No other filmmaker has explored the psyches of people caught in extreme circumstances with the dominating consistency and cinematic power of MICHAEL MANN.  For three decades, Mann has remained one of cinema's most compelling filmmakers, and his level of artistry has created an indelible influence on the medium.  From Thief, Manhunter, Ali and Heat to The Last of the Mohicans and The Insider, as well as Collateral and Miami Vice, his lasting dramas have brought to the screen a series of tough, iconic figures embodied by the most commanding actors of our time. 
Now, in his most ambitious and timely project to date, the seminal gangster saga Public Enemies, Michael Mann directs one of our most gifted contemporary actors (JOHNNY DEPP of Pirates of the Caribbean series, Sweeney Todd) in the story of the fast and dangerous life of John Dillinger.
In the film, Mann teams with Depp to examine the man whose criminal exploits captivated a nation besieged by financial hardship and ready to celebrate a mythic figure who robbed the banks that had impoverished them and outsmarted the authorities who had failed to remedy their hard times, who inspired the first nationwide war on crime, who led a band of accomplished armed robbers on a cascade of dazzling heists and improbable breakouts, and whose dashing manner and charisma entranced not only a special woman but an entire country: legendary Depression-era outlaw John Dillinger.
For the epic action-thriller, Mann directs Depp, CHRISTIAN BALE (The Dark Knight, Terminator Salvation) and Academy Award winner MARION COTILLARD (La Vie en Rose, A Good Year) in the story of Dillinger, whose well-choreographed bank robberies made him the number-one target of J. Edgar Hoover's (BILLY CRUDUP of Watchmen, The Good Shepherd) fledgling FBI and its top agent, Melvin Purvis (Bale).
No one could stop Dillinger and his gang.  No jail could hold him.  His charm and audacious jailbreaks endeared him to almost everyone--from his girlfriend Billie Frechette (Cotillard) to Americans who were looking for a symbol to divert them from their everyday hardships.  They found it in the man who took from the banks the monies they felt the banks had wrongly taken from them.
But while the adventures of Dillinger's gang--later including the sociopathic Baby Face Nelson (STEPHEN GRAHAM of Gangs of New York, Snatch) and robber/kidnapper Alvin Karpis (GIOVANNI RIBISI of Cold Mountain, Lost in Translation)--thrilled many, Hoover planned to exploit the outlaw's capture as a way to elevate his Bureau of Investigation into the national police force that became the FBI.  He made Dillinger America's first Public Enemy Number One and sent in Purvis, the dashing "Clark Gable of the FBI," to snare him. 
However, Dillinger and his gang outwitted and outgunned Purvis' men in wild chases and shootouts.  Only after importing a crew of lawmen from the Dallas bureau and orchestrating epic betrayals--from the infamous "Lady in Red" (BRANKA KATIC of Big Love, The Englishman) to Chicago crime boss Frank Nitti (BILL CAMP of Reservation Road, Deception)--were Purvis, the FBI and their new crew of gunfighters able to close in on their prey. 
Drawn back to the very city where his obsession with both Frechette and bank robbing began, Dillinger, for once and for all, ended this pursuit by Purvis.  And when all was said and done, the entire country learned that with the death of one of its heroes came the birth of a legend.
Produced by KEVIN MISHER (The Interpreter, The Rundown) and Mann, the film was written by RONAN BENNETT (Lucky Break, Face) and Michael Mann & ANN BIDERMAN (Primal Fear, Copycat).  It is adapted from the book "Public Enemies" by BRYAN BURROUGH. 

A Common Enemy: Dillinger Inspires the Production
"There was no hint of hardness about him, no evidence save in the alert presence of armed policemen that he had spent his formative years in a penitentiary. He had none of the sneer of the criminal… Looking at him for the first time...he rates as the most amazing specimen of his kind ever seen outside of a wildly imaginative moving picture."

