#Thief 1981 criterion how to#
#Thief 1981 criterion series#

Well, surprise! Though billed as a director's cut, this isn't the same version. The film had aired in HD in both the revised cut and the theatrical one a handful of times, so the natural assumption would be that this would be the same source for the Blu-ray, too. When Criterion announced the release of Thief as a Blu-ray/DVD combo edition in early 2014, it was a major relief for fans tired of lackluster DVD transfer. That same transfer was reused for the MGM DVD release, non-anamorphic and looking very dated by turn of the '00s, but it retained the excellent Mann/Caan commentary track recorded for the laserdisc in which they talk at length about pretty much every step of preparation in making the film.

A few other minor editorial changes involving color timing and film speed were also imposed, though none of these were as extreme as the changes Mann imposed on the video releases of some of his other films like Miami Vice and The Last of the Mohicans. An additional two-minute scene was added after the heist sequence that opens the film with Caan and Willie Dixon sharing a breakfast at dawn on the river bank, while a lengthy shot of Tuesday Weld and the adopted baby walking along the beach in San Diego was excised entirely (causing a disruption in one of the score's best cues). Of course, they'd slapped two nominations on The Shining the year before, too.) Released theatrically with a running time of 122 minutes, Thief was released in the same version on VHS but was tweaked slightly by Mann when it carried over to laserdisc from MGM in the late '90s. (Astoundingly, the score was nominated for a Razzie Award, which just goes to show how off base the organization's taste can be at times. The impact of their work here would be hard to overstate as the sound would go on to become imitated for decades, while the group would go on to score many films throughout the decade including Near Dark and Risky Business. Perhaps the most distinctive element of the film is its atmospheric, often striking score by German electronic group Tangerine Dream, who had released several albums (with different member configurations) but had only scored one previous film, William Friedkin's Sorcerer. There's even a juicy role for Tom Signorelli, best known to horror fans for Alice, Sweet Alice.

#Thief 1981 criterion series#

Apart from the excellent Caan and Weld, the film boasts a fascinating cast including debut performances from Prosky (who went on to films like Christine) and Dennis Farina, who would star in Mann TV series Crime Story and Luck. At the time he had optioned a book by real-life thief Frank Hohimer (a pseudonym) entitled The Home Invaders, which remains a credited source on the film even though it was discarded entirely by the completion of the screenplay.

Mann's debut feature film, Thief was heavily influenced by the director's experiences at Folsom State Prison working on his solid made-for-TV film The Jericho Mile as well as a stint as one of the writers on Straight Time.

#Thief 1981 criterion how to#

Frank and his associate, Barry (Belushi), start to plan the job and figure out how to pull it off, but that turns out to be the least of their problems. A specialist in cracking safes and handling the delivery of diamonds, Frank reluctantly agrees to pull off one big job for crime boss Leo (Prosky), who indicates he'd rather keep Frank on indefinitely as a well-paid member of his team. There were definitely precedents to this heist opus in European cinema, particularly with Rififi and the films of Jean-Pierre Melville, but Mann's film gave the template a dynamic creative spin that would influence the neo-noir wave of the '80s and many films far beyond, most obviously Drive (which is essentially a love letter to both this film and The Driver.) The thief of the film's title is Frank (Caan), a seasoned Chicago jewel thief with hard time in his past who's planning to set up a life with the woman he's dating, Jessie (Weld). At the time its aesthetic was like a cold splash of water in the faces of viewers and critics accustomed to both the gritty realism and the glossy blockbuster showmanship born from the New Hollywood of the 1970s, but here was a film bathed in darkness, neon, and glittering surfaces, with a pulsating electronic score often communicating what its characters can never verbalize themselves. One of the most consistently exceptional American directors working today, Michael Mann was something of an unknown quantity when he shot Thief in 1980.

Starring James Caan, Tuesday Weld, Robert Prosky, Willie Nelson, James Belushi, Tom Signorelli, Dennis FarinaД¬riterion (Blu-Ray & DVD) (US RA/R1 HD/NTSC), MGM (DVD) (US R1 NTSC)/ WS (1.85:1) (16:9)