Category: 1981

Warren Beatty | 3hr 20min

History buffs will recognise the name John Reed as that of the American journalist who travelled to Russia in 1917, wrote the most vivid firsthand account of its revolution, and published his observations in the book ‘Ten Days That Shook the World’, drawing acclaim and criticism from across the political aisle. If his Communist leanings manifested with full-throttled admiration in his descriptions of the new society as “a kingdom more bright than any heaven had to offer,” then Warren Beatty symbolically ties him even closer to the movement in Reds. It is an archetypal rise and fall narrative he follows, but one which is romantically mirrored across three separate layers in the evolution of early twentieth century socialism, Reed’s own political activism, and his love for fellow writer Louise Bryant. In this bright-eyed, intellectual man we find the living embodiment of a 1910s American counterculture, confidently promising a hopeful future of equality doomed to fall to bureaucracy.

Besides the epic storytelling structure, the other key to unlocking the brilliant form of Reds is in the interviews Beatty conducts with ‘witnesses’ who knew Reed personally, tempering his subject’s impassioned fervour with nostalgic reflections. With their faces framed off to the right against black backgrounds, these men and women offer an authenticity which distinguishes Beatty’s film from so many other historical epics.

As such, Reds practically verges on docudrama territory, bridging the gap between fiction and reality through formal rhythms that pulse with humour and sensitivity. Right after one woman fondly recalls the days when homosexuality and abortion were taboo, Beatty irreverently cuts straight to a man testifying that there was just as much sex going on then as there is now, playing to the amusing incongruency between personal accounts that keep us from forming an objective picture of the past. With such faultless historicity rendered impossible though, these different perspectives also make up a more complex view of our primary subject, Reed. As one witness states, “A guy who’s interested in changing the world either has no problems of his own, or refuses to face them.”

Beatty’s Greek chorus-style interludes are seamless, at times simply manifesting as voiceovers commenting on events while we are whisked from New York City’s bohemian Greenwich Village to the stunning white beaches of Provincetown, and further onto the frontlines of the Russian Revolution in Petrograd. The narrative scope is sprawling, and both he and his co-star Diane Keaton wear every bit of it in their performances, ageing Reed and Bryant from hopeful young radicals into disenchanted cynics.

For Keaton especially, this is an acting achievement that sits among her best, setting the screen on fire with feminist monologues lamenting how much society ties her success to her husband, and later proving her tenacious, unconditional love as she hikes through Northern Europe’s frozen wilderness to rescue him from prison. With Jack Nicholson, Gene Hackman, and Paul Sorvino confidently filling in supporting roles too, Reds stands as a testament to the power of excellent casting, representing significant historical figures with big names of 80s cinema.

Beatty does not stop there in his collaborative ambition either, pulling Vittorio Storaro onboard as cinematographer to instil his grand biopic with an antiquated, painterly quality. The period detail in his establishing shots of New York’s streets and the sweeping crane shots over Bolshevik crowds effectively establish the grand spectacle of Reds, but even more substantial is Reed’s association with them, manifesting the full scale of his political aspirations spanning entire nations. When the Czarist White Army attacks his train, he boldly runs right into the clouds of dust and smoke, while at a large Communist rally he steps up onstage to assure them of America’s favourable support. It could be the fact that he is once again working closely with Bryant, or perhaps it is the exhilaration of seeing history unfold around them, but the romance between both is also rekindled during their time in Petrograd, holistically revitalising his spirit with the fiery zeal of the Russian Revolution.

The novelty of such grand passion can only last so long though before its shine begins to dull and complications surface. The irony of Reed’s frustration with Russia’s new, inflexible governance isn’t lost on Beatty who correspondingly explores the journalist’s own fracturing socialist regime back in the United States, as his Communist Labor Party of America splinters off from the more centre-left Social Party of America. Reed’s efforts to have his new party officially recognised by Russian authorities are in vain – not only does Bryant threaten to end their relationship should he venture across the world for a second time in stubborn pursuit of validation, but the Bolsheviks reject his proposal anyway, and bluntly refuse to assist his illegal crossing of borders to return home. To Reed, Russia’s militaristic police state that spawned from a freedom-seeking movement has destroyed any hope of real communism, and in a single foolish decision, he effectively severs his ties to his homeland, his party, and his wife.

