Michael Mann is the greatest living American director. His work with Dante Spinotti is some of the best "post-modern " work -- both visually and psychologically -- ever done. Mann's work with Spinotti also includes HEAT, THE INSIDER, and THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS.
Dante Spinotti è un grande maestro, i suoi lavori mi hanno ispirato e la sua collaborazione con Mann è straordinaria. È italiano! I'm proud of you, Dante!
Agree, this was a bonafide masterpiece - saw it first in high school, blew me away. Brian Cox's H. Lecter set a standard and, in my opinion, influenced A. Hopkin's subsequent performance although I can't prove this. William L. Peterson delivered perhaps the best back-to-back performances ever, in this film and "To Live and Die in LA" - only Sam Jackson in Pulp Fiction/Jackie Brown is in that conversation. Can't say enough about this one.
Nobody I can think of creates atmosphere purely through shot composition and camera movement like these guys. Maybe Ridley Scott? However, when you add the choice of score in Mann films it gives him an edge. I hated Manhunter when I first saw it. I had seen Demme's brilliant SOTL's and read the Red Dragon novel and then saw Manhunter around 1996. It seemed so dated and 80's and so far away from what I imagined when I read the book. The fashions and music and cinema had moved on so much that it was clearly of another era. The score felt so dated and cheesy with the 80's guitars and synth strings. What I came to realise (although it has its flaws) is that it is made by real artists and deserves respect for how bold it is and how it tries to do do something interesting and not formulaic. It's aged pretty well considering. I do still have some issues with the casting of Crawford and sometimes the dialogue and Peterson's performance come across as a bit too forced or melodramatic in places.. but I now appreciate it far more. I'd like to hear Michael Mann's opinions on it now and if he thinks he was restrained by the studio in any way. It has this bold, stark, surreal quality in places and then other parts just look bog standard.. it's like the producers made him normalise bits because they were worried it might be too much. The 'dream' stuff and the office stuff do sometimes feel like they are in different films. Of course it was a commercial failure but it's nice people still talk about it as a piece with artistic value. 'Heat' was on the other night.. it is totally mesmerising. You can see the making of the master in Manhunter and the graduation to master in 'Heat'.
Ed Norton played a very weak William in Red Dragon. The guy who played Dollarhyde in Manhunter did such a good job I have never seen him act again. He typecast himself to an extreme, this video gave me lots of insight, hearing how the actor refused to mingle with the rest of the cast and to always be addressed as Dollarhyde.....it worked. He's scary. In Manhunter they set up the climax by giving William a handful of special bullets for his revolver, when he shoots Dollarhyde, one round hits him in the lower leg, somehow it looked very real the way his leg buckled. I would say the only fault in Manhunter was the use of Jann Hammer for the score, it was just too much like an episode of Miami Vice and it cheapened it.
