A Review of Public Enemies

Here is a fine review of the movie from the New Republic, a political site and not normally a movie review site. It addresses some of my historical questions.


'Public Enemies': Johnny Depp Is Magnetic As John Dillinger, But Will You Care When The Lights Come Back On?by Christopher Orr

It's taken countless hours of TV crime-drama ("Crime Story," "Miami Vice") and nearly a dozen feature films (Heat, Collateral, Miami Vice again), but in John Dillinger, Michael Mann may finally have found an ideal vessel for his particular vision of masculine cool: stylish, charismatic, unflappable, adept at violence but not hungry for it.

After spending nine years in prison for his rookie robbery (a grocery-store heist that allegedly netted him $50), Dillinger emerged in May 1933 to launch perhaps the most storied crime spree in American history. Over the subsequent 14 months, he was involved in three daring prison breaks, dozens of bank robberies, the theft of weaponry from multiple police stations, and the deaths of several law enforcement agents. In 1934, the FBI reportedly spent a third of its entire budget trying to apprehend him. He was as famous as FDR and Charles Lindbergh--and, by most accounts, more popular than either. If John Dillinger had not existed, in other words, Michael Mann would have had to invent him.

Loosely based on Bryan Burrough's book, Mann's Public Enemies takes plenty of historical liberties. The prison break that opens the film is an amalgam of two separate escapes, for instance, and while contemporaries Pretty Boy Floyd (Channing Tatum) and Baby Face Nelson (Stephen Graham) pre-decease Dillinger (Johnny Depp) in the film, in reality the FBI ushered him to the other side before it did them. But the bones of the story are all here, and Mann buffs them to a characteristic polish.

Depp is sly and magnetic, playing Dillinger as a man of casual irony in an era not yet accustomed to it. When his squeeze-to-be Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard) reveals her Native-American ancestry, noting that "most men don't like it," Dillinger is succinct: "I'm not most men." Later, when she protests she doesn't know him, he explains, "I like baseball, movies, nice clothes, fast cars, whiskey, and you. What else do you need to know?" His grandiose boasts are also self-deprecations: He knows he's a showoff, and he needs her to know that he knows.

In classic form, though, Dillinger's true life partner is not Billie, but the G-man sworn to hunt him down, Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale), the yang to his yin. Though characteristically closed off, Bale's performance is nonetheless effective. For once he does not try to overwhelm us with the intensity of his craft but instead allows the film to come to him. In contrast to the exuberant Dillinger, we're given no sign that Purvis enjoys his life outside of work, or, indeed, that he has one. Instead, he boasts of the FBI's modern, "scientific" techniques as he rallies the embryonic army of J. Edgar Hoover behind him. Having earlier this summer played last-hope-for-humanity John Connor in Terminator: Salvation, Bale finds himself this time on the side of the Machine--and frankly it suits him.

If Depp and Bale provide enough masculine good looks for a spring catalogue, it may be a lucky thing. The rest of the cast is made up mostly of men with thick faces and big hands, a Midwestern menagerie of the swollen and surly. One of the best scenes in the film takes place after Purvis informs Hoover (Billy Crudup, feigning jowls) that the handsome young college graduates whom the latter favors for the Bureau are not up to the task of apprehending killers. In response, Hoover sends him, from Texas and Oklahoma, a handful of hardened mugs, in the most literal sense of the term. We see them arrive on a train, and it's scarcely an exaggeration to note that their faces could have stopped it. (Among them is Agent Winstead, played by Actor's Studio co-artistic director Stephen Lang, who mesmerizes in the small but crucial role.)
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The robbers and the cops hopscotch their way across flyover country--Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin, Indiana, South Dakota--with brief jaunts to Miami and Tucson. They cross paths frequently, and when they do, the encounters inevitably prove lethal. Mann's direction of these sequences is crisp, fluid, and blessedly devoid of the ADHD editing so much in vogue these days. If there is a complaint to be made, it is that the film provides too much of a good thing: Gunfire is exchanged on daylight streets and in moonlit forests, from doorways and second-floor windows, between careening automobiles. By its conclusion, Public Enemies may have exhausted not only your appetite for the rat-a-tat-tat of Tommy Guns, but also for anything even resembling that staccato beat: corn popping, tap dancing, you name it. I, at least, could have done with one fewer shootout--but then, so, too, could have John Dillinger.

A deeper problem is depth--or, rather, the lack of it. Mann is an exceptional surveyor of surfaces--the glinting chrome of getaway cars, the dark steel of the Thompson, the smart suits and period sunglasses and Deppish cheekbones--but he declines to pry beneath. His Dillinger has no backstory, no subtext, no real psychology, and while this is in some ways a relief (we're spared, for instance, the tedious Freudian lessons about absent parents that characterized The Aviator), it is also a limitation. What happened to Dillinger in prison that turned a petty thief into perhaps the most famous criminal of the century? Where is the avowed bitterness and rage that drove him to his deadly exploits? In another movie, evidently. In this one, he is merely the Dillinger of popular myth, the handsome charmer out to have a good time--and, while baseball and movies may be affordable, those nice clothes and fast cars require the kind of money you can only find in a bank.

