1983 Directed by Michael Mann
Nazis take over an ancient fortress that contains a mysterious entity that wreaks havoc and death upon them.
Scott Glenn Alberta Watson Jürgen Prochnow Robert Prosky Gabriel Byrne Ian McKellen William Morgan Sheppard Royston Tickner Michael Carter John Vine Wolf Kahler Jona Jones Rosalie Crutchley Frederick Warder Bruce Payne David Cardy John Eastham Philip Bloomfield Yashaw Adem Stephen Whittaker Ian Ruskin Stephen Jenn Benedick Blythe Robin Langford Renny Krupinski Peter Guinness Sean Baker Timothy Block Owain Griffiths Show All…
A Fortaleza Maldita, La Forteresse Noire, O Guardador do Mal, Крепость, Башня, Die unheimliche Macht, Pevnost, Το Οχυρό, La fortaleza, La forteresse noire, La Forteresse noire, Az erőd, La fortezza, ザ・キープ, Twierdza, A Fortaleza Infernal
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Either you "get" THE KEEP or you don't - this has nothing to do with comprehension (as the plot is almost impossible to fully understand), but of a very basic communication between kindred spirits. Either this film is on your heart's wavelength or it isn't, but I would hope that all film connoisseurs would be able to appreciate the massive effort required to create something unique. With such a completely tactile atmosphere (tactile in that you can practically feel it moving across your eyeballs), acting/dialogue/etc become somewhat irrelevant. That's where a lot of people dismiss THE KEEP, but I love the script and the people and the story and the bizarre-ness just as much as the mood. It is an…
90
An unresolved tumble into the ether. Michael Mann begins in the light of the sky and tilts down towards a convoy of Nazis as they arrive at a dead end, one of human fragility and limitation. Their aspirations of a higher force, a plane beyond mere moral existence, is the cusp of the incomprehensible beauty and horror of Mann's tattered masterwork, but the meat is in how they do not see the dead-end in front of them, which is impossible to overcome. It is only to see, never to touch. One of Mann's greatest final shots, with a cut to credits for the ages, and a stunning achievement of existential production design - the titular 'keep' is designed from…
Apologies for my absence from logging movies. I've been doing intensive self-care and meditation by watching all of Star Trek: DS9 again, but I'm back with another Michael Mann movie. In this one Mann gets trippier than he's ever been before or since with mixed results. In 1941 a squad of Nazis garrison at a mysterious castle in the Carpathian Alps in Romania and unleash an ancient and unspeakable evil that matches and feeds off of their own more contemporary form of unspeakable evil. You've got movies with Jürgen Prochnow in them as the "good" Nazi who we're made sure to learn fought AGAINST the fascists in the Spanish Civil War, Gabriel Bryne with a full fash haircut hamming it…
Now we are the masters of the world.
Michael Mann’s The Keep a film he disowned—in his wrong—is something that escaped me over the years waiting for a proper release that still hasn’t come, but what better way than watching via the criterion channel through their 80s horror lineup. would this be as haunting without the droning synth score by Tangerine Dream? Absolutely not, it adds fuel to the already burning hypnotic ambience.
Narratively, the main struggle, this is all over the place, in terms of comprehension cease to exist— mostly at fault is the fact that this is cut from three hours to a minuscule 96 minute film—to think this could have been Mann’s baby. the main focus is…
"Nightmares? Look, man, the real nightmares man has made upon other men in this war. The bad dreams of your keep are nursery rhymes by comparison."
F. Paul Wilson, the author of the novel from which Michael Mann's The Keep was adapted, has said that the film is "visually intriguing, but otherwise utterly incomprehensible." Normally I believe there's little value in asking authors what they think about movies which their books inspired, but in this case Wilson is absolutely right. Whatever other beauty The Keep might contain—and I happen to think there's quite a lot—at the narrative level it makes very little sense.
The film was originally over three hours long, and Paramount cut almost two hours from its runtime…
if you can come to terms with the fact that this is missing some key exposition that will tell you exactly what the creatures are and what their ancient battle is all about this is actually pretty easy to follow as a moody dreamscape fairy tale about an evil ideology of seductive, corrupting power unleashing a fleshy reflection of itself. it's pure droning supernatural expressionism filled with sudden intense romantic passion (the tangerine dream synths might be a bit of a cheat code there) and otherworldly confusion. whether intended as such or not it's sort of michael mann's prince of darkness.
[35mm scan version]
"What drives people out in the middle of a rainy night?" "Dreams."
Ok, I think this movie is fucking awesome. And it makes no sense! Mann's only stated reasoning for making this movie, "I wanted to make something, uh, expressionistic," doesn't even come close to what we end up. It's 90 minutes of total, glorious abstraction, the ultimate dream film (even if it wasn't (?) Mann's intention fully), the kind of things one thinks of as logical when they are in a half-awake state. But the only logic here is spacial and temporal. In a recent interview, he says “We’re programmed to hide, to hunt, to lust—so much of us is limbic-system response, and the amygdala will register dislike of…
this is almost a paul w.s. anderson film in its intense spatial horror and dreamy men-on-a-mission hangout vibe, a gonzo german expressionist noir underworld of supernal monstrosity. that unreleased 3.5 hour director's cut is probably the greatest film ever made; michael mann refuses to release it because he knows we're not ready for it, we aren't prepared to ascend to a higher plane of existence...
Alternative title: "Supermen in a cave". By any conventional measure Michael Mann's worst film, the early 80s FX is often terrible (and limits the film imagination some), Molasar design is a shame, the dialogue is wooden at best, the narrative was chopped into pieces by the studio, the Tangerine Dream score is as beautiful as it is dated, it is not even an easy auteurist fit as part of Mann's ouvre the way Blackhat is. But in the end that is pure bullshit, it is just dull and really don't help us discuss art that matters, and The Keep matters. It is beautiful and mad, and during the first and last half hours among the greatest things Mann has ever…
Action!: MANN MEN - In the Heat of Digital Mike's Manhunt
When it comes to films with huge potential that were squandered due to studio incompetence, Michael Mann's first (and so far, only) effort into the horror genre should be at the top of the list. It's easy to see that a lot of work went into making this film, and Mann and his team certainly deliver in spades, particularly in terms of the technical aspects, as evidenced by the film's excellent production design, some of the greatest atmospheric lighting work done in a film, and the massive amounts of smoke that give the film its captivating sense of style, all of which were magnificently captured by Alex Thomson's camera.…
Spooktober II: To Hell With the 80s
To the surprise of almost everyone, between his incredible debut on the big screen and his adaptation of "Red Dragon", the prolific Michael Mann had the opportunity to direct a very 80s horror movie with sci-fi elements. A super atmospheric film that looks like something a small studio would make but with a level of quality and cinematography not only indicative of a director who would go on to make big projects but someone who knows how to squeeze the budget and make the most of it.
Indeed, much of the mood and cinematography at times was very reminiscent of Highlander, especially those shots where there is a huge beam of light coming…
