returned to the United States and began his career as a filmmaker .

Michael Mann has been married to the painter Summer Mann since 1974 and has four daughters. His daughter Ami Canaan Mann also works as a director and producer in the film business.

In 2012 he served as the jury president at the 69th Venice International Film Festival .

Works

After completing his studies at the London Film School, Mann made the short documentary 17 Days Down the Line , which consists of interviews with various compatriots who define themselves through their profession. In 1970 he made the “small abstract short film” (cf. Current Biography, 1/1993) Jaunpuri . He then worked as a screenwriter for television series such as Starsky & Hutch , Police Story , Crime Story , Bronk and Vegas .

In 1979 he shot the prison drama A Man Fights Alone, his first feature film as a director for television. In 1981 he finally dared to make the leap to the big screen. The loner , who is about a burglar who wants to get out of a criminal organization, earned him a nomination for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival that same year . In 1983 Mann made the mystery and horror film The Uncanny Power with Jürgen Prochnow and Ian McKellen in the lead roles, which fell below expectations commercially.

Still, in 1985 the executive producer continued with the hit series Miami Vice , which received 15 Emmy nominations, which was an all-time high at the time. Even before the series expired in 1989, Mann began producing the next, stylistically similar television series, Crime Story , in 1986 , which was based on the experiences of his friend, ex-police officer Chuck Adamson . Mann also contributed some scripts for this series.

In 1986 he shot the thriller Blood Moon , based on the novel Red Dragon by Thomas Harris , the first part of the Hannibal Lecter series. This film also flopped ; a budget of 15 million US dollars contrasted with income of 10 million US dollars.

It was six years before he tried again as a feature film director - the war drama The Last of the Mohicans from 1992 proved to be a success at the box office and with critics alike. Mann's film won an Oscar for best sound and two BAFTA awards for best camera and best make-up.

Spurred on by this success, he then filmed the script for the television series pilot film Showdown in LA in 1995 again as Heat with Al Pacino and Robert De Niro in the leading roles. While the film was only moderately received in the USA, its success in Europe was even greater. It was voted 124th in the list of the 250 best films by users of the Internet Movie Database (as of May 2016).

From this point on, Mann devoted himself entirely to directing motion pictures and in 1999 shot his masterpiece, Insider, starring Al Pacino and Russell Crowe, about a journalist who, together with the former manager of a tobacco company, uncovered dark machinations in the tobacco industry. In the same year, the film was nominated for a total of seven Academy Awards (including best director), but received nothing at the awards ceremony.

The biography Ali (2001) about the boxer Muhammad Ali (played by Will Smith ) shared this fate. Both films flopped at the box office; Ali makes only $ 90 million on a budget of $ 130 million worldwide, Insider only makes $ 60 million on a budget of $ 90 million.

Mann returned to the big screen in 2004 with the action thriller Collateral , which was a huge hit with critics and viewers. The film, starring Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx , grossed three times its production costs. The fact that Mann shot the film with digital cinema cameras from Sony and Thomson on HDCAM also attracted a lot of attention . He kept this way of working for subsequent films. Also in 2004 he produced the biopic Aviator by Martin Scorsese , in which Leonardo DiCaprio played the role of the American film producer and aircraft industrialist Howard Hughes .

In 2006 Mann opened the Locarno Film Festival with Miami Vice , the theatrical version of the television series of the same name . Colin Farrell and Academy Award winner Jamie Foxx played the main roles in the film .

In 2007, Mann set out to make a 1930s film noir in which a detective hides the filthy secrets of Hollywood actors. The project planned with Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead role failed in preproduction because Mann demanded a budget of 120 million US dollars.

On March 17, 2008, Mann began producing the film Public Enemies . The film deals with the lives of bank robber John Dillinger (played by Johnny Depp ) and FBI agent Melvin Purvis ( Christian Bale ) who hunted down the gang. The film premiered in Chicago on June 18, 2009 , and divided criticism. While some critics praised it as a flawless film, “that embodies the classic symbiosis of sound, light, colors and excellent camera work, and with convincing actors and a director who always knows what she wants”, others saw a film “that has nothing essential told about John Dillinger, is not particularly exciting and although the genre of the gangster film has its own aesthetic, it has no vision ”.

In May 2013, shooting began on Mann's film Blackhat , which focuses on cyber terrorism and in which Chris Hemsworth plays the lead role. The film failed almost without exception and also flopped at the box office.

style

Many of his works are characterized by a distinctive visual style. Michael Mann attaches great importance to camera work and often picks up the camera himself. For example, he filmed around 60 percent of the film himself in Heat . Since his film Collateral from 2004, he has been making his films with digital cinema cameras in high-resolution video format HD .

On the platform Current , Mann's films are described as "lush cinema effects, with a color palette in pastel tones, pulsating rock and soul soundtracks, hyperkinetic camera runs and film cuts, combined with an aesthetic reminiscent of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein ".

