James Caan is using his power tool (calm down) to drill into a safe. If you want to burrow down further into metaphor land (albeit in a more playful but ultimately silly way), you could interpret Thief's opening scene as overtly sexual. Let's also credit Mann's choice of music for ratcheting up the scene's sultry and seductive power – Coelcanth by Shriekback. And it is beautifully played, directed and acted. It's both dangerous and tender, not to mention adventurous, surprising and almost bursting at the seams with eroticism. She feels the hot breath of the tiger on her arm.Īs visual and sensual metaphors for sex go, this is one of the finest I've seen in a mainstream movie. Leaning against the wall, Noonan watches in a physical delirium. She reaches out and her exploring hands go down on soft fur and push through all the way to the massive head, fangs and jaws. He takes her to a vet (animal, not Vietnam) where a prone tiger lies sedated waiting to have a tooth capped.
#Thief 1981 images movie#
If you don't know the movie (and you really should check it out and no playing the tiger scene out of context, please), the serial killer, Francis Dollarhyde, played by Tom Noonan has met a blind girl at work, Reba, convincingly and warmly played by Joan Allen. Not letting the broad assertion go by with a pliant nod, I pulled up the tiger scene from Manhunter on You Tube (also directed by Michael Mann). I offered the famous scene between Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie in Don't Look Now. He was talking about the finer points of communication between two people in love (or not) engaged in the physical act. By 'sex' he didn't mean the mechanics of pornography. A hugely experienced and award winning director said to me recently that Americans (as in Hollywood) just can't do sex on film.
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