The birth of Mann
THE EMPIRE
MASTERPIECE
THAT THING MEN do in Michael Mann
fi lms, that obsessive and nihilistic act where they
burn down their lives and bail when they feel
the heat around the corner — that all arrived
fully formed in Thief, Mann’s fi rst feature fi lm
as writer and director. Released in 1981 with
a Tangerine Dream score, Thief is the emotional
blueprint for every fi lm he’s made since.
James Caan stars as Frank, a
thirtysomething, no-nonsense, safe-cracking jewel
thief who’s been out of the joint for four years
after 11 behind bars. “You gotta forget time,” he
says, explaining how he made it through prison.
“You gotta not give a fuck if you live or die. You
gotta get to where nothin’ means nothin’.” But
now time is all he can think about: his ailing
prison father-fi gure Okla (Willie Nelson)doesn’t want to die in his cell, and Frank’s fi nally
got something to live for in the family he’s planning
with cashier girlfriend Jessie (Tuesday Weld). He’s
desperate to catch up with the rest of the world
by doing one last job for prominent gangster Leo
(Robert Prosky) with his partner Barry (James
Belushi), and by cramming in the big life plans
that everyone else had an extra decade to do.
Like Al Pacino and Robert De Niro sitting
in a diner in Heat, the most memorable scene in
Thief has no guns. It’s also in a diner, Frank and
Jessie sat in a booth, Frank laying out the life
plan that he cut out of magazines in his prison
cell and glued to a card he keeps in his wallet. It’s
him telling her where she fi ts into it and hoping
she’ll come with him. In a Michael Mann movie
the diner is where you come clean late at nightWORDS HAYLEY CAMPBELL1981 / RATED R18+