Chicago Daily News reporting on Dillinger at Lake County Jail news conference, January 1934

Though many essays, books, songs and films have told fascinating stories from the Great Depression, Michael Mann has long been interested in examining this turbulent era through the experience of a criminal who became a folk hero for a generation.  For Americans in the early 1930s, who watched their life savings vanish and became jobless and hungry, they found a hero in a man who robbed and challenged the banks that caused the collapse and the government that could not fix it: John Herbert Dillinger. 
Mann, who had previously written a screenplay about the era--about the famed train robber and bank robber Alvin Karpis--explains Dillinger's appeal: "Dillinger, probably the best bank robber in American history, only lasted 13 months.  He was paroled in May of 1933, and by July 22, 1934, he was dead.  Dillinger didn't 'get out' of prison; he exploded onto the landscape.  And he was going to have everything and get it right now."
"In assaulting the banks," the director continues, "and outwitting the government…to people battered by the Depression, it's as if he spoke for them. He was a celebrity outlaw, a populist hero."
While no time frame in either Dillinger's or nemesis Melvin Purvis' lives could be considered particularly ordinary, the filmmakers were interested in a very specific window as they imagined Public Enemies.  "It was this 14-month run of Dillinger's life that opened a window for us into a confluence of forces that were at work during this period of American history," says producer Kevin Misher.  "There was a nexus between John Dillinger, perhaps one of the more famous Americans of the 20th century; Melvin Purvis, the underanalyzed G-man; and J. Edgar Hoover, a titan of American history.  These three were in a dance of power and death."
Soon after his release from prison until late June 1934, Dillinger embarked upon a whirlwind bank-robbing spree across the Midwest that attracted fervent nationwide attention, especially from J. Edgar Hoover and his nascent Bureau of Investigation. 
To track and capture Dillinger, Hoover assigned a young, square-jawed agent named Melvin Purvis, whose profile actually inspired cartoonist Chester Gould in creating the look for Dick Tracy.  But Dillinger and his men proved to be much wilier than the FBI agents, who would eventually bring down such gangsters as Pretty Boy Floyd (CHANNING TATUM of Fighting, the upcoming G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra), or their boss could ever imagine. 
As they honed their techniques, Dillinger and his crew used a number of strengths to their advantage: a hardness hewn by years in prisons that were as lawless as they, the latest in automatic weaponry, a fragmented public safety system that had not yet been nationalized, state-of-the-art Ford V8 getaway cars and the knack for riding the wave of anti-banking sentiment from the very public whose banks they plundered. 
While they could easily argue with his methods, few who saw the newsreels during Saturday matinees would disagree that someone was finally "sticking it" to the fat cats who they felt had destroyed their lives.
Time and again, the outlaw embarrassed government at every level and escaped from seemingly impossible situations, including a breakout of his crew from Indiana State Prison in September 1933, an escape from the Lake County Jail in Crown Point, Indiana, in March 1934 and an evasion of Purvis at the Little Bohemia travel lodge in northern Wisconsin in April 1934.  And while his men never hesitated in the use of violence, the often chivalrous Dillinger could be counted upon to give money back to citizens during a bank robbery and not curse in front of female hostages. 
When it comes to the law and lawless, Mann understands and appreciates that truth is stranger than fiction.  Dillinger and his pursuers' story was just the inspiration he was looking for in his next project.  "Their mobility and use of technology made them almost invincible," he says.  "This was happening at a time when massive forces conspired against Dillinger: what Hoover built with the FBI--the first national police force, the first interstate crime bill, the use of very progressive, modern technology and data management.  They were doing what is routine in law enforcement now, but what had never been done before in this country."
Battling a doubtful Congress about the efficacy of his newly formed FBI, Hoover grew furious that Dillinger was becoming a folk hero to American citizens, while his schooled and polished agents were flubbing cases.  Many of his colleagues saw the head of the bureau as an inexperienced, puffed-up suit and didn't trust his methodology.  In a frustrated effort to escalate the pursuit by Purvis and his agents, Hoover enlisted the aid of a Western lawman, Special Agent Charles Winstead, and two of his associates to track Dillinger.  That, coupled with such orders to arrest relatives, girlfriends and associates of the criminals (in the FBI's efforts to get tough on crime), did the trick. 
While eluding the law, the bank robber had traveled across the country with girlfriend Billie Frechette, spending money in lavish quantities and rubbing elbows with the elite of Florida.  Eventually, Dillinger's luck ran out at the Biograph Theater in Chicago on July 22, 1934.  As the screening of Manhattan Melodrama ended and he left the movie theater, law enforcement officials--under the direction of Agent Purvis and with the help of a Dillinger traitor called the "Lady in Red" (Chicago madam Anna Sage)--put him to rest with a slew of bullets.
His legend only grew. 
For grisly souvenirs of their hero, devastated fans of the "Jackrabbit" dipped handkerchiefs in the pool left by his blood, and thousands lined up at the morgue to view his body.  From curious onlookers to lawmen, everyone wanted a piece of the legacy. 
Dillinger's primary antagonist, Melvin Purvis, received the lion's share of the credit.  And none were more unnerved by Purvis' accolades in the celebration of Dillinger's demise than J. Edgar Hoover.  Continues Misher: "Dillinger was so famous that when he was killed, Purvis became 'The Man Who Shot John Dillinger,' even though he was not the man who pulled the trigger.  As a result, Hoover started to resent the fame and acclaim that Melvin Purvis, G-man, had in the United States and drummed him out of the FBI."
Three-quarters of a century later, Dillinger's status as a legendary criminal is cemented.  From the classic image of his crooked smirk as he draped his arm around one of his admiring captors, to his status as one of Chicago's most famous residents, the dapper Dillinger remains iconic.  And no one would be more inspired by him than a man who grew up less than 160 miles from Dillinger's boyhood home of Mooresville, Indiana: an actor named Johnny Depp. 

