Opening to mixed reviews, Manhunter fared poorly at the box office at the time of its release, making only $8.6 million in the United States. However, it has been reassessed in more recent reviews and now enjoys a more favorable reception, as both the acting and the stylized visuals have been appreciated better in later years. Its resurgent popularity, which may be due to later adaptations of Harris' books and Petersen's success in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, has seen it labelled as a cult film.
Petersen has claimed in an interview that one of the film's scenes forced the crew to adopt a guerrilla filmmaking approach. The scene in which Petersen's character Will Graham falls asleep while studying crime scene photographs during a flight required the use of an airplane during shooting. Michael Mann had been unable to gain permission to use a plane for the scene and booked tickets for the crew on a flight from Chicago to Florida. Once on board, the crew used their equipment, checked in as hand luggage, to shoot the scene quickly, while keeping the plane's passengers and crew mollified with Manhunter crew jackets.[5]
Ted Levine, who later went on to play Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs, crashed Manhunter's wrap party to spend time with Petersen, whom he knew from their days in Chicago theater. Levine was later invited to audition for Crime Story as a result of meeting Mann at this party.[25]
Spinotti has commented on how Mann's use of mise en scÃne when framing shots evokes "the emotional situation in the film at that particular time," noting the director's focus on the particular shape or color of elements of the set. He has also drawn attention to the scene in which Graham visits Lecktor in his cell, pointing out the constant position of the cell bars within the frame, even as the shots cut back and forth between the two characters. "There is nothing in Manhunter ... which is just a nice shot," says Spinotti. "[It] is all focused into conveying that particular atmosphere; whether it's happiness, or delusion, or disillusion."[23] This "manipulation of focus and editing" has become a visual hallmark of the film.[26]
Petersen had difficulty ridding himself of the Will Graham character after principal photography wrapped. While rehearsing for a play in Chicago, he felt the old character "always coming out" instead of his new role. To try and rid himself of the character, Petersen went to a barbershop where he had them shave his beard, cut his hair and dye it blond so that he could look into the mirror and see a different person. At first, he felt it was due to the rigorous shooting schedule for Manhunter, but later realized that the character "had creeped in."[8]
Manhunter's soundtrack "dominates the film,"[27] with music that is "explicitly diegetic the entire way."[28] Steve Rybin has commented that the music is not intended to correlate with the intensity of the action portrayed alongside it, but rather to signify when the viewer should react with a "degree of aesthetic distance" from the film, or be "suture[d] into the diegetic world" more closely.[29] The soundtrack album was released in limited quantities in 1986, on MCA Records (#6182). It was not, however, released on compact disc at the time, but only on cassette tape and vinyl record.[30] On 19 March 2007, a two-CD set titled Music from the Films of Michael Mann was released, featuring four tracks from Manhunter: The Prime Movers' "Strong As I Am," Iron Butterfly's "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida," Shriekback's "This Big Hush," and Red 7's "Heartbeat."[31] In March 2010, Intrada Records announced that they were releasing the Manhunter soundtrack on CD for the first time, with an extra track, "Jogger's Stakeout" by The Reds.[32]
Visually, Manhunter is driven by strong color cues and the use of tints,[36] including the hallmark blue of Mann's work.[37] Dante Spinotti has noted that these visual cues were meant to evoke different moods based on the tone of the scenes in which they were used: cool blue tones were used for the scenes shared between Will Graham and his wife Molly, and unsettling greens and magentas were used for the scenes with the killer Francis Dollarhyde.[23] Steven Rybin has observed that "blue is associated with Molly, sex, and the Graham family home," while green denotes "searching and discovery," pointing out the color of Graham's shirt when the investigation begins and the green tone of the interior shots in the Atlanta police station.[29] John Muir suggests that this helps identify the character of Graham with the "goodness" of the natural world, and Dollarhyde with the city, "where sickness thrives."[36] This strongly stylized approach drew criticism from reviewers at first,[38] but has since been seen as a hallmark of the film and viewed more positively.[5][39]
Academic studies of the film tend to draw attention to the relationship between the characters of Graham and Dollarhyde, noting, for example, that the film "chooses to emphasize the novel's symbiotic relationships between Graham, Lecter [sic] and Dolarhyde [sic] by visual techniques and screen acting where subtlety plays a key role."[40] In his book Hearths of Darkness: The Family in the American Horror Film, Tony Williams praises the depth of the film's characterizations, calling Dollarhyde a "victim of society" and his portrayal "undermining convenient barriers between monster and human."[41] Philip L. Simpson echoes this sentiment in his book Psycho Paths: Tracking the Serial Killer through Contemporary American Film, calling Manhunter a "profoundly ambiguous and destabilizing film" which creates "uncomfortable affinities between protagonist and antagonist."[42] Mark T. Conard's The Philosophy of Film Noir follows this same idea, claiming that the film presents the notion that "what it takes to catch a serial killer is tantamount to being one."[43]
Manhunter was released in the United States on 15 August 1986. It opened in 779 theaters and grossed $2,204,400 in its opening weekend. The film eventually grossed a total of $8,620,929 in the US, making it the 76th highest-grossing film that year.[4] Because of internal problems at De Laurentiis Entertainment Group, the UK premiere was postponed for over a year.[5] It was screened in November 1987 as part of the London Film Festival[44] and saw wide release on 24 February 1989.[45] In France, Manhunter was screened on 9 April at the 1987 Cognac Festival du Film Policier, where it was awarded the Critics Prize.[46] It was also shown at the 2009 Camerimage Film Festival in ÅÃdź, Poland.[47] On 19 March 2011, it was screened at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood to celebrate the 25th anniversary of its release. Michael Mann was present for discussion at the event.[48]
Manhunter was released in a widescreen edition on laserdisc in 1986.[49] It was released on VHS several times, including by BMG on 10 October 1998[50] and by Universal Studios in 2001.[51] It has also been available on DVD in various versions. Anchor Bay released a two-DVD limited, numbered, edition in 2000, disc one being the Theatrical version and extras, disc two being the "Director's Cut." An individual release of the first disc [Theatrical version] from the two-disc set was released at the same time. In 2003 Anchor Bay released the "Restored Director's Cut," overseen by Mann, which is very close to the "Director's Cut" on the 2000 disc but omits one scene. It does, however, feature a commentary track by Mann.[52]
MGM (current holders of the rights to The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal) released the theatrical cut of Manhunter on DVD in a pan-and-scan format in 2004.[53] In January 2007, the same version was released by MGM in a widescreen format, for the first time on DVD, as part of The Hannibal Lecter Collection, along with The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal. Manhunter was also released by itself in September 2007.[53][54] The studio re-released The Hannibal Lecter Collection on Blu-ray in September 2009.[52][55] In 2016, Shout! Factory released both the theatrical and director's cut on Blu-ray.[56]
On its release, Manhunter was met with mixed reviews.[57] At first, it was seen as too stylish, owing largely to Mann's 1980s trademark use of pastel colors, art-deco architecture and glass brick.[58][38][59] A common criticism in the initial reviews was that the film overemphasized the music and stylistic visuals.[6] Petersen's skill as a lead actor was also called into question.[58][38][59] Particularly critical of the film's stylistic approach was The New York Times, which called attention to Mann's "taste for overkill," branding his stylized approach as "hokey" and little more than "gimmicks."[38] Chicago Tribune writer Dave Kehr remarked that Mann "believes in style so much that he has very little belief left over for the characters or situations of his film, which suffers accordingly," adding that the film's focus on style serves to "drain any notion of credibility" from its plot.[58]
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