Michael Mann

Overview

Born
February 5, 1943 · Chicago, Illinois, USA
Birth name
Michael Kenneth Mann
Height
1.73 m

Biography

Family

Spouses
Children
Parents

Trademark

Often chooses expressive architecture as shooting locations.
Uses dramatically colored lighting, especially the color blue.
Often uses pre-existing ambient music, music composed for other films (OSTs), contemporary pop/rock songs and/or avant-garde music to create eclectic and often unique soundtracks for his films.
Often portrays criminals as likeable and sympathetic lead characters. See Comme un homme libre (1979), Le solitaire (1981), Heat (1995) and Hacker (2015).
Has collaborated with the following artists multiple times: Actors 'Al Pacino', Jamie Foxx, John Voight, Dennis Farina, Wes Studi, Tom Noonan, Xander Berkeley, Jürgen Prochnow, Michael Gambon, Joan Allen, Danny Trejo, 'Benicio del Toro', film editors Dov Hoenig, 'William Goldenberg', cinematographers Dante Spinotti, Dion Beebe, 'Stewart Dryburgh' and composers Einstürzende Neubauten, Tangerine Dream, 'Elliot Gouldenthal', 'Lisa Gerrad' and Peter Bourke.

Trivia

In 1985, sued William Friedkin for plagiarism, claiming that Friedkin stole the entire concept of Deux flics à Miami (1984) when he made the movie Police fédérale, Los Angeles (1985) (which, ironically, starred William Petersen, who later played Will Graham in Le Sixième Sens (1986)). Mann lost the lawsuit. Despite this, the two directors are close friends nowadays. Friedkin even tease Mann in several interviews by saying "Michael Mann is one of my favorite directors because he tries to make films like mine!".
Tried to make an epic film about drug-trade in Southern California with screenwriter Shane Salerno. But they abandoned the project after 'Steven Soderbergh''s rival project, Traffic (2000), got green-lighted.
Is one of Robert De Niro's favourite directors.
During production of Le Sixième Sens (1986), he wanted Francis Dollarhyde (Tom Noonan) to have a tattoo of William Blake's "Red Dragon" painting on his back, but ended up discarding the idea after deciding the tattoo trivialized Dollarhyde's inner struggles. In Dragon rouge (2002), the second adaptation of Thomas Harris's novel, director Brett Ratner decided to include the tattoo and the subplot about Blake's painting "The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun" (ca.1803-1805).
Was Will Smith's personal choice to direct Ali (2001). Spike Lee campaigned vigorously against Mann, saying that only a black director could do Ali's story justice.

Quotes

[on whether he operates the camera] The criterion is when I want to see what's going on through the lens. Usually, it comes down to performance more than technique . . . I've also worked with the same camera crews, even down to the assistants, on the last four films. So, we've developed a family in camera. A family that picks right up where they left off every few years. I see the world from the perspective of a 5'8" person, not someone who is 6'4". so naturally, I'm going to choose certain lens heights over and again . . . Sometimes nature makes choices for you. [1999]
[on the cinematic experience] A 65-ft.-wide screen and 500 people reacting to the movie, there is nothing like that experience.
Could I have worked under a system where there were Draconian controls on my creativity, meaning budget, time, script choices, etc.? Definitely not. I would have fared poorly under the old studio system that guys like Howard Hawks did so well in. I cannot just make a film and walk away from it. I need that creative intimacy and, quite frankly, the control to execute my visions, on all my projects.
I think it's easy for directors to stay fresh more than actors, especially once an actor becomes a star. It's hard for Russell Crowe to walk down a street or take a subway. I can fly coach.
[on Dr. Folamour ou : comment j'ai appris à ne plus m'en faire et à aimer la bombe (1964)] It said to my whole generation of filmmakers that you could make an individual statement of high integrity and have that film be successfully seen by a mass audience all at the same time. In other words, you didn't have to be making Les sept femmes de Barbe: Rousse (1954) if you wanted to be a part of the commercial film industry, or be reduced to niche filmmaking if you wanted to be serious about cinema. So that's what Stanley Kubrick meant, aside from the fact that I loved Kubrick and he was a big influence. [2006]