2020 Muriel Awards: 25th Anniversary Award

 

“At this point, the question of *the* canonical film for Michael Mann almost seems like a moot point. Few directors have had an oeuvre as stylistically diverse yet as inextricably linked as Mann’s, who began his career at the beginning of the post-New Hollywood era before moving through discrete, cutting-edge phases: the crime films fixated on professionalism, the dynamic historical pictures, and now his blurred and groundbreaking work with digital in the 21st century. Of course, roots of each can be found within the other, and as such the task of nailing down one film to represent the summit of Mann’s achievement is nigh-impossible: is it the pristine perfection of Manhunter? The hazy digital of Miami Vice? The sublime technological exploration of Blackhat?

“Such a debate can and will go on endlessly, but it’s a testament to the monumental weight of Heat that it can even come close to being the Mann consensus favorite. Made squarely in the middle of Mann’s career, between the relative prestige of The Last of the Mohicans and The Insider, it acts as both something of a middle-ground between the two halves of his career and as a foray into a mode that he would never quite strive for again: the nigh-novelistic examination of a city, bouncing both between both sides of the law and from person to person. The legendary cat and mouse chase between Robert De Niro and Al Pacino is the spine, but the gravity of their collaboration is matched by the stellar work of one of the most remarkable ensemble casts assembled in recent memory.

“And of course, there is the director himself. In a way, the sprawl of Heat acts as both a synecdoche for Los Angeles and for Mann’s career as a whole, replete as it is with scenes that exist on a wide-ranging continuum between propulsive action scenes and quiet domestic conversations, lowdown procedural sequences and near-mythic gestures. Everything is a stray or ill-fitting element and nothing is; Mann understands that a city such as LA can only be represented in terms of contradiction, in how a nondescript street can be the setting of one of the greatest film gunfights ever, or in how the lights at the airport can be the most beautiful thing in the world.”

Ryan Swen is a Los Angeles-based freelance film critic and a cinema and media studies Master of Arts at the University of Southern California. He hosts and produces the Catalyst and Witness podcast, and has written for Reverse Shot, The Film Stage, Seattle Screen Scene, MUBI Notebook, Hyperallergic, and the BFI.

25th Anniversary Award - Best Films of 1995:
1. Heat (dir. Michael Mann, USA) [116/17]
2. Safe (dir. Todd Haynes, USA) [94/15]
3. Before Sunrise (dir. Richard Linklater, USA) [88/14]
4. Dead Man (dir. Jim Jarmusch, USA) [74/11]
5. Se7en (dir. David Fincher, USA) [67/11]
6. Babe (dir. Chris Noonan, Australia) [54/8]
7. Casino (dir. Martin Scorsese, USA) [48/8]
8. (tie) 12 Monkeys (dir. Terry Gilliam, USA) [37/7]
8. (tie) Showgirls (dir. Paul Verhoeven, USA) [37/7]
10. (tie) La Cérémonie (dir. Claude Chabrol, France) [31/5]
10. (tie) Fallen Angels (dir. Wong Kar-wai, Hong Kong) [31/5]
10. (tie) Toy Story (dir. John Lasseter, USA) [31/5]

Tomorrow at 6 PM: The Muriel Award for Best Documentary.