{"id":14813,"date":"2012-03-31T23:53:07","date_gmt":"2012-03-31T22:53:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/?p=14813"},"modified":"2012-04-01T21:00:17","modified_gmt":"2012-04-01T20:00:17","slug":"film-notes-10-man-on-fire-2004","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/2012\/03\/31\/film-notes-10-man-on-fire-2004\/","title":{"rendered":"Film Notes #10: Man on Fire (2004)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/Man-on-Fire.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-14814\" title=\"Man on Fire\" src=\"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/Man-on-Fire.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"560\" height=\"280\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Tony Scott&#8217;s 2004 revenge drama starring Denzel Washington is Number 10 in my 30 day Film Notes series.<\/p>\n<p>For newcomers, this month-long series of posts involves me watching a film every day for 30 days.<\/p>\n<p>The following rules apply:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It must be a film I have already seen.<\/li>\n<li>I must make notes whilst I\u2019m watching it.<\/li>\n<li>Pauses are allowed but the viewing must all be one session.<\/li>\n<li>It can\u2019t be a cinema release.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The point is to capture my instant thoughts about a movie and my overall film diet for 30 days, as well as post interesting links to the film in question.<\/p>\n<p>Here are my notes on <strong>Man on Fire<\/strong> (2004) which I watched on BBC1 HD via PVR on Saturday 24th March.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There is a weird Harry Potter connection to this film: JK Rowling&#8217;s agent Christopher Little also represents the A.J. Quinnell &#8211; author of the book on which it is based.<\/li>\n<li>It has been filmed once before in 1987, with Scott Glenn in the Creasy role.<\/li>\n<li>In that film the action was in Italy but here it has been relocated to Mexico.<\/li>\n<li>Chanting music over opening titles, interchanging film stocks and the AVIDs are working overtime!<\/li>\n<li>Walken and Washington have an instinctive rapport &#8211; we immediately get the vibe that these guys know each other<\/li>\n<li>Dialogue establishes that they have been involved in some heavy stuff (ex-special ops)<\/li>\n<li>Harry Gregson&#8217;s score has been used in a lot of news documentaries<\/li>\n<li>Note the sound on the lighting of Mickey Rourke&#8217;s match &#8211; Scott loves a visceral audio mix.<\/li>\n<li>The fleet of cars driving across the landscape recalls REVENGE (1990) another revenge themed film Scott shot in Mexico.<\/li>\n<li>Some stylistic similarities between the two films, even though Scott has utilised the advances in digital editing and post-production<\/li>\n<li>Neat trick making Dakota Fanning a precocious child &#8211; she&#8217;s essentially playing a version of herself.<\/li>\n<li>Radha Mitchell was coming of the success of PITCH BLACK (2000) &#8211; she looks beautiful but her role is rather underwritten<\/li>\n<li>First time I&#8217;ve seen this in HD  and the clarity of image and golden hues are stunning (like his brother Ridley, Tony Scott is a master of light).<\/li>\n<li>Nice tension created about a possible kidnapping in the traffic through cutting and camera.<\/li>\n<li>Mitchell and Washington&#8217;s conversation is unusually constructed &#8211; use of zooms into the mirror used as well as conventional edits.<\/li>\n<li>The &#8216;Creasy getting drunk&#8217; scene is a little overcooked.<\/li>\n<li>Like the fact that Walken has several phones &#8211; well researched detail.<\/li>\n<li>Pita at the pool sequence is a good example of Scott&#8217;s attention to sound.<\/li>\n<li>Pita: &#8220;Creasy, what&#8217;s a concubine?&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Nice chemistry between Fanning and Washington<\/li>\n<li>Build up to the kidnapping is nice &#8211; interesting blend of camera moves, edits and sounds<\/li>\n<li>Note the calm of the classical piano<\/li>\n<li>Scott is using digital editing systems almost as a paintbox<\/li>\n<li>Old school editors must be turning in their grave at a film like this<\/li>\n<li>Like the fact that Spanish is spoken and the way the subtitles are done &#8211; slinking along the screen in sync with the words<\/li>\n<li>Bursts of Lisa Gerrard&#8217;s vocals are used in this film to indicate emotion &#8211; her extraordinary voice was first used in THE INSIDER (1999) and then GLADIATOR (2000)<\/li>\n<li>The visuals used to denote the kidnappers are insane<\/li>\n<li>Ransom demand scene is not quickly edited (although it feels like it) but the flashing and speeded up effects give that vibe.