JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

Public Enemies is a gorgeous movie about the American myth of the outlaw. Specifically, the myth of John Dillinger as propagated by the media and consumed by the Depression-era public who cheered on bank robbers. Interesting that it comes out now, amidst another recession and public fury at the looters who took their money through legal means.

When Johnny Depp as John Dillinger is taken by car to a jail in Indiana, the street is lined with photographers, fans, and gawkers. He’s the biggest celebrity of his day. He is more myth than man: director Michael Mann, working with cinematographer Dante Spinotti, seems less interested in what’s going on in Dillinger’s mind than what’s going on in ours. We don’t have to know Dillinger’s motivation, his childhood traumas, or whether his mama loved him. That’s corny. Dillinger steals because he gets a charge out of it—you can feel it when he leaps over the counter of some hapless bank. The essential fact of Dillinger’s life is that he is a Star. Even he isn’t interested in his own past (which he mentions mockingly at a press conference); he is that most American of characters, a Jay Gatsby figure who invented himself.

The simple definition of fame is, You do it for them, they live vicariously through you. Sticking it to the system makes him a hero to the masses, and this, more than the loss of the money, makes him a dangerous man. One might argue that Dillinger deserves his celebrity more than today’s celebrities who don’t have so much as a scratch to show their audience. He certainly has cojones: in one scene he casually strolls into a police station. (Which accounts for the urban legend that his penis was not just unusually large, it was on display at the Smithsonian.)

Mann’s approach doesn’t make for psychological complexity, but what a great-looking picture. The story is told mainly in close-ups: this is John Dillinger’s world, we just live in it (plus Johnny’s beautiful). It’s significant that the historical Dillinger was a movie fan who was killed coming out of the cinema. He was living in a movie.