Read more about: The Law and the Lawless: Casting the Film

Read more about: Gangster History: Designing and Lensing Public Enemies

Read more about: The Arm of the Law: Training for the Film

Hair & Makeup, Costumes

ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS

MICHAEL MANN (Directed, Co-Written and Produced by) has earned numerous honors for his work as a director, writer and producer, including four Academy Award nominations for The Insider and for producing The Aviator.  A Chicago native, Mann is recognized for his groundbreaking and cinematically captivating dramas, including Thief, Manhunter, The Last of the Mohicans, Heat, The Insider, Ali, Collateral and Miami Vice.
In the mid-1970s, Mann began a career as a television writer, and worked on Police Story, the first episodes of Starsky and Hutch and the series Vega$, which he created.  In 1979, he directed and co-wrote his first dramatic movie-of-the-week, The Jericho Mile, which starred Peter Strauss.  It garnered four Emmy Awards and a Directors Guild Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Movies for Television.
In 1981, Mann made his theatrical film debut with Thief, a crime story that starred James Caan, Tuesday Weld, Willie Nelson and James Belushi, and was nominated for the Palme d'Or Award at the Cannes Film Festival.  In 1983, he followed that film with The Keep, which starred Gabriel Byrne, Scott Glenn and Ian McKellen.  In 1986, he directed Manhunter, based on the first of Thomas Harris' Hannibal Lecter books, "Red Dragon," and featuring William Petersen, Joan Allen and Brian Cox as Lecter.
Throughout the 1980s, Mann continued to work in television with the revolutionary series Miami Vice and the acclaimed Chicago and Las Vegas drama Crime Story, which starred Dennis Farina.  In addition, he produced the 1990 Emmy Award-winning miniseries Drug Wars: The Camarena Story and the 1992 Emmy Award-nominated sequel Drug Wars: The Cocaine Cartel. 
In 1992, Mann directed, co-wrote and produced The Last of the Mohicans, which starred Daniel Day-Lewis and Madeleine Stowe.  He next directed the 1995 film Heat from his original screenplay.  The film depicted the taut relationship between an obsessive detective (Al Pacino) and a professional thief (Robert De Niro) and also starred Jon Voight, Val Kilmer, Tom Sizemore, Ashley Judd and Amy Brenneman, the latter two having their first major roles in the film.
In 1999, Mann earned Oscar nominations for co-writing, directing and producing The Insider, which starred Russell Crowe and Al Pacino.  Based on Marie Brenner's Vanity Fair article, the film tells the true story of Jeffrey Wigand, a tobacco-industry executive who blew the whistle on the tobacco industry, and 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman's conflict with CBS.
In 2001, Mann took audiences into the heart and struggles of Muhammad Ali in Ali, which starred Will Smith and Jon Voight, both of whom received Oscar nominations for their performances.  In 2002, Mann produced Robbery Homicide Division for CBS, which starred Tom Sizemore. 
In 2004, Mann directed Collateral, which starred Tom Cruise and Academy Award winner Jamie Foxx.  Mann earned numerous awards and nominations for this film, including the David Lean Award for Best Achievement in Direction at the 2004 BAFTAs. 
Also in 2004, Mann produced the Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator, directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Cate Blanchett.  This film led the 2005 Academy Awards contenders with 11 Oscar^® nominations, including Best Picture.  Blanchett won an Oscar for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role for her portrayal of Katharine Hepburn.
More recently, Mann wrote, produced and directed the big-screen version of Miami Vice, which starred Colin Farrell, Jamie Foxx, Chinese actress Gong Li and Naomie Harris.  He also produced The Kingdom, directed by Peter Berg and starring Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman.  In 2008, Mann was a producer on Hancock, also directed by Berg, starring Will Smith, Charlize Theron and Jason Bateman.   