<\/li>\n<li>Like the way &#8220;La Hermandad&#8221; pops up in sync with dialogue.<\/li>\n<li>Reverse chopper shot of Mexico skyline used from earlier?<\/li>\n<li>Walken&#8217;s performance has a nice easy vibe that provides some welcome relief from the heavy drama.<\/li>\n<li>Rachel Ticotin previously filmed TOTAL RECALL (1990) in Mexico.<\/li>\n<li>Creasy quickly becomes a vengeful badass but that&#8217;s logical given his line of work.<\/li>\n<li>Finger cutting scene is intense but it&#8217;s the kind of sequence that would infuriate the late Pauline Kael and her many acolytes.<\/li>\n<li>Car falling off cliff recalls similar scene in THE LAST BOY SCOUT (1991).<\/li>\n<li>Creasy looks a bit out of place at the rave with that head scarf.<\/li>\n<li>I think Tony Scott should do a whole film set at a rave &#8211; really go to town.<\/li>\n<li>Split screen, bleach bypass, hand cranked cameras &#8211; this is visual overload!<\/li>\n<li>One way Scott and his DP Paul Calderon relieve the furious style is to cut to a relatively pristine image.<\/li>\n<li>The dancers cheering Creasy&#8217;s shotgun blasts is an effective touch &#8211; shows the atmosphere of mayhem.<\/li>\n<li>Great night time photography in the conversation between Washington and Ticotin<\/li>\n<li>Walken line about Creasy&#8217;s art is priceless &#8211; still not sure if it&#8217;s delivered with a metaphorical wink to the audience<\/li>\n<li>Would it really be practical to fire a rocket launcher into a busy Mexican high street?!<\/li>\n<li>Impressive explosion and flames however, plus this scene gave us the poster image.<\/li>\n<li>Great location for the ass bomb scene. Really notice the lighting in HD.<\/li>\n<li>It would have been really cool if the on screen stopwatch had synced in real time.<\/li>\n<li>Washington&#8217;s delivery of his lines in this scene is excellent.<\/li>\n<li>I bet someone somewhere has actually used the line &#8220;I wish. You had. More time!&#8221; just to be a badass.<\/li>\n<li>Tony Scott was clearly born to shoot in Mexico.<\/li>\n<li>Interior lighting of characters is tremendous.<\/li>\n<li>Radha Mitchell doesn&#8217;t seem that distressed her husband has just blown his head off in their home.<\/li>\n<li>It would be fair to say that this film is not a study of the social conditions that produce violence and kidnapping.<\/li>\n<li>Creasy refusing money and blowing the hand off the Voice&#8217;s brother shows he really doesn&#8217;t care about what drives the ransom business (i.e. money)<\/li>\n<li>Nice reverse offer from The Voice (&#8220;I will give you her life for your life&#8221;).<\/li>\n<li>Interesting choice of time and location for the climax (often films end<\/li>\n<li>Great shooting and use of music for the end.<\/li>\n<li>Film has a slightly different resonance after the Fritzl case and all the subsequent kidnap films which almost became a Euro subgenre.<\/li>\n<li>Like the way a mainstream film doesn&#8217;t wimp out at the end.<\/li>\n<li>Nice symbolic touch of him dropping the St Jude medallion at the end and the credit that gives the date of the final day (Dec 16th 2003)<\/li>\n<li>Alternate ending has Creasy going to the house of the Voice and blowing it all up.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><script src=\"http:\/\/storify.com\/filmdetail\/film-notes-10-man-on-fire-2004.js\"><\/script><noscript>[<a href=\"http:\/\/storify.com\/filmdetail\/film-notes-10-man-on-fire-2004\" target=\"_blank\">View the story &#8220;Film Notes #10: Man on Fire (2004)&#8221; on Storify<\/a>]<\/noscript><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tony Scott&#8217;s 2004 revenge drama is Number 10 in my 30 day Film Notes series.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14814,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2487],"tags":[1046,2512,1659],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14813"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}