Other themes, as well, are glossed without being enriched. Now would have been an interesting moment, for instance, to unpack Dillinger the Depression-era folk hero, whose popularity owed much to the fact that his most conspicuous victims were the very institutions that were busily foreclosing on homes and farms across the country. But apart from an onscreen announcement at the opening of the film, Mann offers very little sign that the Depression has even taken place.

The director merely hints, too, at the idea that Dillinger and his ilk were squeezed out by the rise in his chosen profession of economies of scale, his anarchic criminal individualism caught between the expanding reach of the mob syndicates and the growing power of the Feds. But Mann is not by temperament a philosophical, or even psychological, director: He doesn't much care why Dillinger did what he did, or what it meant for the country, as long as he looked good while doing it.

In accordance with this appreciation of the cinematic, the one thread that Mann does repeatedly tug is the link between the celebrity criminals and their Hollywood cousins. Early on, when one of Dillinger's hoods tells a bank teller they've taken hostage, "You know, when I'm not doing this, I'm a scout for the movies," she believes him. And why not? These "public enemies" are also public stars. In one scene, Dillinger is at the movies when the opening newsreel flashes his portrait and instructs audience members to scan the theater to make sure the wanted man isn't present--a personal transcendence of onscreen and off. And, of course, there is that final night, at the Biograph Theater, when one of the last things his living eyes behold is the Clark Gable gangster flick Manhattan Melodrama, a film whose parallels with Dillinger's own story Mann is not shy to highlight. (In their very next movie, The Thin Man, released just weeks later, stars William Powell and Myrna Loy and director W.S. Van Dyke would team again to domesticate the world of crime, offering the cool without the carnage.)

Moments after the curtains fall at the Biograph, it's curtains, too, for Dillinger: What better way to conclude a movie about outlaw glamour? Public Enemies is a sharp, diverting entertainment but it is not, in the end, a particularly rich or memorable one. It's more than enough, though, for these hazy days of summer. Or, as Dillinger himself reminds a fretting gang member, "We're having a good time today. We ain't thinking about the future."

Public Enemies

It's a good movie---certainly an entertaining summer movie. It will not make movie history, but I was entertained for 2 1/2 hours. What more do you want in July?

I never know how historical these movies are. The basic facts are correct I'm sure, but I don't know about all of the details.

Did the jail breaks really happen? Did most of his Dillinger's friends get killed before he did? What about his dying words?

One thing about this movie is that we all know how it's going to end---a sure matter of history. So there is no suspense here. Maybe that's why they had to add his supposed dying words.

The best acting performace is not Johnny Depp, but the guy who plays Agent Melvin Purvis. If there is an acting Academy Award nomination, he should get it.

See it to be pleasantly entertained and that's all.

Nut Cases

It is the season of nut cases. Say what you will about Michael Jackson and his musical talent, the man was a weird nut case, and that is as nice as I can put it. My theory is that MJ remained juvenile all his life because he could never face reality as an adult. The same is true of Sarah Palin. The resigning Alaska Governor has her following and I say that the element of the Republican world that is infatuated with her are just as crazy as she is. Both Palin and Jackson are/were divorced from reality. Ultimately in this life reality eventually wins out every time. It happened with Jackson with his untimely end, and it will eventually happen to Caribou Barbie too unless she fools enough people to do real damage to the country as she has already done damage to her state.

We Will Know Soon

Is Sarah Palin really as stupid as she comes across? Apparently so. Why did she resign? According to Paul Begala, we will eventually know the real reason, and probably very soon.

by Paul Begala

I wish Hunter S. Thompson had lived to see this.

As Hunter said, "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." Sarah Palin makes Mark Foley, the congressman who sent filthy emails to pages look almost normal. She makes David Vitter, the senator who was hanging out with hookers, look almost boring. She makes Larry Craig, caught hitting on a cop in a men's room, look almost stable. She makes John Ensign, the senator who was having an affair with a staffer, look almost humdrum (and compared to the rest of the GOP whack-jobs, he is). And she makes Mark Sanford, the governor with the Latin lover, look positively predictable.

It was an almost impossible mission, but in resigning from office with 17 months to go in her first term, Sarah Palin has made herself the bull goose loony of the GOP.

Let's stipulate that if there is some heretofore unknown personal, medical or family crisis, this was the right move. But Gov. Palin didn't say anything like that. Her statement was incoherent, bizarre and juvenile. The text, as posted on Gov. Palin's official website (here), uses 2,549 words and 18 exclamation points. Lincoln freed the slaves with 719 words and nary an exclamation; Mr. Jefferson declared our independence in 1,322 words and, again, no exclamation points. Nixon resigned the presidency in 1,796 words -- still no exclamation points. Gov. Palin capitalized words at random - whole words, like "TO," "HELP," and "AND," and the first letter of "Troops."

