There are three great makers of popular man-art working in Hollywood today – Michael Mann, Christopher Nolan and David Fincher – and all three work with broadly the same materials: male identity, its associated violence, and post-industrial societies with no place for either. Mann’s neon-noir aesthetic focuses on status, whether James Caan’s safecracker in Thief, with his $150 slacks, silk shirts, and $800 suits, or Jamie Foxx in Collateral, who dreams of running his own limo firm, but only idly, having long since sunk into his reassuring routine as night-time cab driver.
Nolan’s theme is personal darkness, whether Christian Bale’s Bruce Wayne in the Dark Knight trilogy, or Al Pacino’s sleepless LAPD detective in Insomnia. Fincher is the coldly clinical student of obsession, and his all-American-boy leads – Brad Pitt in Seven, Jake Gyllenhaal in Zodiac – become so consumed by their pursuit of evil that they lose themselves and those around them.
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in