Thanks to Goga, who left me this link (on my Michael Mann social network site) to an interesting article on Public Enemies, an excerpt from which is below:
In making "Public Enemies," Mann opted for digital high definition video for the very reason I once thought it could never achieve the aesthetic appeal of film imagery—its "nowness." In interviews Mann has stated that in telling Dillinger's anti-heroic, Depression-era story, he did not want the distancing, nostalgic look conveyed by conventional emulsions. Rather he wanted the viewer to have a sense of 1933 happening in the present, a visual "now" style which he said might suggest a "hyper-reality." That style is as compelling as the narrative it underwrites. And having seen the movie a second time, closely studying the way the digital high definition camera can be used to create a new, uniquely expressive form of screen art, I must confess I can see a real future for it in movie theaters. With "Public Enemies," Michael Mann has paved the way.
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