If there is any solace to be found at the end of Reds, then it is in that tenacious love he shares with the latter, sending Bryant across frozen wastelands and Reed through hostile territory to finally end up in each other’s arms. They look rough around the edges, but their eyes are also softer than ever, for the first time recognising the inimitable bond they share beyond the intellectual joys and constraints of their political interests. It is a reunion that comes far too late for their romance though. With Reed’s passing from typhus less than a month later, Beatty virtually canonises him as a saint of lost causes, illuminating his body in a white light through a narrow hospital doorway as Bryant’s silhouette kneels in grief by his bed. In this final shot, the death knell of American socialism is finally tolled, and Beatty signals the end of an era destined to live on in the wistful memories of Reds’ venerable witnesses.

Reds is currently available to rent or buy on Apple TV, YouTube, and Amazon Video.

Louis Malle | 1hr 50min

To engage with the conversation that rhythmically flows throughout My Dinner with Andre is to sit down and partake in that meal with old colleagues. Wally is short, squat, and reasonably content with his mundane life in New York City, despite struggling as a playwright. “I mean, why is it necessary to have more than this, or to even think about having more than this?” he ponders, challenging his far more fanciful friend Andre who has returned from overseas adventures with grand philosophical ideas. Even while seated, he looms much taller than Wally, with an angular face and deep voice that resonates a complete self-assurance.

These are the only characters who serve our total immersion into the film. The few others present are the fellow restaurant patrons and staff who pass fleetingly through shots, never speaking anymore than a few words a time, yet serving an important purpose in the film’s subtle structure. Besides a pair of bookended montages that follow Wally’s internal voiceover through New York’s streets, My Dinner with Andre is set entirely in real time over a nearly two-hour conversation, only ever interrupted by the appearance of a waiter taking orders and serving meals. In effect, these courses are our chapters, punctuating the point at which one topic segues into the next. By the end, we too have had our fill of intellectually stimulating conversation, which has proven to be just as hearty as their feast of quail, fish, and wine.

Perhaps even more fascinating than the meeting itself is the way it reflects a pair of a diametrically opposed men invariably finding value in their disagreements. Though actor-writers Wallace Shawn and André Gregory are clear that the connections between them and their characters are thin, the conflict is at least partially based on their own natural tendencies. Gregory himself has acknowledged in real life that his own zealous search for religious meaning could carelessly slip into totalitarianism, and that he imbued this into “a character who is driven, obsessed and narcissistic, who delights in the sound of his own voice.” Indeed, Andre’s monologues about working with an experimental theatre troupe in Poland, the fascistic undertones of The Little Prince, and self-comparisons to Nazi architect Albert Speer seem to be dictated by little more than the whims of an intelligent ego.

This entrée is but a taster of the point he will eventually arrive at though during the main course. Andre is thoroughly upset with the “insane dream world” that modern society is so caught up in, forcing people to perform roles which are “hiding the reality of ourselves from everybody else.” Of course, the great irony here is that Shawn and Gregory too are playing alternate versions of themselves, seeking truth from the fiction they have created. Wally remains silent for a time, squinting in sceptical bemusement at his friend’s existential soliloquys, before he comes forward in opposition. Unlike Andre, he stumbles and flails towards his point, but there is a sincerity to his run-on sentences that messily consider the joy of life’s small pleasures.

“Well, Andre, I mean, my actual response – I mean, Andre, really – I’m just trying to survive – you know? I mean, I’m trying to earn a living, I’m trying to pay my rent and my bills. I mean, I live my life, I enjoy staying home with Debby, I’m reading Charlton Heston’s autobiography, and that’s that. I mean, occasionally, maybe, Debby and I will step outside and we’ll go to a party or something, and if I can occasionally get my little talent together and write a play, well then that’s wonderful, and I enjoy reading about other little plays that people have written, and reading the reviews of those plays and what people said about them, and what people said about what people said.”

