Michael Mann's Public Enemies: The Art of Myth Making

WARNING: The review/essay covers the end of Michael Mann's film Public Enemies, only because it relates so strongly to the film's central themes. If you haven't seen it and don't want to be spoiled, I suggest you stop here, go see the movie and then come back. I will say, spoiler-free, that is excellent and probably Mann's finest film.

The opening scene of Public Enemies sets up rather masterfully the core of the movie itself: the setting is a prison-break at Michigan City, Indiana. The costumes are perfectly recognizable dirty black and white uniforms, trench coats and tommy guns. The energy escalates quickly and boils over. It is a perfectly pitched gangster movie, in the most classic tradition, only now it is shot in crisp, beautiful digital clarity.

For the next two and a half hours, however, Mann will begin to question and pick apart what we just watched. The film is obstensibly about the feud between bank robber John Dillinger and federal lawman Melvin Purvis (played expertly by Johnny Depp and Christian Bale, respectively; Bale especially transcends his usual stone-faced emotionlessness in portions and offers a career-defining performance), as well as how the actions of Dillinger and his fellow cross-country bank robbers led to the rise of the FBI to the institution it is today. But just underneath the surface of the plot, what Mann seems to be playing with is the notion of reality and how our perception is so often distorted by myth.

On one side, there is Dillinger's attempt to control his image in the media by always making sure he steals from banks, not individuals, and paints himself as the full realization of the American dream. Of course, he knows that his persona is merely a creation. At one point he calls banks "the place where all these people put their money"; later, with a gaggle of infatuated newsmen wrapped around his finger, he criticizes his younger self for stealing from a store-owner, again emphasizing that he doesn't steal from people, just institutions. He is a master manipulator, charming and quite often the smartest guy in the room. He looks out for his friends, but also knows that what he does is a business. The only relationship he has that doesn't feel contrived and a matter of control is his love affair with coatgirl Billie Frechette, to whom he promises the world. You almost suspect that Dillinger, for all the charm he has, wants to actually share something with someone, and decides that the person he wants to share with is Billie.

Equally obsessive is the FBI's J. Edgar Hoover, played with breathless exitement by Billy Crudup who only appears in two scenes of the film but hangs over the whole story. Crudup is the one who coins the titular phrase of the film, naming Dillinger "Public Enemy Number One." The Chicago branch of the FBI is turned into the nerve-center of the who operation due to its closeness to organized crime, and eventually it is renamed to "the Dillinger Department." Hoover's "war on crime" (which of course reverse-echos the war on drugs or war on terror, the way that America has developed a habit of declaring war on broad concepts; another myth) turns his g-man from mostly inexperience police officers into broodish thugs, at one point beating Frechette to the point where she can't stand. It is a clear and cutting criticism on the mindset that violence leads to conclusive results.

But in the end, it is neither Hoover or Dillinger who is the master myth maker. The true myth maker is Mann himself, or more broadly, Hollywood. Two of the most vital scenes in Public Enemies take place in movie theatres. The first is near halfway through the film, after Dillinger has been named Public Enemy #1 but before his gang has really started to feel the sting of the law. He sits in a movie theater, with his gang, watching a newsreel. (The newsreel itself is introduced masterfully: a scene where Hoover is posing with some "junior G-men" has Crudup mugging directly into the camera, talking to the audience. Talking to you. As you watch, the scene fades to gray and the sound softens. After several seconds, the camera begins to pull back, revealing a theatre full of viewers, of which you were just one.) As the Newsreel continues, a moment comes up where Dillinger, a real photo, is posted on the screen. The audience is instructed to look to the left, then the right, warned that their enemy could be anywhere. The audience of course does exactly as their told, but no one notices the actual PE#1 among them. As the scene ends, we see Dillinger slowly grin. It is impossible to tell if it a smirk of pride at not being caught, or admiration of Hoover so masterfully using the craft of film.

The other scene in a theatre is the climax of the film. Dillinger, betrayed and doomed to be killed before the traditional "big score" where he is supposed to die, goes to the movies once more. He goes to see Manhattan Melodrama. (It is a strange and unnerving fact of history that this works so perfectly for the narrative Mann tries to tell.) As Dillinger is among the crowd, all fixated on the screen, we spend our time split between watching the movie with him, just over his shoulder, the frame of the theatres screen just slightly tilted in the actual theatre screen, and watching Dillinger's face as he watches the movie. We keep cutting back and forth between Cary Grant and William Powell playing the roles of gangster heavies, wearing the trendy wispy moustaches of the day, only to cut Depp's Dillinger, same wispy moustache, same cool demeanor. The transformation is now complete. Depp is Dillinger is Cary Grant. They are all legends, all something that belongs to the world and more than their simple lives could hold. We are the voyeurs, the observers. Those patrons of film earlier in the film, being told to look to the left and the right, are still being pulled along.

Moments later, Dillinger is killed by three bullets. It is at this point destined, unavoidable. But it is still shocking when it happens. The final bullet actually tears through Dillinger's face, fromt he back through to just underneath his eye. Again, the digital crispness of the moment is captured, an extreme close up of Dillinger's face as he realizes beyond any hope that he is dead. The death recalls the ends of Bonnie and Clyde or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, only Dillinger is alone; the high-arcing shot of the camera being elevated abovet he growing crowd around Dillinger's corpse is almost directly ripped from Chinatown, only now, the good guys have won. This is a moment you've seen before, only the punch is stronger for some reason. Depp and Mann have charmed us into caring about Dillinger, far more than you even realize until you see his eyes gloss over. The myth is over, completed in the only way it could be completed from the very start. And it couldn't sting any more.