To Live and Die in L.A. Vs. Manhunter

Fire and Ice: two sleepers from the 80's that deserve revisiting. By Jonathan Herweg

I have a tendency to get obsessed with older films that I think are amazing but feel like everyone else ignored. I get especially worked up if the films being ignored earn the exalted title of “masterpiece” by critics in retrospect, yet still are neglected by a wider audience. I often pace around my bedroom like some film noir gumshoe, excitedly asking my wife questions out loud like, Why don’t people know about this movie? and, how could a film this incredible bomb at the box office? My wife often shrugs her shoulders and goes back to reading, or says things like “No one cares because that movie came out like 40 years ago!” She’s probably right, I need to relax, but that doesn’t quench my thirst for answers to questions I have about why these movies weren’t more popular or at least better known. Was it the marketing, the distribution? Were these films just too arty and intellectual for mainstream audiences?

Two sleeper works of cinema that have been a particular preoccupation of mine over the last decade or so are William Friedkin’s “To Live and Die in L.A.” (1985) and Michael Mann’s “Manhunter”(1986). They are both inextricably linked in my mind because they came out about the same time and they both star William Petersen in their leading roles. They also both have killer soundtracks that add to the weight of their psychic impact on me. Without going too far down an 80’s movie nostalgia rabbit hole, let me just say that these two movies capture a realistic feeling of the time that few other films of the period do. However, they couldn’t be more different in the moods they evoke or in their stylistic execution.

“To live and Die in L.A.” is an action packed, neo-noir, crime thriller. It follows Secret Service Agent Richard Chance (Peterson) as he and his partner, Agent John Vukovich (John Pankow) try to apprehend artist and counterfeiter Erick (Rick) Masters (Willem Defoe). When Masters isn’t using his artistic skills to print up pallets of fake 20 dollar bills, he’s trying to make it in the world of abstract fine art. In fits of seething frustration, Masters sets fire to paintings he is unable to sell. I won’t give too much more of the plot away other than to say there isn’t a character in the movie who doesn’t seem to be morally ambiguous. I mean how can you not sympathize with a talented, struggling artist who’s printing money to finance his art career? Plot aside, the thing about this movie that I find interesting is the use of heat as a metaphor for the pressure all the characters seem to be under. There are lots of close shots of the sun rising and setting, heat haze blurring the pavement, sweat dripping off flesh in a steam room, coupled with wide sun bleached shots of the sweltering desert and urban LA. Everything about this movie from it’s look to it’s synth-pop, Wang Chung scored soundtrack is HOT HOT HOT! As the the pressure cooker boils over Chance and his partner get increasingly desperate in their pursuit of Masters, committing a few crimes themselves along the way, with Agent Vukovich serving as the proverbial good cop to Chances increasingly unhinged tactics. The pinnacle of the the metaphorical heat is a wild, frenetic car chase that Friedkin took 6 weeks to shoot and where I assume a large chunk of the 6 million dollar budget was burned up. Friedkin wanted the car chase to rival, or even one up the epic chase scene in his earlier masterpiece, “The French Connection”, and I think he accomplishes that. In the current world of CGI rendered battle scenes and explosions this complex car chase is particularly spectacular with its use of practical effects. It looks and feels very real. My favorite movies are not only ones I can watch over and over, but ones that have crazy stories behind the production that I end up pondering while watching again. Friedkin used real ex-con counterfeiter’s as consultants, so all the money printing scenes look authentic. The production was visited several times by investigators from the Department Of the Treasury after the prop-master’s son took some fake money to the corner store and tried to buy candy. Over a million dollars in fake bills were burned at the end of production. The screenplay was based on a book written by ex-Secret Service agent Gerald Petievich who co-wrote the screenplay with Friedkin. The production was painstaking in its attention to detail and gritty authenticity. Robbie Mueller who was known as Wim Wenders cinematographer, used a mostly non-union crew to expedite the guerrilla camera work Friedkin had planned for the film. This also is the first movie I can remember seeing bunging jumping in. In the opening credit montage agent Chance in what looks to be an attempt at suicide jumps off a bridge, just for kicks, establishing him as reckless, bad-ass, cowboy cop. The symbolism of the name Chance foreshadow’s a gamble with life and death, the character even fingers a white poker chip in one of the films opening scenes. While “To Live and Die In L.A.” wasn’t a total bomb at the box office, it received a luke warm reception and quickly faded from the public consciousness after debuting at # 3 it’s opening weekend. Some critics panned it as a stylistic Miami Vice rip off. I however dismiss such paltry and shallow comparisons. Michael Mann even brought a lawsuit against the production claiming that Friedkin had stolen concepts for To Live and Die from Mann's Miami Vice. Mann eventually lost the lawsuit. I think To Live and Die in L.A. is one of the most underrated crime dramas of the 80’s. I admire the little kid wonder Friedkin seems to approach all his movies with. I also love stories where there ultimately are no heroes or villains and resolution only comes when even the best of characters fall into darkness. The transition from light to dark is even apparent on the movies promo poster (posted below). I can’t recommend this film enough, It’s beautifully shot, well written, and masterfully edited. The desire to make a great work of art eclipses the movie marketing machine here. The shocking, left field ending is a slap in the face to the predictable tidiness of other scripts of the same era. I can only imagine that all of its thoughtfulness and attention to detail flew right over the heads of 80’s audiences that were primed on machismo actions movies where it was obvious who the good guys were, and where the protagonists were never vulnerable. This movie is hot, heavy and complex, if you haven’t seen it, go watch it now!