One might almost think that dialogue like this was improvised were it not for the fact that the two writers have been so open about their creative process. Just as Gregory has expressed distaste towards his character’s egotistic tendencies, so too has Shawn expressed his desire to rid himself of the insecurities he poured into Wally, “because that guy is totally motivated by fear.” The catharsis for both men is evident, infusing My Dinner with Andre with naturalism on almost every level of its construction, and yet there is also a Brechtian clarity in the calm distance placed between the viewer and the abstract ideas being reflected on. This intent even manifests directly in Andre’s own reflections.

“When you think of Bertolt Brecht – he did something that was perhaps the most amazing thing of all. You know, he somehow created a theatre in which people could observe, that was vastly entertaining and exciting, but in which the excitement didn’t overwhelm you. I mean, he managed to allow you the distance between the play and yourself that in fact two human beings need in order to live together.”

Therein lies the understated brilliance of this screenplay that is so in tune with the quirks and rhythms of authentic speech, yet also refined to a sharp point in its formal presentation. As director, Louis Malle’s artistic voice is not quite felt on the same level as Shawn and Gregory’s, unfortunately refusing to engaging with any sort of distinct visual style. Still, he does insert quiet flourishes every now and again, such as the extremely slow zooms set that draw us closer into Andre’s face as he tells another fantastical story, or the mirror which catches his reflection behind Wally’s head so that both their faces are displayed at once.

There is also an amusing warmth to the way in which Malle lingers on unspoken interactions, at one point holding on Wally and the waiter’s awkward eye contact after Andre lets out an excited cackle. Much like Richard Linklater’s organic experiments in narrative structures, it is in the accumulation of small moments like these that lets time languidly slip away without the artifice of invasive editorial manipulations.

So intoxicating is this conversation between Wally and Andre that not even they realise that all the other customers have left the restaurant. Perhaps it wasn’t for the imposing constraints of society’s closing hours, they might have kept on going forever. An exit to the outside world signals a shift in Malle’s style, now heavy on montages, handheld cameras, and location shooting on New York’s streets, much like the opening. Instead of taking a graffitied subway though, Wally rides the taxi home – a slight but unusual departure from familiar habits, motivated by his friend’s generous covering of the bill. For all of Andre’s eccentricities and conspiracy theories, his anti-conformist philosophies have clearly taken root. Where Wally’s introspective narration at the start of the film was fraught with stress and anxiety, there is now a deeper, joyful connection between him and his environment.

“There wasn’t a street, there wasn’t a building, that wasn’t connected to some memory in my mind. There, I was buying a suit with my father. There, I was having an ice cream soda after school. And when I finally came in, Debbie was home from work, and I told her everything about my dinner with Andre.”

There need not be conflict between these two halves of the human experience represented by old friends, but there is rather a soulful revitalisation found in the act of sharing food and culture. What My Dinner with Andre lacks in cinematic panache, it compensates for with a three-course meal of acute, provocative screenwriting, uncovering the raw essence of its contrasting characters within the most common of modern-day settings.

My Dinner with Andre is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.

Krzysztof Kieslowski | 1hr 54min

Had the first and final shots of Blind Chance been cut, the film could have been a pure examination of three alternate timelines, branching off from a singular point in one man’s life when he is at his lowest and most impressionable. With context of these bookends, everything we see is reframed under the umbrella of impending mortality and heavy regrets which may flash past our eyes in half a second before our death. What small actions could have we done differently that might have set us on a different path, leading us away from our current lives? For Witek, this is a question that arises every now and again as a passing thought. What if he never reconnected with his old school friend and found God? What if he were not there to save that old lady from being run over? It is only when Witek ponders the greatest one of all – what if his attempt to catch a train years ago had turned him away from the path to his own demise – that the rumination over what could have been becomes an all-consuming thought, manifesting as fully developed realities.

That fateful run towards a departing train is the tiny action upon which everything hinges for Witek. Or to narrow in even further, his outcome is even more minutely determined by his attitude towards a man carrying a beer, which only minutes earlier was purchased with a coin that he knocked from a woman’s hand while in a mad rush to get to the platform. Played three times over with minor adjustments, these nearly identical scenes either see Witek successfully catch the train, be arrested for causing a public disturbance, or miss it and go on with his life.

