I’d respectfully suggest the only false note in this post is your reference to your “superiors”. They’re just administrators, bureaucrats, managers. They preside over value creators and probably create little value themselves.
They are certainly not your superiors.
It may console you to conduct research on Bach’s working conditions, in a noisy school with only a thin wall separating his family quarters from the boisterous cacophony of the students.
In those blighted and nerve-wracking conditions he not only raised a large family but composed his angelic music.
AMDG as he wrote on every masterpiece - Ad Majorum Dei Glorium
"Our homes and the things we surround ourselves with, even our very lives, will ultimately be taken from us, whatever we do and whoever we are. We are meant to aim for higher things, and the remembrance of death places that stark truth in our conscious thought better than any philosophy seminar."
To quote Mel Gibson after seeing his home destroyed in the fires: "I have been relieved of the burden of my stuff."
Wonderful essay. I stumbled on that movie, Collateral, and was stunned by its excellence. I am not a Tom Cruise fan but was awestruck by his performance. You have drawn and elucidated some eternal truths from it. Bravo.
Collateral impressed me a lot when I first watched it, as a teenager, and yet more when I rewatched it many years later. You managed to put into words the impression I had about Vincent: the insensitivity resulting of living for efficiency as a supreme value. There is a moment where he is most furious at Vincent, I think is when the driver throws his briefcase from the bridge. He says something like "you are interfering with my work!" It is as if this is the gravest sin one could inflict upon him.
To me, it is a straightforward story of masculine human nature that is not constrained by anything other than struggles for basic status within an informal culturally male tradition.
It is effortlessly macho, with no posturing for effect, as is commonly found in Stallone-type movies. The characters just do what they do, just as you'd expect given their personalities, and not to impart any messages or symbolism, and if the viewer has trouble with this, they've probably been mediated from basic human motivations for most of their lives.
That would be good enough to satisfy me, but even better is that the storyline is played out in very interesting personal exchanges and actions by fine actors in a convincing manner.
I'm pretty skeptical and I'm dubious of most commercial film, in general, but this one really, really worked for me. Among other terrific exchanges there is one that I think is an all-time great, when the hired hit man has a dialog in a bar with one of his eventual victims, coercing him by implied threat balanced with a hint of goodwill toward him to help him kill one of the victims friends.
It is marred only by a silly "speech" by the main character at the end of the film. Critics--and they are usually trend-seeking whores, so far as I can see--try to interpret it as a comment against American commercialism/capitalism, but I see it as simply one character telling the other, in a direct fashion, that he sees the system he's working in, knows how it works, and is demanding something that he has a great deal of leverage over.
LA Confidential was good, but Heat is one of the best movies I've watched. I enjoyed every bit of it. I think it's fair calling it Neo-noir.
As for the point, I don't think I would be able to produce anything creative if that were my whole career either. It's the struggle that drives some of us.
I haven't looked at the list, but if both The Night of the Hunter and the original Cape Fear aren't on it, I will be indignant. Robert Mitchum played psychopaths twice, and was so talented that each one is significantly different from the other.
There aren't too many films I regret not seeing on the big screen (yes, I did view some at home). Thirty years ago I had become Orthodox under the influence of monastics and would soon be a clergyman, and distancing myself from cinema was part of that process. Walking away after finishing the doctorate was also part of it. There were several motivators in that move, but one was that I chose entering the society of the Church over entering academic society. And yes, I think your piece today on Chris Rufo is awesome.
You of course made the wise choice. I think there’s something to be said for being able to draw Christian lessons from movies like Collateral (remembrance of death, etc.) but the better part is to go to the sources.
Like all good criticism, this essay finds depths that casual viewers will miss. In fact, this essay is so good that it becomes art unto itself instead of just an analysis of art.
Superb piece. And thank you for making me look up the word “egregore”. An interesting concept in itself but looking into it dropped me into the path of The Manuscript found in Saragossa.
Thanks for this well written essay. Ive seen "Collateral" at least 3-4 times, agree it is far underrated, and have found it compelling and disturbing with each viewing. My wife hates it, won't watch it with me. Cruise's character reminds me of Cormac McCarthy's Shigur in No country for Old men. Both characters are efficient, trained and relentless, yet have some odd code , an off-kilter skewed set of rules by which they operate. Cruise calmly shooting the horn player at a table, is like Shigur, who kills the defenseless young wife who refuses to be cowed, but lets the clueless convenience store operator live because he is correct with heads and tails flips. Your closing argument is similar to one of my favorite "Denzilisms" from "Deja Vu" another really good movie that explores some of these notions. "Everything you have, you lose".
