In this Time Richard Corliss piece about the battle between celluloid and digital photography, director Michael Mann (Collateral, Heat) argues that digital is “capable of a chromatic subtlety that film can’t match.” Collateral, Mann claims, was “the first photo-real use of digital…[and] in the nightscapes in Collateral, you’re seeing buildings a mile away. You’re seeing clouds in the sky four or five miles away. On film that would all just be black.” Mann used the same digital process to shoot his big-screen version of Miami Vice with Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx.