With this divergence of possible futures catching him at his lowest point when he is most open to embracing new ideologies, the broad swings we witness in his character are monumental. Should he make the train, he will meet an influential Communist thinker, and conform to the party thinking. Should he be arrested, he will meet a priest who drafts him into the anti-Communist resistance. Should he go on with life as normal, he will remain politically neutral, falling back into the medical school that he previously decided to quit, and eventually starting a family.

In each timeline, it is an older man who comes into Witek’s life as a patriarchal figure, offering the sort of guidance that he no longer receives from his recently deceased father. In his father’s ambiguous final words, “You don’t have to,” there is a vague absence of any specific instruction – he doesn’t have to what exactly? With the heavy weight of uncertainty leaving Witek aimlessly drifting, he finds himself lost in a modern world of competing priorities, distractions, and relationships, and thus looking for something to hang his identity on.

In 1981, Krzysztof Kieslowski was similarly on the verge of his own transition, contemplating a shift from the familiar realm of social realism to a more transcendent style with broader, more metaphysical ambitions. Blind Chance falls right in the midst of it, aiming to probe questions of fate just as much as it seeks to examine the radical political landscape of 1980s Poland. Inadvertently, it was these revolutionary sentiments which led to the film’s censoring by Polish authorities, from which it never fully recovered. Even today, there is a single unrecovered scene still missing from the final cut.

In exposing the flimsiness of such fervent followers, Kieslowski manages to rile up both sides of the political aisle, though in the mind of the dying Witek who safely straddled the fence, there is some question as to whether some sort of whole-hearted political commitment might have changed his life for the better. His life is not one of significant introspection, but with a director as thoughtful as Kieslowski behind the camera, fleeting hints of self-reflection manage to break through Witek’s mindless surrender of his own agency. Later in his career, Kieslowski would perfect the art of the symbolic cutaway and weave them in as constant motifs through his work, and here we see an early glimpse of that, following a slinky tumble down a set of stairs. “It’s like it died,” he reflects as it reaches the bottom, and perhaps in that moment he sees a piece of himself set on a rigid path that leads nowhere but his own death.

As each timeline ends in social rejection for Witek, Kieslowski begins to slow down the frame rate until they freeze entirely, anticipating the impending rewind that will take us back to the turning point at the train station. It is notable that he does not return to this device a third time as the last timeline approaches its conclusion. There, Witek arrives at an airport to disembark on a trip to Libya where he will deliver some medical lectures, and much like the ending of Three Colours: Red, he brushes past two characters whose lives he has come close to intersecting with. Given that we have only seen them in alternate timelines, they are simply strangers to him, though both times he does stop and notice their presences.

At first it might seem that he is picking up on something familiar about them on a subconscious level. This is not an unreasonable assumption either, especially considering some of Kieslowski’s later films that imbue characters with intangible, mystical qualities. But if Blind Chance is to be read as a split-second vision conjured up between Witek’s realisation of his death and the explosion of the plane he is on, then perhaps at this point he is simply storing them in his mind as characters for his dream, ruminating over the alternate lives that might have saved him from his tragic fate. It is said that your life flashes before your eyes on the verge of death, and indeed that happens here in the fast-moving character introduction towards the start, but Kieslowski’s sights are not so much set on “what was” than “what could have been” – all those turning points that might have given us happier, or at least longer lives. But then again, what is the use of such regrets anyway if the paths upon which we travel are merely governed by blind chance?

Blind Chance is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.

John Carpenter | 1hr 39min

It is 1997, and Manhattan has been walled off from the rest of America. To deal with a 400% increase in crime, the island has been turned into a giant maximum-security prison, though its inmates are not confined to cells. Inside, gangs and criminals run wild, turning the city into an anarchic playground brimming with violence and chaos. Such a concept as this is all too ripe for a master of genre filmmaking like John Carpenter. Escape From New York is a science-fiction, an action, but most of all it runs by the Western playbook, following those familiar conventions we have seen John Ford and Sergio Leone play out over decades of cinema.

