Joe Pugliese

Since Michael Mann's 1980s days—directing James Caan in Thief, or producing/directing Miami Vice—he's earned a reputation as the guy who makes sleek films that happen to be smart, or maybe just smart films that happen to be sleek. Either way, his love of cityscapes and of moral ambiguity have combined for a signature style that's as compelling as it is technically proficient: gritty, atmospheric establishing shots paired with intricately crosscut sequences that turn subtext into art. For his latest, January's Blackhat, the master of palette trains his lens (and pen) on international hackers—and our growing fears of cybercrime. WIRED sat down with the 71-year-old writer-director at his LA office to find out how he manages to never go out of style.

So what made you want to do a hacker film?

I became interested in hacking after Stuxnet. It's as if there's an invisible exoskeleton of data that we're swimming around in, and everything is connected to everything else. The technocrats think every little can opener is going to change the way we live our lives, which is nonsense. This is the first piece of serious technology that changes the way we live our lives—it's as democratizing as the printing press.

Hacking does seem more serious.

If you are a blackhat hacker, why do you do what you do? There's very much a “Who says I can't climb that mountain, who says I can't find a vulnerability?” thing. There's a positive-feedback loop. You could spend six hours gaming and it feels like 20 minutes went by, but the outcome is in a domain of fantasy. Blackhat hackers have exactly the opposite motivation. The outcome is impacting the real physical world.

There seems to be a bit of that in the recent celebrity hacking scandal—finding the forbidden.

That, to me, is some bizarre form of voyeurism. It's boring. I'm much more interested in revelations about Russian hackers.

In Blackhat, Chris Hemsworth plays a hacker helping authorities catch a fellow blackhat. FRANK CONNOR/LEGENDARY PICTURES/UNIVERSAL PICTURES

Your movies typically spend a lot of time with bad guys. Are hackers your new gangsters?

I don't know what gangsters are, but I do know what cybercrime is. Whether it's coming from Estonia or Russia or the Ukraine or China or Taiwan or Mumbai, it's about making a lot of money. It's very, very sophisticated.

Yet, hacker culture hasn't gotten the most accurate treatment in Hollywood.

I was a pupil in this stuff. We spent time with Mike Rogers, who was head of the House Intelligence Committee. In the movie, the things people are typing and the text you see are all the real thing.

Did you go back and look at any other movies about hacking, for the visual style?

Watching people type is boring. And I didn't want to represent the inside of a chip as being a guy on a motorcycle on a bridge. I wanted to represent, as realistically as possible, the idea that a data packet is going in with an address that says, “I'm OK, let me through your firewall,” but hidden within it is a tool that can open up a back door. The sequence goes inside the computer and uses the actual shape of a transistor: one piece of conductive metal that has a surplus of electrons, and one with no electrons. The one license we took is we made them be two different colors.

You put a lot of detail into the music of your films as well. What was the process on Blackhat?

I worked with a number of composers on this one because I wanted different things from different people. It's like casting actors. The film is an adventure of a narrative, and the story changes radically about three times, so there are very different conditions emotionally. That changes the music. So Atticus Ross does one thing, Harry Gregson-Williams does another thing, Ryan Amon does another thing, and then Mike Dean does something else. Mike Dean is Kanye West's keyboardist and producer—a very talented guy.

Mann’s films often feel like a love letter to a single city. Joe Pugliese

You've worked frequently with actors who want meatier roles, like Will Smith in Ali. Do you see Chris Hemsworth that way? As more than Thor?

Ron Howard showed me about 45 minutes of Rush while he was editing it, and that's when I decided this guy's a real actor. I only work with people who are really serious. Why would you not want to dive into the deep end of the pool?

You were an early adopter of shooting digitally. But when Collateral came out, most theaters were still showing prints, and you thought the quality got lost.

It's gotten better; I'm glad digital is around. But sometimes I may want a photochemical look. It's conditioning; those visual artifacts make us feel a certain way. In Public Enemies, I wanted to bring you into the interior of a world and have it look like it really looked—as crisp and edgy as it would have been in real life. I didn't want to look at it through the lens of nostalgia. But if I was doing Last of the Mohicans again, I would probably do that on film.

Somewhat similarly, there's the way cities are moving from incandescent lighting to LED for streetlamps and infrastructure. LA's already done it, and New York is under way. You're known for the way you film urban landscapes—how would that affect your style?

LED might be a bit harsh, a bit blue, but the only thing I'm going to be nostalgic for is that glow you get when the marine layer comes in at night and all the sodium vapors bounce off the other side of the clouds.

“I WANTED THE THRILL OF THE CHARACTERS FEELING LIKE STRANGERS IN A STRANGE LAND. AND THAT BECAME JAKARTA.”

Your films often feel like love letters to a single city, whether it's LA or Miami. But Blackhat involves some globe-hopping: Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta …

I wanted the thrill of the characters feeling very much like strangers in a strange land. And that became Jakarta, which has 10 million people at night and 20 million in the day. How different the urban landscape is, that's what's exciting. Kind of messy. I grew up in Chicago, and it reminds me of Chicago.

It seems as though directors from Chicago are particularly keen on shooting urban environments.

No, just directors who grew up in the city. The directors who grew up in the suburbs make comedies. That's the rule.

But you seem to have a singular appreciation for a beautiful city.

There's a romance to those black streets at night, wet and rainy, and the El tracks above them. Or the really cold winter days when there's not a cloud in the sky—dry and clean. It's great.

ANGELA WATERCUTTER (@waterslicer) interviewed Nick Frost, Edgar Wright, and Simon Pegg in issue 21.08.