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51 exIstentIAl MAnn Steven Sanders Michael Mann is widely known as a cinematic stylist and visual artist of high accomplishment. This should not lead one to overlook the fact that the action, music, and conflict so prominent in his films are typically put in the service of ideas, as one can see by noting the prevalence of existential themes in his work. Mann’s protagonists are typically alienated loners who find themselves in crises that call for decisive action—a metaphor in Mann’s work for their attempts to break out of an existential impasse. As often as not, these crises are expressed through confrontations that propel them to violence and death, as, for example, in the finales of Thief (1981) and Heat (1995). In Mann’s “existential urban tragedies,” as film critic Scott Foundas calls them,1 one finds a filmmaker whose cinema is strongly associated with identity, freedom, authenticity, and death—a fact that explains why his work is so highly regarded in France and Germany, where these themes have been addressed by existentialist novelists, dramatists, philosophers, and auteurs of the French New Wave. Of course, Mann is a filmmaker, not a philosopher, so it should come as no surprise that his existentialism is long on the kinetic and short on the metaphysical, a thematic through-line rather than a manifesto . Nevertheless, his film and television work resonates with themes that are faithful to the spirit of the action guide and outlook on life associated with the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, for example, if not the work of the more problematic existentialist thinkers such as Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and Heidegger. The alienated protagonists of Mann’s cinema take from existentialism not only a generalized sense of the contingency of things and the ways in which life can go unpredictably off course, but also a sense of engagement in the name of authenticity and individual freedom. In its embodiment of these themes, Mann’s work is memorable for dramatizing the life-defining choices his characters must make and the ways these choices 52 Steven Sanders affect their fates. As Mann indicates in an interview with Graham Fuller in which they discuss Heat, but a statement applicable to so many of Mann’s films, “The crime story/detective story is initially discrete, then it fuses with the personal stories in the fateful and sometimes doom-laden decisions each person has to make.”2 His films seem to say all too clearly that there is no conflict-free way to reset and restart one’s life and simply begin all over again. And although existentialist philosophers may appear to be claiming that the slates on which our pasts have been written can simply be wiped clean by the exercise of our human freedom, Mann’s work offers a corrective to the misconception that a “fresh start” is not only attainable, but easy. If we confine our attention primarily to the fifteen-year period during which Mann directed his first two feature films, Thief and The Keep (1983), executive-produced the television series Miami Vice (1984–1989) and Crime Story (1986–1988), and directed what many regard as his masterwork, Heat (1995), we can already see this existential emphasis. Of course, these films are not the only texts that help us in our encounter with the existential Mann. There is also The Jericho Mile (1979), his Emmy-winning telefilm, as well as his most celebrated film, The Insider (1999), nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Director. In the latter film, Jeffrey Wigand (Russell Crowe), a former research scientist for Brown & Williamson, is urged by TV producer Lowell Bergman (Al Pacino) to appear on the CBS show 60 Minutes to discuss what he knows about the dangers of cigarettes and the methods by which tobacco companies increase the addictiveness of their product. As this fact-based drama unfolds, we are shown that by going public, Wigand will breach a confidentiality agreement he has with his former employer, and his choice to proceed with the disclosure invites severe reprisals that wreak havoc with his personal life. And there is Collateral (2002). “It is about the human experience,” Mann tells Ian Nathan. “It is about the confrontations you find yourself in collapsed down to this night. All of what Vincent told himself of his life, his whole view of his existence. In that sense it is about existential matters.”3 Existential Exit: Thief In Mann...

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