Review of Johnny D .. America's Favorite Movie
Chicago, 1934. In the cinema `` Biograph '' Manhattan Melodrama is being played on Lincoln Avenue with Clark Gable. In the hall sits a man known throughout America, from whom Gable's character in this movie was written off. On the street – a dozen FBI agents armed with pistols, who were personally instructed by Hoover not to arrest the man sitting in the theater, but to shoot him on the spot. The most dramatic episode in the biography of the popular bank robber John Dillinger, about whom the director of Skirmish, is approaching. and `` Accessory '' Michael Mann has directed his new movie Johnny D. 'Johnny D' it is more than two hours, and during this time fourteen months pass on the screen in the life of the American gangster John Dillinger, played in the movie by Johnny Depp. Michael Mann, who was always interested in the authenticity of what was happening and the professionalism of the heroes more than morality and on-screen entertainment, made a bet in the new movie on the viewer's immersion in the atmosphere of the American 1930s and in the emotional sphere of Dillinger's life. Like a bank robbery, 'Johnny D' looking for prepared. Going to this movie, you need to have at least a minimum of knowledge about Dillinger, Hoover, gangster wars in America and the history of the birth of the FBI. The casual viewer will not find in Johnny D nothing new – except perhaps for the stunning effect of presence provided by digital HD cameras and documentary style of shooting (when the screen firing Tommy Guns from one hand, as if you yourself feel the impact). For a cursory look, 'Johnny D' - a rather banal story about a charming gangster who fell in love with a cloakroom attendant, and everyone interfered with them (especially a boring guy in a hat named Melvin Purvis - brilliantly, by the way, played by Christian Bale). The events are presented almost chaotically: here Dillinger and the gang are escaping from prison, here is robbing the bank, leaving the cashier his five (`` We came for the bank's money ''), watching the races, firing loudly as if from a Thompson machine over your ear. Vivid final scenes somewhat diversify the impression of predictability, but in general for an untrained viewer on Johnny D nothing to catch. For those who know anything about Dillinger and the FBI, the movie will open with a completely different side: a legend breathes on such viewers from the screen. John Dillinger in the 30s was as popular as Johnny Depp is now: more people wrote about him in the spring of 1934 than about Obama in 2008. He was a sociopath: he could lend his coat to a hostage during a bank robbery, and then he came back and thrust a whole clip of bullets into a police officer, who hit him in a bulletproof vest three times. The police in the United States then operated only within the state, and the FBI was still beginning to strengthen – and gangsters, including Dillinger, carried out daring raids and escaped the pursuit in the most powerful cars like the Ford B with a V8 engine – or they shot the cops with rapid-fire Tommy Guns. Edgar Hoover declared war on crime – In the movies of Michael Mann, the theme of the conflict of a person-personality with a corporation-human-cutting, created by the same people, but turned into something inanimate, anti-human, as if pursuing its own gigantic interests, has always appeared. Arming his heroes with professionalism and valor, Mann pushes them into the arena of gladiatorial combat against systems in which personality has lost its centrality. Sometimes personalities and mutual respect triumph (`` Fight '', `` Your own man ''), sometimes – the system, in whatever form it appears (Miami Police, Accessory, Johnny D). The director has been interested in Dillinger's personality for a long time: back in the 70s, he made a sketch of a script about a popular bandit. Then the project was postponed, but in the early 2000s, the FBI declassified the archives about gang wars – and a documentary novel by writer and publicist Brian Barrow, Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, was released. Inspired by the book, Michael Mann directed a long-conceived movie. The Terrible Irony of 'Public Enemies' reflected in the name (the original, not the commercial vulgarity of localizers - `` Johnny D ''): the number one enemy of society Edgar Hoover `` appointed '' the most charming of the gangsters, whom society loved almost more than the current rock stars. And the methods of the Bureau, which is gaining strength, raise doubts: who was the enemy of society in reality, and what rule should generally measure the values of society and the individual? Dillinger wanted to be loved and was actually a real rock star when there were no rock stars in the world. Ultimately, he achieved his goal: after so many years of silence (Hoover did not want to share fame) and a long burial in the archives, Brian Barrow brought to light the truth about gang wars, and Michael Mann made a great movie about Dillinger. The main pop gangster of all time appears in him alive and real: straight, open, crying in the car after the arrest of his girlfriend, – and the whole world, chewing, is watching his death. The Topic of Article: Review of Johnny D .. America's Favorite Movie. |
