In part 3, depictions of movement of the Holy Spirit in some of Michael Mann's movies were discussed. In the bible's Gospel of John, chapter 20, verses 20-23, a correspondence is drawn between breath, and the Holy Spirit:
20. [T]hen the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
21. Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you."
22. When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit."
23. "If you received the sins of any, they are forgiven them. ..."
[New Revised Standard Version; emphasis not in original.]
The topic of breathing, and/or things related to it, come up in at least two of Mann's movies:
One of the characters in Thief, Okla, develops angina while he is in prison. The full name for angina is angina pectoris, which, translated from the Latin, means "a strangling feeling in the chest." Later, Okla dies from the disease.
From Thief: Okla in his hospital bed.
In Heat, Waingro gasps for breath just before he dies. In Mann's audio commentary to the movie, he says that when Waingro escapes from Neil early in the movie, he (Waingro) "is like a contagion in the air."
From Heat: Waingro.
Also in Heat, Neil tells Vincent, during their conversation in the deli, about a recurring dream he has in which he is drowning. Neil says, "I have to wake myself up and start breathing again, or else I'll die in my sleep."
