‘Public Enemies’ a hard film to watch
– literally
When it comes to movies, the less viewers think about the way
the movie is made, the better. If viewers aren’t thinking about how
the cameraman moved across the set or why such extreme close-ups
were used, they are probably focusing on the characters and the
story. The problem from the beginning with Michael Mann’s
”
Public Enemies
”
is that it is physically hard to watch.
‘Public Enemies’ a hard film to watch – literally
When it comes to movies, the less viewers think about the way the movie is made, the better. If viewers aren’t thinking about how the cameraman moved across the set or why such extreme close-ups were used, they are probably focusing on the characters and the story. The problem from the beginning with Michael Mann’s “Public Enemies” is that it is physically hard to watch.
The movie is set in Depression-era Middle America. John Dillinger is at the center of the movie, as the notorious bank robber, who according to these screenwriters, is the reason the federal government created interstate law enforcement. Johnny Depp plays the character of Dillinger with as much swagger has his Jack Sparrow character had eccentricities. The cast is rounded out with Christian Bale as Melvin Purvis, an agent charged with bringing in public enemy No. 1 Dillinger, Stephen Dorff, Billy Crudup, Giovanni Ribisi and Marion Cotillard as Dillenger’s love interest Billie Frechette.
With a cast of strong characters and a promising story, the movie had potential. But I got lost in the movement on screen. At first I thought maybe I was just a bit tired Sunday afternoon when I watched the movie, since I’d been up earlier than usual for a weekend. But soon enough I realized it was the extreme close-ups used in the film and the way that many of the scenes seemed to be backlit – causing the same effect as looking at a dark object in front of the sun. The camera movements even seemed choppy at times, bouncing up and down as characters moved up and down a hallway. The film didn’t look amateurish, but it felt a little like watching an unsteady home video.
I’ve seen at least eight other films from the cinematographer, Dante Spinotti, including “Flash of Genius,” “X-Men: The Last Stand” and “Bandits,” and as far as I remember none of those movies had such a jarring visual effect. Whatever goal Spinotti and Mann tried to reach with their unique shooting techniques, it served as a distraction from the story. In fact, it made it hard to follow the characters’ movements in the movie so in many of the shoot-out scenes it is hard to know who did what.
The movie really focuses in on a few years span when J. Edgar Hoover (Crudup) was working to start a federal police agency and had named Dillinger as the first public enemy. The problem is the movie almost seems to start without context. For anyone who hasn’t watched a documentary on Dillinger or read book about the rise of the FBI, the movie seems to start at random. Dillinger is already a bank robber and has already been in jail. The short explanation we get at the beginning of the movie is that Dillinger served a long sentence for a somewhat minor crime, and it was during his prison time that he connected with other bank robbers. As for Hoover, Congress had denied him additional funds for his fledgling Bureau so the focus on Dillinger is a way to prove the need for a federal police force to political leaders.
The movie left me wanting to know a little more background on every character since I wasn’t familiar with any of the real-life people involved.
The one shining spot in the movie is Cotillard’s scenes as Frechette. Frechette is a coat check girl Dillinger met at a dance hall in between jailhouse escapes. Played by Cotillard, Frechette has a slight French accent and an exotic look – the real-life Frechette was born to a French father and a Native American mother. Cotillard plays Frechette as a slightly vulnerable, but intelligent woman who knows what she is getting herself into with Dillinger and jumps into a relationship with him anyway. Dillinger is charming, but cocky with her. The movie plays up his devotion to her, but in the end they don’t spend enough time on screen together to really make Dillinger’s risk of arrest and death to be with her believeable. As most movies based on true events do, this one plays up the love between Dillinger and Frechette.
