In the late 1940s, Anthony Mann directed some of our most iconic film noirs, his collaboration with cinematographer John Alton imbuing the genre with elements of ambiguity and thrilling artistry. Throughout the 1950s, Mann made a string of renegade Westerns that remain strikingly modern in their refusal of simple truths. Then, in 1961, Mann directed the epic El Cid, now widely considered the artistic pinnacle of the spectacle. What Anthony Mann may be most famous for, however, is being “the most neglected major American director of the sound era” (American Film).
This season we pay tribute to Mann for the richness of his mise-en-scène, the expression of a worldview that is disturbing and complex. Critic Manny Farber referred to “Mann's inhumanity to man.” In these dark films, the bad guys are a piece of work, to be sure. But what sets Mann apart is that his heroes also are distinguished by their flaws. Even El Cid's shining moment is as a corpse. Mann doesn't necessarily like his troubled protagonists but, like a good shrink, he is there for them. He brilliantly casts Jimmy Stewart against type-as the opening salvo of The Man from Laramie asserts, “Hate's unbecoming in a man like you”-then ushers him across a vista of grief. For the Mann of the West, the wilderness is an internal landscape, its challenges reflecting the tensions within, and only then between, his characters.
Critic Jonathan Rosenbaum observes, “If Mann is less known than other (classic Hollywood directors) it may be because his painterly gifts tend to wither on TV screens.” Art, like the devil, is in the details.
Judy Bloch