Half an hour into our conversation, Michael Mann answered his phone. His postproduction team was on the other end of the line, working on the final color corrections to his new film, Ferrari, and they began speaking in what might as well have been an alien language, for how little I understood. When the director hung up, I asked him to explain the gist of it, and he launched into a rhapsodic description of the visual perfection he’s trying to achieve by shooting on digital—what all movies shot on digital are supposed to look like, but so few do. As Mann explained while clutching a binder filled with technical paperwork, the challenge is to properly adjust a movie’s black levels so that the lighting fills in the faces of its actors just right. When done correctly, their faces take on a new depth, and the creases in their skin are properly accentuated. With lesser films, “everything is kind of grayed out … as opposed to, Man, I am there. And they’re coming off the screen …