Movies - TV
Al Pacino And Robert De Niro's Suits Tell A Story In Heat
By BILL BRIA
In Michael Mann’s classic thriller “Heat,” it was a challenge to make Robert De Niro and Al Pacino’s characters distinctive while still executing Mann's thesis of the two characters being cut from the same cloth. However, legendary costume designer Deborah Lynn Scott devised suits for Pacino’s Hanna and De Niro’s McCauley that helped distinguish each of them.
Scott said, “De Niro’s character comes out of the prison system, basically. He’s so precise. That guy’s like a crisp white shirt, not a wrinkle.” In contrast to McCauley’s sharp, anonymous thievery, Hanna pursued criminals with swagger; as Scott explained, “His clothing was dark and moody, and he had, really, a signature ring that we found for him, that he really clung to.”
Scott cleverly built distinctive characters out of everyday elements, sharing, “You take the same items, a shirt, a suit, a pair of pants, and you just go absolutely opposites in terms of character development.” Ironically, when Hanna and McCauley meet their fate in the elegantly constructed final moment in “Heat,” they no longer look like black-and-white opposites, but more like shades of grey.