In place of the rocky outcrops of Monument Valley though, we get hulking metal and concrete structures wasting away through an urban wilderness. Instead of dusty saloons with a piano playing in the corner, we get a giant theatre where prisoners take refuge and perform showtunes for the entertainment of others. And where we fight expect to see Clint Eastwood’s Man with No Name swaggering through a sandy desert, we instead find Snake Plissken, a cynical, raspy-voiced Special Forces veteran assigned to rescue the President whose flight has crashed right in the middle of the island. Snake’s character design is entirely memorable, and even a little bit ludicrous given his eye-patch and giant snake tattoo, but with Kurt Russell’s terse, rugged performance grounding it with a sense of conviction, Escape From New York hangs in that sweet intersection between playfully outlandish and emphatically sincere.

With a timer strapped to his wrist counting down to his death should he fail his mission, and a stealth glider landing him on top of the World Trade Centre, Snake goes about tracking down the kidnapped President through Manhattan in the dead of night. From the gloomy establishing shots of New York enclosed by a prison wall to the harsh, metallic angles of its architecture, Carpenter accomplishes quite a feat of world-building production design. His work with miniatures to build towering cityscapes effectively deliver on the epic scale of Snake’s quest, though it is especially in the rundown streets lit only by stray fires and scattered with abandoned cars that we feel ourselves truly overtaken by New York’s labyrinth of concrete and steel monstrosities.

With his dystopian mise-en-scène offering itself up to striking compositions of our hero and his ragtag posse of oddball characters wandering the decrepit landscape, Carpenter crafts a hostile environment that, for all its misery and decay, is also a culture full of living people. On either side of the Duke of New York’s car, a pair of chandeliers stand as a small show of status, announcing themselves as sophisticated oddities in a wretched terrain. Back at his headquarters, death matches are conducted for the perverse pleasure of his gang members, asserting their own dominance over outsiders with what little resources they have.

Across it all, Carpenter drenches his world in the pervasive darkness of night. It is telling that when the sun inevitably rises, Snake is conveniently knocked unconscious so we can cut straight to the following evening. Escape From New York thrives in its nocturnal setting, surrounding its plot with a powerfully grim atmosphere that creeps into the crevices between every action set piece and thrilling dramatic turn.

In the contempt that Snake holds towards the government officials that he is working for, we see a glimpse of the America that lies just beyond New York. That the wealthy elite care so little about what takes place inside the boundaries of this giant prison is evident in how willingly the President brushes off his experience afterwards, despite experiencing legitimate traumas. For Snake Plissken though, this bleak hellhole of urban ruin and chaos is where he finds himself most at home, wandering the most dangerous frontiers of modern society.

Escape From New York is currently available to stream on Stan, Binge, and Foxtel Now, and available to rent or buy on iTunes, YouTube, and Google Play.

Lawrence Kasdan | 1hr 53min

It is even before Body Heat reaches the pivotal murder upon which its entire narrative revolves that the Double Indemnity influence emerges in the sensual rhythms of its dialogue, with every line seeming to be either an innuendo or a coy setup for one. All of it seeps with sexual desire, the heavy flirting underscored by sleazy saxophone riffs which might seem heavy-handed if it didn’t so perfectly match the embellished eroticism of the performances and screenplay. Where Billy Wilder had to work within the strict Production Code of the 1940s to create Double Indemnity, Lawrence Kasdan abides by no such restrictions here, playing into both the literal and suggestive readings of his film’s title to draw us into its irresistible allure.

The perspiration that coats the faces of every single character in Body Heat can be put down to the particularly intense heatwave rolling through South Florida, but when smooth-talking lawyer Ned begins a secretive affair with Matty, the wealthy wife of a successful businessman, the beads of sweat that roll down his naked body might as well be from the sexual workout and thick humidity of their steamy encounters. It is just as well he has two solid reasons to be so clammy all the time, because when his private entanglement takes a plunge into murder and betrayal, the sweat from his guilty conscience is well-disguised. It is with our own understanding of Ned’s tainted conscience that we can see the fear in his eyes, and William Hurt expertly balances this highly-strung apprehension with the cool charm of his vain, lustful lawyer.
 