Mon semblable, mon frere, Mann's work has always fascinated me, his focus on realism (he's a licensed firearms instructor and obsesses over detail, e.g. some of Felix's bodyguards were actual psycho prisoners on day release) and his inherent, overpowering style; his best films are dreamlike, surreal, and yet brutal & grounded.
Apparently, Last Year in Marienbad is one of Mann's favourite films, surprising but it makes sense when you consider the closing 20 minutes of Public Enemies, Dillinger sauntering through the police office dedicated to his crew, then watching Manhattan Melodrama.
Collateral was for me Mann's last truly great film, one of Cruise's best performances; it is heavily stylised, implausible, but that just makes for a dreamlike atmosphere, as if the whole film is Cruise's final life review as he slumps in his seat, replaying his volition & loss thereof. Cruise really brought an extra dimension, e.g. when he's about to kill the cop who pulls Max's cab over, that look in his eyes is 100% legit, a mix of total focus and total coldness, if you asked what he was feeling he would accurately answer, Nothing.
Dare I say it but Mann's greatest film, and perhaps the greatest film of the 80s, is Manhunter.
Great stuff and yes, I think Collateral is peak Mann. Cruise’s only other serious villain role was in Interview with a Vampire, so I’m glad he got the chance to do this one.
Cruise is best as a cold predator with a missing or hated father, e.g. Rain Man and Magnolia, even Maverick in Top Gun is basically a nicer version of Vincent. He has done good hero roles, e.g. Last Samurai, Edge of Tomorrow, but he's best as the psychopath. I hope as he ages out he'll dedicate his elder years to evil.
I loved this essay, yours are always great ones. It is funny how many around me tell me 'give up writing' or 'give up all else, why are you always agreeing to any job or contract you can get, when you got writing'. It is odd.
And yet, I need the structure of regular work, I need to either scrub toilets, teach classes or to swab a ship deck not just to put food on the table but for the structure. When I talk about my biggest dreams, I always imagine earning enough to make it a decent income but to balance it out with part-time work. Why? Because the structure, the schedule. Without that I go insane as too much free time is bad for me.
The sort of schedule that Martin has is crazy to me, and yet he never spends the time. You have to spend the time, you have to use it wisely but a regular job can be as much of a boon as it can be a curse. What is more is that you can't just dream like Max does, you have to actually be wise about it, you have to dream and press forward what advantages you have and be decisive and make a choice. It can be scary but necessary.
If I read the character of Max correctly, as portrayed in the Librarian's article, what he has done is to set an unrealistic goal--one which is *possible* to attain, in theory, but not likely. So he sits there in a sort of pipe-dream, using it as a sort of palliative to get by without much additional risk.
But I'm a big goal-setter; I require goals to find meaning in life. So over a long, long time I got to where I could form an ambitious, but attainable goal of worth, work toward it, complete it, and form another.
There are also scoped goals, in which intermediate goals are subsumed within a much larger goal. I think the problem a lot of people have is that they come to understand that goals are good, and they set a very big vague one, like retiring by 50. This is pretty vague and it is positive--if you really want this, which I would not set as a goal, since I'd view it more as a side benefit of attaining other goals, if you get my meaning.E.g., as a happy ancillary benefit of acquiring a specific piece of generational property, I *could*, if I want to, retire. But probably not...
A big, vague goal must be supported by smaller, incremental goals that are attainable as milestones. They must occur in the proper sequence--or work best if they do. THOSE are the goals that you need to identify and set correctly. Ideally you would not need to modify these smaller goals, but there's no real harm if you do *so long as the modification is compatible with the main goal*.
Seriously, I could not live my life without goals, and this is why a system of government social support, which would remove most of my possible goals, would be very, very tough for me.
I’d respectfully suggest the only false note in this post is your reference to your “superiors”. They’re just administrators, bureaucrats, managers. They preside over value creators and probably create little value themselves.
They are certainly not your superiors.
It may console you to conduct research on Bach’s working conditions, in a noisy school with only a thin wall separating his family quarters from the boisterous cacophony of the students.
In those blighted and nerve-wracking conditions he not only raised a large family but composed his angelic music.
AMDG as he wrote on every masterpiece - Ad Majorum Dei Glorium
"Our homes and the things we surround ourselves with, even our very lives, will ultimately be taken from us, whatever we do and whoever we are. We are meant to aim for higher things, and the remembrance of death places that stark truth in our conscious thought better than any philosophy seminar."
To quote Mel Gibson after seeing his home destroyed in the fires: "I have been relieved of the burden of my stuff."
I saw that, and I can’t believe I forgot to incorporate it.
Wonderful essay. I stumbled on that movie, Collateral, and was stunned by its excellence. I am not a Tom Cruise fan but was awestruck by his performance. You have drawn and elucidated some eternal truths from it. Bravo.
