Public enemies - book versus film?

I had bloody high hopes for 'Public enemies'; I had it built up into a cross between 'The untouchables' (the era, the suits, the guns) and 'Heat' (Michael Mann, bank robberies, guns, the good cop-bad robber duality, the technical excellence of the film-making), and such reference points raised my excitement levels to near dangerous values; I also like, if not exactly love, Depp and Bale. However, three weeks after seeing it, I am shocked to find that I actually remember very little about it, bar a general memory of it being good but not great, some confusion over telling which of the minor characters were which, and complete confusion about how Dillinger got away from the car in the field after the Little Bohemia shootout.

However, recently, the day before going to France on holidays, I was faced with a brief crisis as to whether Anthony Beevor's D-day (no irony intended, except maybe a tiny bit) in hardback was in every sense too heavy for the beach, and I impetuously bought Bryan Burroughs book 'Public enemies', on part of which (the Dillinger bit) the film was based.

Before book and movie, I knew little about Dillinger except some great quotes like the fact that he robbed banks was because that was where the money was. The movie filled in some more, and then the book showed that what it showed was a tiny shapshot of a huge canvas, like looking at the roof of the Sistine Chapel through a periscope; not only that, the bits that made it into the movie generally sloughed off their historical accuracy on being prised free of the page.

In his introduction, the author basically won me over irrevocably by saying he hoped the reader would derive as much pleasure from reading the book as he had from writing it, which I loved, and I certainly have proven him right. It is a hell of a tale, covering a whole cast of low-lives such as Machinegun Kelly, Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, Bonnie and Clyde, Ma Barker and Dillinger himself. These guys all knew each other, and their reign of crime lasted less than two years (1933-1934) and criss-crossed the US and each other, which the fledgling FBI tried, frequently ineptly, to catch up. While the War on Crime was the making of the modern FBI, the genesis was pretty rough and amateur, and Melvin Purvis in the book is a lot less impressive than his filmic counterpart. With all the ambushes, killings on all sides, double-crosses, snitches, gritty (apparently authentic) dialogue and cast of colourful scumbags, it would be hard not to make an exciting story out of it, and Burroughs is a skilled story-teller who rises to and then far surpasses that bar. He has the ability to turn from lyrical descriptive prose to short hard-boiled declarative sentences as the story turns to suit the mood which adds a cinematic feel to the writing, the changes in style of writing acting as an analogy to changes in tempo of music to add emotional cues to a film.

In fact, the scenes in the book feel a lot grimier and dirtier, even bloodier (the descriptions of the aftermaths of gunfights, and crude plastic surgeries including fingerprint 'removal' are fairly graphic), and a lot more chaotic and less glamorous than the film, perhaps inevitably; one cannot help but wonder if a broader canvas would not have helped the movie, but this perhaps would have needed a much longer movie (or several, or a mini-series like Band of Brothers). In fact, I cannot help but wonder if Mann and his screenwriters picked out perhaps the least exciting threads of the book for their movie. Much has been made by critics (including my guru Mark Kermode) of the use of digital cameras for the film, and perhaps there was indeed something technically impressive but aesthetically sterile resulting from this that just did not suit the subject matter.

The book also includes several poignant and emotional scenes; strangely (I suppose), these to me belong to the characters from the wrong side of the cast of thousands. One involves Bonny (of ..and Clyde) talking to her mother about her impending violent death and asking her saying 'Bring me home when I die It's been so long since I was home I want to lie in the front room with you..sitting beside me. A long, cool, peaceful night together before I leave you. That will be nice and restful'. Goose-bumps for me, not sure about you, even if she was a deluded psycho-killer. Another involves Alvin Karpis, allegedly the brightest of the era's criminals, being released after a long stretch in Alcatraz and going to live in Torremolinos in Spain, where no-one would believe he was once a tough guy who knew Capone, Dillinger and Manson, and who eventually died of an (accidental?) overdose of sleeping pills; I keep picturing Ray Winstone in 'Sexy beast, for some reason, but with long years of (possibly) regret and incarcerated loneliness a far scarier monster than Ben Kingsley.

I found an interesting old newsreel clip on Youtube of the real characters as below:

As another thought, on reading the book and seeing how the FBI's 'War on crime' was marked by initial gross ineptitude and inexperience, with success only coming through increasing suspension of civil liberties, use of snatches of suspects on dodgy grounds, summary executions, and increasing levels of violence and torture, one can only reflect that a much more recent entry in the series of 'Wars on....' was not digging up new tactics after all, the enemy was just closer to home.

Anyway, I am actually interested to see the movie again now, to compare with the book; I know some parts where the real story was changed will annoy me, but knowing the depth of backstory will add a lot to it for me. However, I cannot help but conclude that this was a much better book than film, and urge anyone who found the latter even slightly interesting to immediately seek out and devour the former.