The Cinema of Michael Mann

In this detailed portrait Rayner has constructed a comprehensive analysis that places Michael Mann's work alongside the important auteurs of the classical period. He makes a convincing case that Mann represents not so much a break with genre bending masters such as Hawks and Ford but a continuity. This is an important addition to the scholarship on Mann and to the work on contemporary American film and television studies. -- Dr. Michael Hammond, Senior Lecturer, Film Studies, University of Southampton This volume doesn't simply narrate the story of Mann's films, it provides us with a thoroughly grounded exploration, an informed and passionate study that is as revealing as it is engaging. This is a very impressive critical examination. -- Graeme Harper, Oakland University

Michael Mann is one of the most important American filmmakers of the past forty years. His films exhibit the existential concerns of art cinema, articulated through a conspicuous and recognizable visual style and yet integrated within classical Hollywood narrative and genre frameworks. Since his beginnings as a screenwriter in the 1970s, Mann has become a key figure within contemporary American popular culture as writer, director, and producer for film and television. This volume offers a detailed study of Mann's feature films, from The Jericho Mile (1979) to Public Enemies (2009), with consideration also being given to parallels in the production, style, and characterization in his television work. It explores Mann's relationship with classical genres, his thematic concentration on issues of morality and masculinity, his film adaptations from literature, and the development and significance of his trademark visual style within modern American cinema.