Thank you very much.
I recall seeing this film on DVD twenty years ago, and enjoying it, but I really need to see it again in light of this essay.
It rewards repeated and close viewings.
Heat and Thief are two other films of Michael Mann who I think are always worth another viewing.
Heat has to be one of the best studies of men, especially violent men, ever made.
Let me ask: have you seen "Killing Therm Softly"?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_Them_Softly
This was developed from a George V. Higgens novel of the Boston criminal underworld, "Cogan's Trade".
Higgens also wrote the great "Friends of Eddie Coyle", also made into a film starring Robert Mitchum.
FWIW, I've watched Killing Them Softly perhaps 5 times in the last three years. The title is ill-chosen. Disregard it.
I've loved that movie, but can't quite explain why. Need to rewatch it. Would you care to explain what made you like it?
It’s a moving meditation on the significance of the remembrance of death.
Wha', wha', *what*?
;^)
Collateral impressed me a lot when I first watched it, as a teenager, and yet more when I rewatched it many years later. You managed to put into words the impression I had about Vincent: the insensitivity resulting of living for efficiency as a supreme value. There is a moment where he is most furious at Vincent, I think is when the driver throws his briefcase from the bridge. He says something like "you are interfering with my work!" It is as if this is the gravest sin one could inflict upon him.
It really is very profound.
To me, it is a straightforward story of masculine human nature that is not constrained by anything other than struggles for basic status within an informal culturally male tradition.
It is effortlessly macho, with no posturing for effect, as is commonly found in Stallone-type movies. The characters just do what they do, just as you'd expect given their personalities, and not to impart any messages or symbolism, and if the viewer has trouble with this, they've probably been mediated from basic human motivations for most of their lives.
That would be good enough to satisfy me, but even better is that the storyline is played out in very interesting personal exchanges and actions by fine actors in a convincing manner.
I'm pretty skeptical and I'm dubious of most commercial film, in general, but this one really, really worked for me. Among other terrific exchanges there is one that I think is an all-time great, when the hired hit man has a dialog in a bar with one of his eventual victims, coercing him by implied threat balanced with a hint of goodwill toward him to help him kill one of the victims friends.
It is marred only by a silly "speech" by the main character at the end of the film. Critics--and they are usually trend-seeking whores, so far as I can see--try to interpret it as a comment against American commercialism/capitalism, but I see it as simply one character telling the other, in a direct fashion, that he sees the system he's working in, knows how it works, and is demanding something that he has a great deal of leverage over.
I might have to check that out.
LA Confidential was good, but Heat is one of the best movies I've watched. I enjoyed every bit of it. I think it's fair calling it Neo-noir.
As for the point, I don't think I would be able to produce anything creative if that were my whole career either. It's the struggle that drives some of us.
I hadn't thought of Unforgiven as noir. I'm sure I assumed the genre was inherently modern and urban.
Typically, but it can stretch quite a bit.
http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2020/the-10-best-noir-westerns/
I haven't looked at the list, but if both The Night of the Hunter and the original Cape Fear aren't on it, I will be indignant. Robert Mitchum played psychopaths twice, and was so talented that each one is significantly different from the other.
You've watched way more films than I have.
It’s never too late to start.
There aren't too many films I regret not seeing on the big screen (yes, I did view some at home). Thirty years ago I had become Orthodox under the influence of monastics and would soon be a clergyman, and distancing myself from cinema was part of that process. Walking away after finishing the doctorate was also part of it. There were several motivators in that move, but one was that I chose entering the society of the Church over entering academic society. And yes, I think your piece today on Chris Rufo is awesome.
You of course made the wise choice. I think there’s something to be said for being able to draw Christian lessons from movies like Collateral (remembrance of death, etc.) but the better part is to go to the sources.
It's L.A. because the Sun may rise in the East but at least it settles in a fine location.
Wow. Incredible essay!
Thank you so much.
Like all good criticism, this essay finds depths that casual viewers will miss. In fact, this essay is so good that it becomes art unto itself instead of just an analysis of art.
Thank you so much.
Where do you, or other readers/participants in this thread, see Training Day in relation to Collateral?
Fuqua, the director of TD, is pretty mediocre, IMO, but for whatever reason this film resonated with me in many exchanges.
"I had MY SHIT PUSHED IN, big time, bro!"
This is what Substack is for.
Thank you very much.
Superb piece. And thank you for making me look up the word “egregore”. An interesting concept in itself but looking into it dropped me into the path of The Manuscript found in Saragossa.
