Heat

365 Films

Entry #79

Heat (1995)

Directed by Michael Mann

Michael Mann’s 1995 Los Angeles crime epic Heat performed something of a bait and switch on my eleven year old self when I sat down to watch it all those years ago.  The trailers promised many a tantalizing prospects, such as the ultimate clash between two acting titans in the form of Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro and lots of high-octane cinematic gunplay with all of the associated shoot outs that go along with it.  Plus it was a bank heist movie, so surely it would feature many a gargantuan set piece in service of those genre requirements as well.  The short answer to all of this is that, yes, Heat does provide all of those things but they make up maybe 20-30% of the finished film.  In addition to that, in what is perhaps Heat’s boldest stroke, it’s running time clocks in just ten minutes shy of three hours.  Such a marathon length was unheard of (at least by me) for an action film and it gave Heat the all-important distinction of being something far more prestigious than your run-of-the-mill shoot ‘em up.  Again, in what is becoming an unfortunately common theme in this blog, all of this was lost on me at the time.  I enjoyed the film but my level of cinematic appreciation was not yet at the level where I could see past the scenes that did not feature lots of bullets and explosions.  Sidebar: just for the record, I acknowledge that in light of recent events, it feels very weird to type that sentiment.  I just want it to be known that this was the world-view of an eleven-year old, but one who nonetheless knew the very concrete distinction between real world violence and movie violence.  I just feel like I had to state that for the record.  Getting back to the matter at hand, my genuine appreciation of Heat did not materialize until several years after the introductory viewing.  To this day, when thinking about Heat, I feel like the film world is usually in a deep schism when it comes to the work of Michael Mann.  I have observed that there is one camp that is usually and utterly entranced by his work and there is another who is so put-off that it would take a complete stylistic 180 on the part of the filmmaker and his films in order to win them over.  I am definitely of the former association and I yet I can easily understand the hesitations on the part of the former.  Heat is a pretty good point in which to draw one’s particular line in the sand.  For while its roots are firmly planted in the narrative of the genre known as the crime film, it’s specific thematic interests are explored with a much larger, epic scope in mind.  For brevity’s sake, a condensed version of that is the relationship between men and work.  It’s a theme Mann explores often and (to my mind) usually with great success.  But to quote an expression I picked up earlier this week from film critic Ed Gonzalez, there is also a considerable amount of “macho dick swaggering” (paraphrasing) going on here too.  What attracts me to this film is the sense of pre-ordained futility that Mann layers on with every gorgeous cinematic technique at his disposal.  The idea that all of these characters, in an attempt to out run the lives they lead will all eventually succumb to the rules and mandates of their selected line of work.  Heat’s canvas may be the entirety of the Southern California region but its focus is defiantly intimate which brings an almost tragic sense of inevitability to the proceedings.  No matter what kind of codes, ethics, or life principles these characters live by, they are still, ultimately tiny cogs in a much larger, cruelly indifferent machine.  That, to me is what separates Mann from all of his imitators and the detractors, who so casually dismiss him.  Yes, he has a lot of admiration for men and the way they obsessively dedicate their lives to a singular idea.  He also acknowledges the unbearable sadness that comes from dedicating one’s life to singular idea and not to living itself.