‘Manhunter’ is an eerie, tense, psychological thriller directed By Michael Man. It’s based on the 1981 book ‘Red Dragon’ by Thomas Harris. Red Dragon was eventually remade into a prequel to"Silence of the Lambs” and is basically an attempt to re-make Manhunter after the blockbuster success of that movie. As an aside even though the film Red Dragon attempts to recreate aspects of Manhunter shot for shot, in my opinion it pales in comparison. To say that Manhunter is dark is putting it mildly. The story chronicles FBI psychological profiler Will Graham (Peterson) who is forced out of retirement in order to catch a serial killer the FBI refers as “The Tooth Fairy” (Tom Noonan) a nickname the killer acquires because of the bite marks he leaves on his victims. Graham is traumatized from a previous violent encounter he had with serial killer Dr. Hannibal Lecktor (Brian Cox) during Lecktor’s capture. The details of Grahams encounter and trauma are left purposely murky adding to the the complex nature of Graham’s inner struggle during the film. FBI agent in charge Jack Crawford (Dennis Farina) goes to Graham’s secluded Florida home to plead with him to use his forensic prowess one last time to catch a killer that has all of his best men baffled. We learn the Tooth Fairy is killing entire families on a lunar cycle adding to the eminent urgency of his apprehension. After a sleepless night laying in bed where Graham promises his wife that he will do nothing more than help profile the killer and aid in the investigation without putting himself in harms way, He reluctantly agrees to come out of retirement to aid Crawford. Graham is immediately put under stress when after his return the FBI as a consultant, he is accosted by the despicable tabloid journalist Freddy Lounds (Stephen Lang) outside task force headquarters. Graham, after a heated exchange with Lounds, who he fears he will jeopardize the investigation, assaults him and runs away hyperventilating, highlighting his delicate mental state. Graham then visits the crime scenes and after meticulously re-creating the events that led to the murders is pushed to the brink of his own fragile limits when he realizes that he will have to consult his old nemesis Dr. Lecktor in order to get inside the mind of the killer. After a tense and confrontational meeting with Lectktor in prison, Graham becomes acutely aware that not only does Lecktor have a keen insight into the mind of the killer, but is also aware of Graham’s own mental vulnerabilities. Once again without going into all the details of the plot I’d like to highlight some things that make Manhunter so good. First of all it’s visually stunning, almost hypnotic in parts. Dante Spinotti, the cinematographer, and Mann’s long time collaborator’s signature style is on full display here. There are long meditative shots that are awash in color, mostly blues and shades of gray that lend to the films dark ambience. There are also shots and scenes where everything is just one color, like dark room scenes shot with a red filter or the scenes in Lecktor’s cell where all the set dressing is entirely white. All of these stylistic elements along with the sublime synthy soundtrack sync up to lull the viewer into a dreamlike trance. There is a fantastic sequence where the Klaus Shulze track ‘Freeze’ is used to highlight the creepiness of Lecktor’s stark white cell. This one of the first movies that highlights the procedural process of investigative forensic psychology. We’re not just seeing cops mindlessly walking around a crime scene putting things in plastic evidence bags, we’re watching forensic psychology at play where agents try to see the crime and the motives through the eyes of the the killer, sometimes to the detriment of their own mental health. One of the reasons it’s so hard to catch serial killers especially before the advent of DNA, and why the FBI created the Behavioral Analysis Task force is that in the past when murders were investigated the first thing they looked for were people the victim knew who had a motive. That doesn’t work with serial killers who are often times killing strangers out of a compulsion, fixation, delusion or psychological defect. Manhunter is the first on screen version of Hannibal Lecktor, and Brian Cox’s brief portrayal of the character here seems slightly more menacing and physically intimidating than the iconic Anthony Hopkins version. Although the Hopkins version ends up doing much more damage in Silence of The Lambs. The actor William Petersen does an amazing job in this film making you believe he is deep in the mind of the killer. There are long solitary monologues where Graham talks out loud to the killer sometimes to his own reflection as if he is in the same room with him. He sacrifices his own mental well being and wrestles with his own compulsive tendencies, which all builds to a surreal climax when the killer is finally confronted. Dark and dreamy and heavily stylized Manhunter is by far one of the best movies no one payed attention to in the 80’s. The entire cast shines, especially Dennis Farina who should get a posthumous award for the most believable portrayal of a cop in TV and movie history. It’s hard to believe this gem of movie made back less than half of its 15 million dollar budget. In recent years it has earned a cult following and recently been added to the criterion collection. I find myself hypnotized by it. So do yourself a favor, turn off the lights, pump up the AC and cool off with this neo-noir chiller.