Firing blanks

Friday, 10th July 2009

David Thomson, probably the sharpest film critic around, takes an axe to Johnny Depp's latest outing, "Public Enemies", directed by the weirdly over-rated Michael Mann:

Depp has been famous for two decades. He is sometimes called one of our great actors. And he has had his moments of cheek and charm, from "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" to "Donnie Brasco" and the spurious panache of his laid-back pirates. But isn't it clear by now that he lacks the creative need or the emotional stamina to seize a part and to dominate a film? ..."Public Enemies" is a travesty.

And he makes a broader point about the way digital film-making is changing the way we look at films. Is he on to something or simply indulging in Gaumont-era nostalgia?

The only comparison is with the deliberate and stupid forsaking of Technicolor in the 1950s in favor of colour systems that were supposedly more life-like. Life-like is irrelevant; we are talking about the movies, after all. Technicolor and photography were beautiful. They looked like dream, like imagination. Whatever the technical and economic advantages of digital (and they are in dispute, as witness the April 2009 forum on cinematography in Sight & Sound), it looks like death. When characters move quickly--as they are inclined to do in gangster pictures--the image blurs. Whenever it fixes on a face you see uncommon and unnatural detail. It may sometimes be useful to see the pores in the skin, but it is far removed from the romance of cinematography.