Restored noir classic ‘Heat’ still burns

By Jake Coyle

AP Film Writer

NEW YORK

“This crew is good,” declares Al Pacino’s Los Angeles detective Vincent Hanna in Michael Mann’s sprawling noir saga “Heat.” Hanna is speaking of Neil McCauley’s (Robert De Niro) criminal gang but the same could also be said of Mann and his production team.

The sheer filmmaking rigor is one of the things on display in the “Heat” Blu-ray, out Tuesday, that includes a number of insights into Mann’s 1995 opus of driven men and the women who suffer their obsessions. It features a glorious restoration of the film, the most pristine presentation yet of Mann’s heavily researched investigation into the night – a recurring fascination for the intrepid director of “Collateral” and “Miami Vice.”

It was and remains the quintessential Mann film. Preceded by “The Last of the Mohicans” and followed by “The Insider,” “Heat” found the director – and his legendary leads – at the very top of their game: the thunderous downtown Los Angeles shootout, the historic Pacino-De Niro tete-a-tete, the panorama of characters.

Taking a break from developing a miniseries of Mark Bowden’s upcoming Tet Offensive history, “Hue 1968” – a project he is bursting with enthusiasm for – Mann spoke recently about “Heat,” 22 years later.

Q. What did you want to accomplish with this restoration?

A. What I wanted to do was take it away from the way the world would have seemed, seen 22 years ago, and into the way the world is now. Everything evolves, including what we think is real, how we see light and shadow on a human face, what constitutes a dramatic aspect. I think we probably went into every shot of the film.

Q. You’re co-writing a novel prequel to “Heat.” Is that something that could turn into a film?

A. It may be. It’s a ways away. There’s a lot of work that’s going to have to go into that.

Q. One striking aspect of “Heat” is how you linger on the deaths of various characters, as if taking a moment to contemplate the choices that brought them to their fate.

A. I’m a big believer in causality. I think if there was an instrument to measure all the micro-casual tracks between what causes a thing to happen and the effect, it would all be knowable. We don’t have that instrument.

Q. This film and others of yours, like “The Insider,” are about men consumed by their work. Are you drawn to these stories because the same is true of you?

A. I don’t know, maybe. Do I have to be lying down to answer this question? Listen, drama to me is conflict. Conflict is usually some kind of collision. Collision between two slackers isn’t really that interesting. “Do you want to watch TV at my house or your house?” It tends to take you into people who are pretty proficient at what they do, or want to be good at what they do, or ambitious.