In Collateral, Vincent (Tom Cruise) and Max (Jamie Foxx) are
continuously together, throughout almost the entire movie.
In Manhunter, Will Graham (William Petersen) and Francis Dollarhyde
(Tom Noonan) don't meet each other until their showdown at the end
of the movie.
The first thing we'll look at in this post, are some of the similarities between the characters Will Graham (Manhunter) and Max Durocher (Collateral). Both men appear to be going through an alchemical process and it's concordant Jungian process of individuation (both of these topics, alchemy and individuation, were discussed earlier in the analysis.) Max's four nigredos were discussed in part 9 of this analysis. Max's second stage (after his first nigredo, when a dead man falls onto the top of his taxi), his ablutio, is represented by his pouring a bottle of water over his taxicab in an attempt to wash the blood off of it. As mentioned earlier, Graham's nigredo occurs just after he visits Lecktor, and his rubedo occurs at the end when he defeats Dollarhyde (recall that the red dragon, whom Dollarhyde represents, is associated with the rubedo.) The rubedo, being the final stage of the alchemical Great Work, corresponds, in Jungian psychology, to the discovery of one's true nature. At the end of Manhunter, Graham discovers that it's his true nature to kill - he kills Dollarhyde and rescues Reba. Similarly, in Collateral Max rises to the occasion and defeats Vincent, by killing him in order to save Annie. In both cases, a man has become like a killer in order to stop a killer.
In the audio commentary for Manhunter, Mann states that "[it] is a very different Graham later in the motion picture than at the beginning." Similarly, Max Durocher starts out as a mild-mannered man, but by the time of his meeting with Felix in the El Rodeo club, we see that he has become a very different person: recall that during this meeting, he tells Felix to tell the bodyguard standing behind him (i.e., behind Max), who has his gun partially drawn, to "put his gun down - or I'll beat [him] to death with it."
Yet another similarity between Will and Max is that in Manhunter, Graham has been watching the Leeds and Jacobi home movies periodically throughout his investigation, and then near the end he experiences the 'revelation' which causes him to realize how Dollarhyde selects his victims. Corresponding somewhat to this is the fact that Max meets Annie at the beginning of Collateral, so knows of her throughout the movie, and then has his 'revelation' that she is to be Vincent's fifth hit much later in the film. In both cases, the hero has a 'delayed' revelation which is dependent upon something or someone he has become acquainted with very early in the movie.
It is possible that Max visits his mother in the hospital, for basically the same reason that Will periodically touches base with his wife, Molly: Each man is 'using' the people in his environment to 'manipulate' his own state of mind (as discussed in part 2 of this analysis).
Now let us look at the similarities between the killers in each movie, Francis Dollarhyde (Manhunter) and Vincent (Collateral). In one of the featurettes on the 'bonus' DVD that came with my edition of Collateral, Mann states that the background to Vincent is that his mother died in childbirth, and he was raised in foster homes. It also appears that he was physically abused by his father (Mann says Vincent is not really joking when he tells Max this, even though Vincent claims he is joking.) The correspondence to Dollarhyde is that Francis was abused as a child, a fact we learn during the 'revelation' scene in Atlanta. Graham is here empathizing with Dollarhyde; we can also possibly take it that Max empathizes with Vincent somewhat, as evidenced by his reaction to Vincent's answers to questions Max asks his about his background. In any event, both Francis and Vincent are characters that evoke some level of sympathy from the audiences of the respective movies.
Also on the Collateral bonus DVD, Mann mentions that Vincent is not someone who would 'stand out' in public: "Vincent would not be noticed - that is part of his tradecraft." Similarly, Dollarhyde maintains an apparently ordinary lifestyle, and would not particularly be noticed (except perhaps for his facial defect). The ability to pass through everyday life 'anonymously' is of obvious benefit to both a hit man and a serial killer. The idea is that no-one knows what either man does to people.
Also in the Collateral audio commentary, Mann states that that Max is someone who is indecisive, and has to pre-plan everything; whereas Vincent is decisive, and can improvise. I'm not really sure if there's a correspondence to Manhunter here, other than to note that Dollarhyde 'pre-plans' his killings, in the sense that they all occur on full moons, and that he views the victims' home movies ahead of time to determine exactly what equipment he will need. Mann notes that Vincent's first anomaly (i.e., Vincent's first deviation from what Mann calls his "machine-like behavior"), occurs when he experiences some amount of regret over killing the jazz club owner. The second anomaly is when he goes to visit Max's mother. Somewhat similarly, Dollarhyde's anomaly is when he meets Reba and begins to date her. In deviating from their normal procedures, both men are like Neil in Heat, in that this deviation may be one thing which leads to their downfall. [UPDATE 12/21/11: Vincent may, to some extent, be a representation of the HAL computer character in Stanley Kubrick's movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey; then, the anomalies or deviations in Vincent's behavior would represent the same in that of HAL's.]
In the audio commentary for Manhunter, Mann states that he based the Dollarhyde character on a real (imprisoned) serial killer whom he corresponded with over a period of time, Dennis Wayne Wallace. Mann says that Wallace was fascinated by vacuum tubes, believing that the glow from the spark in a tube held a clue to his identity. This idea clicks with something Mann says on the Collateral audio commentary: A large amount of steel was used in the subway scene, to give the "sense that [Annie and Max] are running into some place metallic, almost like a metallic tube". We note that just after Vincent hops onto the back of the subway train that Annie and Max are in, as it begins to move down the tracks, we see a momentary flash of bright white light in the subway tunnel, a flash which appears as if it has come from sparks next to the moving train. Also during this scene, Mann says, "there's something subterranean going on with Vincent"; recall that Dollarhyde is a Satan figure.
We'll wrap up this post with some miscellaneous observations about the two movies. First, note that in each movie, the audience is effectively 'dropped' into a pre-existing situation, a set of circumstances and relationships which already exists before the film begins. In my analysis of Manhunter, the prior relationships among some of the characters was discussed, for example, the fact that Molly and Dr. Bloom had been married and divorced prior to movie's beginning. Similarly, there is a pre-existing situation prior to Collateral, in that when Vincent is shown in the airport at the beginning, he already has his 'assignment' (the hit list); and, related to this, there is the issue of the case to be brought by Annie. The basic scenario whereby the hits are to be performed, who is to be killed, and the reason for killing them, already exists prior to the start of the movie.
Another thing to note is that in both movies, much or most of the action occurs at night. Also, the phone conversation between Annie and Max near the end of Collateral, is somewhat like the walkie-talkie conversation between Graham and Crawford near the end of Manhunter, while the two men are in Dollarhyde's back yard: the similarity is that it seems that in both cases, there is particular emphasis on one party getting the other to listen - there seems to be some problem in communicating.
Finally, in the audio commentary for Collateral, Mann notes that Vincent and Max are "oppositional". This is obviously true of Graham and Dollarhyde.