Gov. Palin's official announcement that she is resigning as chief executive of the great state of Alaska had all the depth and gravitas of a 13-year-old's review of the Jonas Brothers' album on Facebook. She even quoted her parents' refrigerator magnet. (Note to self: if one of my kids becomes governor, throw away the refrigerator magnet that says: "Murray's Oyster Bar: We Shuck Em, You Suck Em!") She put her son's name in quotations marks. Why? Who knows. She writes, "I promised efficiencies and effectiveness!?" Was she exclaiming or questioning? I get it: both! And I don't even know what to make of a sentence that reads:

*((Gotta put First Things First))*
Ponder the fact that Rupert Murdoch's Harper Collins publishing house is paying this, umm, writer $11 million for a book. Ponder that and say a prayer for Ms. Palin's editor.
I'm no latter-day Strunk & White, just a guy who was struck by Palin's spectacularly rambling and infantile prose. It bespeaks a rambling and infantile mind. But perhaps not. Perhaps this is all a ruse. Perhaps Gov. Palin wants us to believe she's an intellectual featherweight who is slightly shallower than an actor on High School Musical. Maybe she's trying to throw us off the trail.

Naah. A lot of people thought that about George W. Bush. He couldn't be so block-headed, they said. He couldn't be as childish and churlish as he came off. Oh yes he could. And so, too, might Ms. Palin be as vapid and puerile as her inane statement suggests.

We will know. In the fullness of time (and I predict, not much time) we will know. Again and again in her statement, Gov. Palin returned to the nettlesome ethics inquiries that have been visited upon her since she signed on to be John McCain's running mate. No doubt they are annoying. But does anyone believe that's why she's resigning? No, there's more to this story. And Ms. Palin's resignation only increases the chances that we will all know the rest of the story soon. Or, as she might put it:

We will all KNOW the "rest of the Story" *((SOON!))*

About Palin

Here is the real deal. This Sarah Palin is the touchstone as far as I am concerned. I DESPISE and LOATHE this woman. If you agree with me, then we are on the same page. If you disagree, then you and I have NOTHING to talk about. If you love Palin, then don't bother me ever again.

Palin

I just heard that Palin resigned as Governor of Alaska. What scandal is she running from? Or is it that she's just not fit to even be a governor much less VP (as John McCain recklessly tried to foist on us). Here is what Andrew Sullivan has to say.


The Miniseries Ends
I guessed right, which I suppose reflects just how much time I've spent trying to figure what goes on in her head. I think the simple truth is that, as even Alaskan Republicans told us last September, she was far from able to be governor of Alaska, let alone vice-president of the United States. Once the klieglights hit, it was only a matter of time before she imploded or exploded or some gruesome combination of the two. The librul media will be blamed for everything on her inexorable path to becoming a Fox News celebrity. Maybe a reality show?

Someone hire her for The View!

In the end, I think, the one thing to say is that the Republican party is in such a total state of collapse and incoherence that it actually believed she could be a future president; and that John McCain was so reckless, so cynical and so cavalier that he was prepared to rest the national security of this country on her shoulders if he, in his seventies, were to become unable to fulfill his duties or die. In some ways, this is a moment to reflect on McCain, and his irresponsibility, not Palin and her drama.

I'm too stunned to say anything else, to tell you the truth. And yet not surprised at all.

David Denby on Faulkner

June 22, 2009
Books, Interrupted: David Denby Stares Down Faulkner
The fourth offering in an ongoing series on failed reading projects.

I like difficult modernist fictions—late Henry James, Joyce, Proust. But I have never been able to read Faulkner, whose difficulties wear me out before capturing my imagination. How can one understand the first section of “The Sound and the Fury”—an odd, fragmented narrative told from the point of view of the retarded Benjy—without reading the rest of the novel? You almost have to read it backward in order to read it forward, and I don’t have the interest to make that journey, or to get into “Light in August,” which my wife, Susan Rieger, tells me goes easily and well once one overcomes the initial strangeness. So: A clear reading failure. Part of the reason for it, I admit, is regional prejudice: I’m not much held, as a subject, by the collapsing morale of formerly “aristocratic” slave-holding families in Mississippi.

But now, a minor redemption: Last weekend, in order to prove to myself that I couldn’t read Faulkner, I read some Faulkner. I read the celebrated short novel, ‘The Bear,’ from the collection “Go Down, Moses,” and it’s obvious, from the first rhapsodic pages, that “The Bear” is a great work. Yes, there are passages of inflationary rant, propelled by Faulkner’s patented repetitions and sonorous echoes—“the ancient and unremitting contest according to the ancient and immitigable rules” What are “immitigable rules,” anyway? Still, there’s amazement enough in the evocation of what a young boy has to do truly to possess the wilderness; the re-creation of dogs, a snake, the great bear itself; the alarming, encrusted vividness of old hunters, cooks, alcoholic roughnecks. So, a great writer—I guess. Perhaps I should try “As I Lay Dying” again.