..Gary
Dretzka
..Noah
Forrest
..Leonard
Klady
..R.J.
Matson
..David
Poland
..Douglas
Pratt
..Ray
Pride
..Michael
Wilmington
Heat
Directed by Michael Mann
Listening to Michael Mann's commentary on the Warner Home Video Two-Disc Special Edition, Heat (28919, $27), is enough to make your blood boil. Mann cast two stellar actors, Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, in the film about a cop trying to nail a thief in Los Angeles, and then never included both of their faces in the same shot. It's all over the shoulder, over the shoulder stuff, or shots where one actor's face is way out of focus, as if the two were never really on the set at the same time and each was replaced with a body double when the other was shooting. That's not how Mann did it, but that's how it looks. Halfway through the 172-minute feature, the two characters even sit and have a chat in a diner. Mann explains his approach to the scene: "This entire scene is shot with, uh, there's three cameras, actually. I only use two of them, and they're shooting simultaneously. And one camera is shooting over Bobby onto Al, and the other camera is shooting over Al onto Bobby, and if this camera panned to the right about an inch, you'd see the other camera. The reason for that was because we were so tuned to do this scene, it's the pivotal scene in the entire motion picture. As far as I was concerned, the two most brilliant American actors working in cinema were facing each other and that they would act off each other in a very organic way so that any one take would have a particular organic unity to it that would be different than the organic unity of, say, the next take, so that meant I would want the Bob side and the Al side from the same performance, say Take 4 or Take 7, in fact, all of this is from Take 11, but the degree to which the smallest reactions are occurring as these two men face each other is quite extraordinary because the tension level of each character is torqued to the maximum." He captured their performances, but he let their dynamic evaporate, to the extent that while the 1994 film is a good movie, his mistakes stop it from becoming a great movie.
The picture transfer appears identical to Warner's original 2000 release of the film, although the improvements in DVD mastering have reduced the instances of artifacting flaws in the faces of the performers. The cinematography is gorgeous and that's how the DVD looks as well, with shiny, slick hues and crisp details. The presentation is in letterboxed format only, with an aspect ratio of about 2.35:1 and an accommodation for enhanced 16:9 playback. The 5.1-channel Dolby Digital sound has a solid dimensionality and smooth tones. There is an alternate French audio track in 5.1 Dolby, optional English, French and Spanish subtitles, and three trailers. On the commentary, Mann spends most of his time talking about the characters and their motivations, though he also discusses working with the actors, using the Los Angeles locations, and the research that he did with both the police and with criminals, identifying where that research is reflected in the story.
The second platter has a 10-minute documentary about the coffee shop scene, and they talk about the other camera angles they tried, though none look satisfactory from the stills-at 2.35:1, you can get two people sitting at a table into the same shot, so perhaps they should have used a smaller table. In any case, the documentary goes over the scene's importance not just in the film, but in the history of American acting, and unlike the scene itself, they cover it from every angle, interviewing the actors, the crew and critics.
There is also an interesting 15-minute segment on the true stories, which Mann alludes to in his commentary, that were the basis for the film; a good 20-minute retrospective documentary about the film's conception, casting and dramatic themes; a 24-minute piece about staging the film; a good 12-minute piece on the movie's locations (they visit one of real apartments where the film was shot, and the owners proudly show off the 'fake blood' stains that are still on the floor); and 9 minutes of judicious trims.
April 13, 2005
DVD Roundup: This Week's DVD Releases
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