Awards

Michael Mann received the jury's special prize for his short film Jaunpuri as “Nobody” in 1971 at the Cannes Film Festival .

He received an Emmy in 1979 for his first film as a director, A Man Fights Alone . He was also given the Best Directors Award by the Directors Guild . The film also got him attention in Hollywood.

In 1992 he received an Oscar for best sound and two BAFTA awards for best camera and best make-up for his war drama The Last of the Mohicans .

For Insider , Mann received various awards from the LA Film Critics Association and the National Board of Review and an award for defending freedom of expression .

In 1990 he got an Emmy Award for The DrugWars .

Mann received a National Board of Review Award for his 2004 film Collateral .

His film Heat was voted 120th in the list of the 250 best films by the users of the IMDb (as of July 2013).

In 2004 Michael Mann received a Hollywood Film Award and was named Director of the Year. Total Film placed Mann 28th out of the 100 greatest directors of all time. Sight & Sound ranked him 5th on their list of the ten best directors of the last 25 years, Entertainment Weekly placed Michael Mann on 8th of the 25 best active film directors.

Filmography

As a director

As a screenwriter

As a producer

As an executive producer

  • 1985–1989: Miami Vice (TV series, 111 episodes)
  • 1986–1988: Crime Story (TV series, 4 episodes)
  • 1967–1968: Police Story (TV series, 4 episodes)
  • 1989: Showdown in LA (LA Takedown) (TV movie)
  • 2011–2012: Luck (TV series, 10 episodes)

literature

  • FX Feeney, Paul Duncan: Michael Mann . (Hardcover Ed.) Paperback, Cologne 2006, ISBN 978-3-8228-3141-0 .
  • FX Feeney: The Study of Mann , Interview with Michael Mann from 2012, in: Directors Guild of America .
  • Vincent M. Gaine: Existentialism and Social Engagement in the Films of Michael Mann , Palgrave MacMillan, Basingstoke, New York 2011, ISBN 978-0-230-30105-4 (English).
  • Sascha Koebner: Michael Mann , in: Thomas Koebner (Hrsg.): Film directors. Biographies, descriptions of works, filmographies . 3rd, updated and expanded edition. Reclam, Stuttgart 2008 [1. Ed. 1999], ISBN 978-3-15-010662-4 , pp. 489-492 [with references].
  • Jonathan Rayner: The Cinema of Michael Mann: Vice and Vindication , Columbia University Press, New York, Chichester 2013, ISBN 978-0-231-16728-4 (English).
  • Steven Rybin : Michael Mann: Crime Auteur . Scarecrow Press, 2013, ISBN 978-0-8108-9083-1 (English).
  • Steven Sanders, R. Barton Palmer: Michael Mann: Cinema and Television: Interviews, 1980–2012 . Edinburgh University Press, 2014, ISBN 978-0-7486-9354-2 (English).
  • Steven Sanders, Aeon J. Skoble, R. Barton Palmer (Eds.): The Philosophy of Michael Mann , University Press of Kentucky, Kentucky 2014, ISBN 978-0-8131-4471-9 (English).
  • Mark Steensland: Michael Mann . Pocket Essentials, London 2002, ISBN 978-1-903047-84-2 (English).
  • Mark E. Wildermuth: Blood in the Moonlight: Michael Mann and Information Age Cinema . (Paperback Ed.) McFarland Company and Inc., Jefferson 2005, ISBN 978-0-7864-2059-9 (English).

Web links

Commons : Michael Mann  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael Mann Biography (1943-) .
  2. ↑ Michael Mann Biography | TVGuide.com
  3. ↑ Cinema: Michael Mann President of the International Jury of the Venezia 69 Competition ( Memento from July 5, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) at labiennale.org, accessed on June 10, 2012
  4. ↑ a b Top 250 in the Internet Movie Database , accessed on May 1, 2016
  5. ↑ We Read It: Michael Mann & John Logan's Unmade 1930s Noir A Nasty Look At Old Hollywood That Doesn't Quite Work at indiewire.com, accessed May 1, 2016
  6. ^ Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung from August 2, 2009, accessed on December 15, 2013 (fee required)
  7. ^ Anne Leweke in Die Zeit : Celebration of the coat folds
  8. ↑ Michael Mann movie begins filming in LA at latimes.com, accessed May 2, 2016
  9. ↑ Blackhat at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
  10. ^ Blackhat at boxofficemojo.com, accessed May 2, 2016
  11. ↑ Current (1/1993)
  12. ↑ The Greatest Directors Ever (Total Film) ( Memento from October 6, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  13. ^ Film Forever ( Memento of March 12, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  14. ↑ 25 Greatest Active Film Directors . In: Entertainment Weekly . Retrieved February 19, 2009. 
personal data
SURNAME Man, Michael
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mann, Michael Kenneth (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American director, producer and screenwriter
DATE OF BIRTH February 5, 1943
PLACE OF BIRTH Chicago , Illinois , United States