But it is Kathleen Turner who truly runs away with this film, playing the Barbara Stanwyck to Hurt’s Fred MacMurray. Somehow though, this femme fatale is even more cunning and careful in her plotting than Double Indemnity’s Phyllis Dietrichson. Like a true student of film noir, Kasdan illustrates character detail in his work with shadows and blocking, especially as he gradually reveals Matty to be the sort of untouchable figure twenty steps ahead of everyone else. As she walks away from Ned into the boathouse she has rigged to explode, she is consumed by the darkness, and yet within this void she glows brightly like an angelic icon, finally freed from the constraints of a life she has been trying to escape for years.

Perhaps the shocking ending which sees her emerge on top is Kasdan’s apologetic rewriting of historical genre conventions, which typically saw these intelligent women punished for their underhanded manipulations. Matty may not be a morally pure character, but who is in this world? If anyone is going to get their happy ending, why shouldn’t it be the one with the wits, charm, and patience to get it? Body Heat surely isn’t the first film to push the boundaries of the neo-noir, but it may one of the most overwhelmingly passionate, filling its air with a thick, humid wantonness that only one of its many characters truly knows how to navigate.

Body Heat is available to rent or buy on iTunes, YouTube, Google Play, and Amazon Prime Video.

Brian de Palma | 1hr 48min

Less than a decade after newspaper journalists exposed the Watergate scandal, and almost two decades after the Zapruder film became an immortal reference point for the endless probing of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Brian de Palma’s Blow Out examined the growing power of evolving media technologies to expose government-toppling truths. Of course, there are all the usual de Palma watermarks present – gorgeous split diopters, point-of-view tracking shots, dizzying 360-degree camera pans, and a suspenseful, absorbing narrative. But the Hitchcock acolyte has rarely used all of these so perfectly and in tandem with thoughtful colour compositions to deliver such a thrilling interrogation of a uniquely American brand of political corruption.

When sound technician Jack Terry is out searching one night for sound effects to use in his latest movie, his accidental recording of a political assassination literally lands him in deeper water than he had anticipated. Two other tight-lipped witnesses are present at the incident, and Jack’s romantic interest in one of them, Sally, pulls him even further into an underworld of conspiracies and dirty, murderous politics. 
  
In an early scene before the incident, we watch Jack framed in a split screen working on a slasher film, while the broadcast television news plays on the other half of the frame. Two types of stories are being created simultaneously here – one aiming for escapism, the other aiming to inform – and yet as Blow Out progresses there is a sly inversion that takes place. Later as Jack returns to his studio with his recorded evidence, we spend a great deal of time sitting with him as he rewinds, slows down, and marks the audio tape, his artistic methods becoming a meticulous, painstaking search for truth. Meanwhile, the news media covers the event as a freak accident, maintaining the happy illusion that American politics operate on an honourable code of integrity.

Like so many other directors before and after him, de Palma keeps coming back to a red, white, and blue scheme as a representation of his nation’s proud colours. It is there in the décor of a motel room’s bold, patterned wallpaper and the floats of a street parade, but it is even more dominant in his lighting, as it dimly illuminates a bar where Jack and Sally flirt, and later bathes a dingy parking lot in the glow of neon signs. 

But it is in Blow Out’s climax where de Palma combines these patriotic primary colours with some of his most suspenseful editing in a slow-motion chase, and thereby delivers perhaps the greatest set piece of his career. The masses celebrating Liberty Day are unwittingly cast as worshippers at the altar of a giant, American flag, where the political establishment viciously sacrifices its most recent victim in the name of protecting their own interests. De Palma’s camera dramatically circles around Jack as he cradles a deceased Sally in his arms, the parade’s red and blue fireworks simultaneously lighting him up and drowning his anguish in a dazzling display of nationalistic spectacle. 

