#manhunter

[gusvanscant]

4K restoration of ‘Manhunter’ getting a theatrical re-release on July 24th.

[ungoliantschilde]

Manhunter, by Walt Simonson.

[moviecriticseanpatrick-blog]

The Under-Appreciated: Manhunter (1986) and the Art of Pure Visual Storytelling

Michael Mann’s elegant thriller remains one of the finest examples of cinematic storytelling ever put on film.

[thecryptkeeper]

manhunter (1986) hannigram sketch

[tfc2211]

Video Clip | Manhunter [1986] | Aftershave

"It has a ship on the bottle, doesn't it?"

[knightotoc]

Old movies used to linger on documents to let you read them along with the characters, and at some point they stopped doing that.

I noticed this when I watched Manhunter (1986) and Red Dragon (2002), which adapt the same book. The characters have to closely read multiple letters, either to decode them or under duress. In the 80s movie, you get to feel the same intrigue/confusion/fear the characters feel as we read these creepy letters together. And the letters are not too long, and the characters read them out loud anyway, so it's not like it's a big reading challenge. In the 00s movie, you get to see some bits of the letters under microscopes, but not much more than that.

This form of interaction has not been lost; it's just been transferred to video games, where the onscreen reading homework is absolutely crazy. Even games I love just have way too much of it.

[notmuchtoconceal]

red dragon the film is a solid script and collection of performances with not much to anchor it.

it suffers from bret rattner's paint by numbers direction. it's competent. it works.

my first time seeing it, i was excited to see a more faithful book plot adapted to the screen, and yet... the story becomes less interesting when non-adequately stylized.

manhunter achieves a sense of claustrophobic derangement by distilling certain plot points into something starker and purely archetypal.

red dragon by contrast feels crowded cause you're getting a lot of plot momentum and character psychology on a purely conscious/dialogue level with not much being conveyed by cinematography, blocking, mis-en-scene, music, color...

manhunter transports you into a mindspace.

with red dragon...

when francis's house is burning down with reba inside... it's like the film itself knows it's a fake-out. something is muffling the fire. will's mostly checked out by this point. his investigation carries lil dramatic weight cause he spits out plot exposition and distracts from the tragic romance. yeah... he's literally on his way to save reba but i've read the book and seeing this makes it clear why mann's ending was perfect... will being drawn into lunacy as reba is trapped and teased while francis breaks down... minimal plot machinery, minimal book iconography, maximum operatic pathos.

manhunter feels like a series of moments. red dragon feels like a series of cuts.

manhunter is a cohesive vision. red dragon is explicitly a popular prequel.

it feels like it's filling out checklists... it's not an 80's snapshot. it has an odd relationship to time.

it gets weirder the more i think about it...

it feels sort of like kids in a tree fort. all these performances feel made up?