RONAN BENNETT (Screenplay by) was brought up in Belfast, Ireland, and now lives in London. 
Bennett's film credits include Face (1997), which starred Robert Carlyle and Ray Winstone; Lucky Break (2001), a prison escape comedy directed by Peter Cattaneo; and The Hamburg Cell (2004), directed by Antonia Bird, about the men who planned and carried out the 9/11 attacks.
His television debut was Love Lies Bleeding (1993), directed by Michael Winterbottom and which starred Mark Rylance.  This was followed by A Man You Don't Meet Every Day (1994), Rebel Heart (2001) and the eco-thriller Fields of Gold (2002).   
He wrote all eight episodes of the landmark BBC series 10 Days to War, which starred Kenneth Branagh, Stephen Rea, Toby Jones, Harriet Walter, Art Malik and Juliet Stevenson, and was broadcast in March 2008 to mark the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.
Bennett is the author of five novels, including the hugely acclaimed "The Catastrophist" (1998, short-listed for the Whitbread Novel Award and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award) and "Havoc, in Its Third Year" (2005, winner of the Hughes & Hughes Irish Novel of the Year, long-listed for the Man Booker Prize and short-listed for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award).  His latest novel, "Zugzwang" (2007), was serialized for 30 weeks in The Observer in 2006 and has just been published in paperback (Bloomsbury USA).  It was short-listed for the Hughes & Hughes Irish Book Award in 2008 and has been translated into 14 languages.
He has written short stories and plays for BBC radio, and his memoir "Fire and Rain" (BBC Radio 4, 1994) won The Gold Award from the Sony Radio Academy.  He has been a regular contributor to The Guardian, The Observer, The Independent on Sunday, London Review of Books, Los Angeles Times, New Statesman and many other publications, writing on topics as various as the peace process in Ireland, the imprisonment of children in modern Britain, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the contemporary novel, chess and food.
Among the projects Bennett has in development are Darkness at Noon, an adaptation of Arthur Koestler's famous novel for Portobello Pictures/UK Film Council; Prince of the Marshes (working title) for Canal +/Plan B Films; Cherub: The Recruit, an adaptation of the best-selling young adult novel for Sarah Radclyffe Productions/BBC Films/HanWay Films and to be directed by Chris Smith; Reading in the Dark, an adaptation of the 1996 Man Booker Prize short-listed novel by Seamus Deane, to be directed by Tom Collins; Top Boy, a feature-length film for Portobello Pictures/BBC Films set in contemporary Hackney (Greater London); and A Most Wanted Man, an adaptation of John le Carré's novel, produced by Simon Channing Williams.

ANN BIDERMAN (Screenplay by) is an Emmy Award-winning writer of episodic television and motion picture screenplays.  She won an Emmy Award for her work on NYPD Blue and is the creator and executive producer of NBC's Southland.
Biderman's feature film credits are Smilla's Sense of Snow, which starred Gabriel Byrne and Julia Ormond; Primal Fear, which starred Richard Gere and Edward Norton; and Copycat, which starred Sigourney Weaver and Holly Hunter.

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