The tragedy of Jack’s loss comes with his devastating recognition that recorded evidence alone is not enough to expose the bedrock of innocent blood upon which America’s flag-waving “freedom” is built. Media certainly holds some influence in Blow Out, but the truth is easily concealed by mainstream news sources who work alongside the political establishment. Sally’s murderer, the “Liberty Bell Strangler”, is only ever spoken of as some sort of un-American aberration, though of course the cruel irony is that those people who condemn him also rely on his brutal actions to uphold their blissfully ignorant privileges. Those like Jack who survive encounters with such men simply wind up with nothing but the ultimate curse of knowledge – understanding the truth, but incapable of wielding it in any practical way, other than pouring it into their own indulgent, escapist fabrications.

Blow Out is currently available to rent or buy on the Microsoft Store.

Michael Mann | 2hr 2min

As an urban parable constructed out of criminal archetypes and moral dilemmas, Thief does not present us with an overly complicated narrative, and yet it is in this relative simplicity that Michael Mann provides a compelling canvas upon which he maps out a neo-noir world of clean-cut, towering skyscrapers and dingy neon clubs. In the light of day, thieves and gangsters run their criminal fronts inconspicuously, scoping out the architecture and layout of the city from a distance, formulating their covert schemes. And then each night when a cloak of darkness is thrown over the sprawling metropolis and the dim, downtown lights flicker on, these men silently gather to execute their plots with meticulous precision, their apparent insomnia fuelling both a bleary-eyed fatigue and a hyper-alert, mental focus.

Mann’s commitment to expressing both these psychological states in his patient editing and moody lighting in dark environments is beyond remarkable – it is the stylistic lynchpin upon which this morose, unpredictable world is fleshed out in all its complexity. His dedication to soaking the city streets between each take so that the neon signs, street lamps, and car headlights would bounce off its wet surfaces pays off massively in its aesthetic impact, giving the tarmac a metallic sheen much like the reflective windows and cars of the city. The radiance of these lights doesn’t go terribly far, but they do illuminate the grime of their surrounding environments which might otherwise go unnoticed under the bright light of the sun.

Meanwhile, the mesmerising pulses and drones of Tangerine Dream’s 80s synths fill the soundtrack with an electronic ambience, pulling us into the same groggy, sleep-deprived state of exhaustion that haunts these characters. Perhaps this dark, mangy setting is a result of the people who inhabit it, or perhaps they have been shaped by the sordid, corrupt cityscape of Chicago – but either way both are crooked extensions of each other.

Caught up in the centre of this world is Frank, an ex-convict who, like the rest of his associates, is a total professional when it comes to conducting high-stakes jewel heists. He is loud and brash, and yet he possesses a dissatisfied, unresolved tension between his hyper-intense lifestyle and his desire to settle down with a wife and kids.

On one hand, he knows he is good at what he does. One can’t help but be reminded of the heist from John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle in the sheer focus and precision of these sequences, as Mann similarly details each intricate step, displaying the precariously thin line that is drawn between success and total failure. The editing is also thoughtfully paced here, emphasising the laser-focused expertise which pierces through the fatigue of their world. Even later when Frank’s activity takes a louder, more violent turn, his concentration doesn’t sway from the task at hand, as explosions and shootouts are drawn out in stunning slow-motion.

And then there is his relationship with Jessie. “I don’t mix apples and oranges,” he states matter-of-factly, believing he can compartmentalise such disparate areas of his life. But the darkness of the world outside is consuming, continuing to remain in the background during a pivotal conversation in a diner roughly a third of the way through where he commits to a life with his lover. This proves to be anything but a clean-cut break.

The direction that Thief goes in would return in later films as a major fascination of Mann’s, but here in his debut his artistic voice comes out bold and fully-formed, a rarity for any first-time filmmaker. In his examinations of the battle between law and crime that rages on inside the psyches of morally grey men, crowded urban spaces play an important role as settings for such characters to gather and conduct their schemes. In a more hopeful film, one might optimistically think that these environments could even inspire some form of comradeship. And yet as Mann sketches out so poignantly here in Thief, sprawling cities are not conducive to such healthy lifestyles. To escape these haunting metropolitan landscapes might bring some peaceful resolution, but such an effort may very well destroy you first.

Thief is currently streaming on Stan and The Criterion Channel.