Heat

This book provides a detailed study of one of the greatest crime films ever made. Heat is Director Michael Mann's greatest masterpiece and this book gives a detailed explanation of the meanings of each scene from the film. This book won't interest everybody, but Heat is my favourite movie of all time and this book is well worth reading for anybody who has an obsession for the film.

These guides are a lot of fun. Anyone who wants to digest a film without too much agenda can have fun with these books. I've read ten of them and enjoyed something from each. They are really good during short flights. This book will make you think about the film , but also shows the issues that Michael Mann wants to discuss in the context of a crime drama.

Nick James certainly appreciates Michael Mann's body of work, as do a great many of us. His analysis of "Heat" as an ode to the 80's (in part, though made and set in the 1990's), as both celebration and criticism of machismo, and as testimonial of how Mann can be called a "method director" not unlike De Niro's habit of being a "method actor" (pardon the overused and often misplaced term), is as much tribute to Mann as it is a tribute to the art of storytelling on the often expansive canvas of film. Of the half-dozen or so BFI series books I've read so far, this one ranks near the top of my enjoyment list. James' writing is scholarly without being pretentious [at least one BFI series book I have read cannot make the same claim]. Though perhaps not as enlightening as the BFI book on "Titanic" or as profound as a passage or two in the BFI book on "Jaws" (though that book does have some flaws, hate to say), it is more than compelling enough to keep me hooked on the series. I will make a point to purchase and read the BFI books on "Crash", "The Right Stuff", "The Thin Red Line" (FOR GOD'S SAKE, EVERYBODY SEE THAT MOVIE!!), and "The Shawshank Redemption". I have the BFI book on "The Thing" in the on-deck circle and will start it tomorrow.

For such a highly regarded filmmaker, so little has been written about Michael Mann's films in book form. This is a solid look at one of his most popular films. Not so much an anecdotal account (unfortunately), rather a more analytically approach to HEAT. James makes some very insightful observations on the movie and how it fits into Mann's overall body of work. For example, he points out how James Caan's character in THIEF truly embodies HEAT's famous philosophy (do not have anything you can't walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you see the heat coming...) much more successfully that De Niro's character.While I would have enjoyed more behind-the-scenes stories and information, this is a well-written book that always has something interesting to say. James is clearly a fan of the film and of Mann's but isn't afraid of being critical -- this isn't a fan boy's love letter. His book is definitely required reading for any fan of HEAT or Mann's movies in general. BFI's Modern Classics series comes through again.