Quoting Yoel Meranda <yoel.meranda@...>:

> I would listen very carefully to anyone claiming "Heat" is better, or
> much better, than "Miami Vice". "Heat" and most of Mann's other films
> have far better character development, that is true. Is character
> development a necessary condition for a movie to be good? I don't
> think so.

Yoel, again I apologize for not being able to write more
at the present moment as you hold the fort practically by yourself
on a filmmaker you and I both love. But you're absolutely right,
cinema at its best can overcome those nagging questions about
character development because its form and delivery is at the heart
of its message (both plot and personage wise). As Chabrol said,
the plot and characters of "Sunrise" are pretty basic and simplistic
if you look at it, but everything that makes that film one of the
towering masterpeices of cinema has to do with the way in which
these rudemantary elements are presented, and this delivery of
form is what becomes complex. We are not dealing with newsletters
here but engaging pieces of art that makes us feel something through
their uncommon power at engaging our senses through a new
type of langauge that should be different from the novel or
theater play (it's a different art form!).
The battle you have been fighting for "Miami Vice"
I have been fighting for years for "The Last of the Mohicans",
which to me represents everything powerful about the cinema
as a language of its own. There are not as many 'discussions'
as a film like "Heat", and yet just as much information seems to
be passed along, and the rest is dedicated to true feeling
and rapture. I love "Heat" as well, but there's something about
"Mohicans" that for me evokes even more the essence of my
"Sunrise" example, and I think that's what you're getting at
with "Miami Vice". Again, more to come as soon as I have the time,
you definetly shouldn't have to fight this battle alone.

Mathieu