Thanks for this well written essay. Ive seen "Collateral" at least 3-4 times, agree it is far underrated, and have found it compelling and disturbing with each viewing. My wife hates it, won't watch it with me. Cruise's character reminds me of Cormac McCarthy's Shigur in No country for Old men. Both characters are efficient, trained and relentless, yet have some odd code , an off-kilter skewed set of rules by which they operate. Cruise calmly shooting the horn player at a table, is like Shigur, who kills the defenseless young wife who refuses to be cowed, but lets the clueless convenience store operator live because he is correct with heads and tails flips. Your closing argument is similar to one of my favorite "Denzilisms" from "Deja Vu" another really good movie that explores some of these notions. "Everything you have, you lose".
Mon semblable, mon frere, Mann's work has always fascinated me, his focus on realism (he's a licensed firearms instructor and obsesses over detail, e.g. some of Felix's bodyguards were actual psycho prisoners on day release) and his inherent, overpowering style; his best films are dreamlike, surreal, and yet brutal & grounded.
Apparently, Last Year in Marienbad is one of Mann's favourite films, surprising but it makes sense when you consider the closing 20 minutes of Public Enemies, Dillinger sauntering through the police office dedicated to his crew, then watching Manhattan Melodrama.
Collateral was for me Mann's last truly great film, one of Cruise's best performances; it is heavily stylised, implausible, but that just makes for a dreamlike atmosphere, as if the whole film is Cruise's final life review as he slumps in his seat, replaying his volition & loss thereof. Cruise really brought an extra dimension, e.g. when he's about to kill the cop who pulls Max's cab over, that look in his eyes is 100% legit, a mix of total focus and total coldness, if you asked what he was feeling he would accurately answer, Nothing.
Dare I say it but Mann's greatest film, and perhaps the greatest film of the 80s, is Manhunter.
Great stuff and yes, I think Collateral is peak Mann. Cruise’s only other serious villain role was in Interview with a Vampire, so I’m glad he got the chance to do this one.
Cruise is best as a cold predator with a missing or hated father, e.g. Rain Man and Magnolia, even Maverick in Top Gun is basically a nicer version of Vincent. He has done good hero roles, e.g. Last Samurai, Edge of Tomorrow, but he's best as the psychopath. I hope as he ages out he'll dedicate his elder years to evil.
Cruise can have some good roles, in spite of me having trouble suppressing the image of him singing Old Time Rock and Roll in Risky business.
I actually liked him in War of the Worlds.
Yep.
Incidentally, I wrote a short piece on Collateral on an earlier blog of mine, you might enjoy the Anonymous Conservative passage I quote:
https://quiggery.home.blog/2021/03/14/film-report-collateral/
I loved this essay, yours are always great ones. It is funny how many around me tell me 'give up writing' or 'give up all else, why are you always agreeing to any job or contract you can get, when you got writing'. It is odd.
And yet, I need the structure of regular work, I need to either scrub toilets, teach classes or to swab a ship deck not just to put food on the table but for the structure. When I talk about my biggest dreams, I always imagine earning enough to make it a decent income but to balance it out with part-time work. Why? Because the structure, the schedule. Without that I go insane as too much free time is bad for me.
The sort of schedule that Martin has is crazy to me, and yet he never spends the time. You have to spend the time, you have to use it wisely but a regular job can be as much of a boon as it can be a curse. What is more is that you can't just dream like Max does, you have to actually be wise about it, you have to dream and press forward what advantages you have and be decisive and make a choice. It can be scary but necessary.
If I read the character of Max correctly, as portrayed in the Librarian's article, what he has done is to set an unrealistic goal--one which is *possible* to attain, in theory, but not likely. So he sits there in a sort of pipe-dream, using it as a sort of palliative to get by without much additional risk.
But I'm a big goal-setter; I require goals to find meaning in life. So over a long, long time I got to where I could form an ambitious, but attainable goal of worth, work toward it, complete it, and form another.
There are also scoped goals, in which intermediate goals are subsumed within a much larger goal. I think the problem a lot of people have is that they come to understand that goals are good, and they set a very big vague one, like retiring by 50. This is pretty vague and it is positive--if you really want this, which I would not set as a goal, since I'd view it more as a side benefit of attaining other goals, if you get my meaning.E.g., as a happy ancillary benefit of acquiring a specific piece of generational property, I *could*, if I want to, retire. But probably not...
A big, vague goal must be supported by smaller, incremental goals that are attainable as milestones. They must occur in the proper sequence--or work best if they do. THOSE are the goals that you need to identify and set correctly. Ideally you would not need to modify these smaller goals, but there's no real harm if you do *so long as the modification is compatible with the main goal*.
Seriously, I could not live my life without goals, and this is why a system of government social support, which would remove most of my possible goals, would be very, very tough for me.
Definitely hear you on the last part, I need goals too so definitely agree.