Meet the 1981 Thriller That Inspired the Look

Universal Pictures is moving forward on director Joseph Kosinski‘s big-screen Miami Vice reboot — one inspired by the look and feel of the NBC crime drama’s 1984 pilot and first season.

But what inspired Miami Vice?

The answer to that is Diva, the groundbreaking film by late French director Jean-Jacques Beineix that ignited an arthouse sensation when it stormed cinemas in 1981.

Miami Vice creator Michael Mann has acknowledged how Diva‘s gaudy urban landscapes, wet streets and saturated neon lights heavily influenced the distinctive pastel color palette and Art Deco revival seen in Miami Vice‘s portrayal of 1980s Miami.

Diva cinematographer Philippe Rousselot recently joined The Hollywood Reporter‘s It Happened in Hollywood podcast to share how he and Beineix — together with production designer Hilton McConnico — devised Diva’s look.

“We were like kids and we didn’t anticipate the success of this film,” says Rousselot, who went on to become one of Hollywood’s most celebrated lensers. “We didn’t theorize a revolution. We just said, ‘Let’s have some fun.’”

Rousselot is careful not to take full credit for the game-changing visuals, noting similar ideas involving color and “bold aesthetic statements” were percolating in French cinema around that time, including in 1976’s Barocco and 1977’s Paradiso, a film “that almost nobody saw — but which was also very, very bold.”

But in Diva, the ideas coalesced into a striking declaration that also found commercial appeal, influencing everything from 1983’s Flashdance to the following year, the ’80s-defining look of Miami Vice. “Diva was a statement that said ‘This is a new generation,” Rousselot explains. “It was not only happening in the cinema; it was everywhere.”

A restored, 4K Blu-ray version of Diva will soon be available for purchase from StudioCanal. For more on how Rousselot created the look of the film, listen to the full episode of It Happened in Hollywood.