The Cinema of Michael Mann (Genre Film Auteurs) [Paperback]

Steven Rybin (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0739120433 | ISBN-13: 978-0739120439 | Publication Date: August 24, 2007

Few other contemporary Hollywood filmmakers fit the category of "genre stylist" as well as Michael Mann, the director of such films as Heat, The Insider, Ali, Collateral, Manhunter, Thief, and Miami Vice. Mann's film style marks him as a director who chooses the iconographic backdrop of a genre as a canvas upon which he and his collaborators can craft a unique cinematic vision. The Cinema of Michael Mann traces the innovative and under-explored stylistic contours of Mann's work, the director's inflection upon and innovation within preexisting genre frameworks, and the relationship of both style and genre to issues of authorship and film criticism. Steven Rybin's critical study of Mann's cinema, and the importance of the filmmaker's themes to our contemporary world, is valuable for both film scholars and cinephiles alike.

Editorial Reviews

Review

In this book, Steven Rybin takes the reader on a remarkable tour of the world of Michael Mann, a place replete with epic cityscapes, digitally composited dreamscapes, and domestic interiors intermittently inhabited by characters cut off from collective identity and meaning. Interrelating visual design and soundtrack with theme and mood, Rybin's work is the perfect guide to the consummately stylized postmodernist vision of Mann's films. From Rybin's analysis of influences such as Vertov and Kubrick, to his championing of The Insider, to his probing study of Miami Vice as movie, he demonstrates a command of the auteur that makes this book a pleasure to read. (Susan Linville )

About the Author

Steven Rybin teaches in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts at Ohio University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 242 pages
• Publisher: Lexington Books (August 24, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0739120433
• ISBN-13: 978-0739120439
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,654,776 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mann and His Movies, September 15, 2008

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Steven M. Sanders (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Cinema of Michael Mann (Genre Film Auteurs) (Paperback)

Steven Rybin has written a thorough, impressively researched, cogently argued piece of film criticism. He covers in depth Mann's ten feature films and some, though not all, of his television work. His discussions will be of most use to film students and scholars, but the book will be a delight to any film goer who would like a better understanding of Mann's objectives as a filmmaker, his verve and style, and the themes that resonate throughout his body of work. Rybin's writing is free of jargon and obscurity. His book is studded with apt descriptions of scenes from Mann's films. And, as the cliche-description has it, he wears his erudition lightly, though it is obvious that he has a firm grounding in film history and criticism.

Perhaps the highest commendation I can give this book is to say that it provides readers with a way of seeing Mann's films. Even when you disagree with a particular way Rybin "reads" a scene (or entire film), you come away enriched by the alternative perspective he has provided.

Numerous anecdotes attest to Mann's almost complete control over the writing, shooting, and editing of his work. Steven Rybin takes Mann's exertions as a filmmaker seriously, and in consequence has written a book worthy of its subject.