Imagine, if you will, the following scene: A university soundstage scarcely populated by distracted post-adolescents and their brave T.A. She steadily threads a strip of 16mm film through a deteriorating projector. Her small hands show signs of miniscule cuts and bruises and other mementos from various labors of love. She is a filmmaker. She knows and loves the material she guides through a labyrinth of pulleys, sprockets and lenses, and in her excitement to share the gift of film, the magic of celluloid and light, she has lost her students to cacophonous blathering. These young men and women would rather be thinking about chicken wing night at the dormitory cafeteria, or whether so-and-so would prefer a call or text, or if everyone has seen “the most hilarious thing ever” on the internet, or whether bare breasts will appear in the near future. Amidst all this stress of fleeting nonsense, in the wake of these intolerable smartasses unable to yield any spare moment of silence to the proclamation of anything important, the T.A. flips a switch and suddenly this desensitized, cynical gaggle of student directors cannot help but allow audible gasps to escape them as they are awe-struck by the beauty on the screen.
Behold the power of cinema.
I was part of that scene. The dozen of us had never witnessed what film, with only natural light sources and the modest resolution of the 16mm format, and not really knowing how to use our ancient Bolex cameras, was capable of rendering. The details, the color, the vibrant tones of a true-to-life perspective were so much bolder than they had ever been on the HD (True HD, mind you) cameras with which we were so accustomed to shooting.
“Hey… I thought this article was about Interstellar?”
It is.
“What does any of that have to do with it?”
Everything.
This month, Google and Paramount announced something of a landmark collaboration. To promote the film, the search engine giant has launched a website called, The Interstellar Space Hub, linking exclusive promotional content for the movie with educational material based on the science from the movie, a game for android devices, video on Youtube, and a Google+ Hangout featuring the cast. There is also a video Time Capsule being created by fans and curated by Google Play and director Christopher Nolan designed to showcase the current Human experience. That’s a lot of stuff all for the sake of promoting an already highly anticipated movie from one of the biggest directors in Hollywood. So, what’s the point? Why would Nolan, or Paramount need all this cross-promotional hoopla?
When clicking on a small button at this cute, but mostly underwhelming Space Hunt site (…I found Voyager? That’s all you’ve got? You know about 9 million people saw Cosmos, right?), the viewer is presented with a simple list of the many formats in which Interstellar will be released. As if arranged in descending order of quality, the six options fall all the way from 70mm IMAX, to basic digital. Nolan, a steadfast and outspoken champion of the material of film, is clearly trying to make a recommendation here, folks.
When The Dark Knight was released, breaking numerous box office records, instantly being hailed as both a comic book movie classic and a classic of the crime drama, I thought, “Wow… they are going to let this guy do whatever he wants.” In my humble opinion, someone should have intervened during The Dark Knight Rises, but we’re not here to talk about that. What Nolan wants to do right now is shift the technological trend back to favoring cinema on its birth material as soon as possible. In preparation for distributing his movie in The Chosen Format (All hail, The Chosen Format!), Paramount has agreed to send the canisters of 70mm IMAX, 70mm, 35mm and IMAX reels to several hundred corresponding theaters across the world, leaving many of them baffled. Reports are coming in from theater managers who just made the “upgrade” to digital projection, angered by having received the reels 2 weeks in advance of Interstellar’s release date to ensure a small window of time to retrofit their theaters with film projectors. Audiences with access to these few venues will also be seeing the movie a few days earlier than digital cinemagoers.
Nolan loves film, despises digital, and he is not alone. Quentin Tarantino, always forthright when it comes to matters of his magical art form, has claimed he will retire if he is no longer able to shoot on film. That may sound rash (Really? From Tarantino?), but these are the kinds of guys you should listen to on the subject. Many people have told me they can’t tell the difference between the images, but the bigger problem is, many people can, and they prefer what they see in digital.
Digital technology has done wonders for cinema. There is absolutely no denying it. Everything from film preservation, to editing and special effects has been well-served by the usefulness of computers. The first time I saw Dicovery’s Planet Earth series on a blu-ray disc pumping through an HDTV, I was stunned. It was almost like looking out a window. Almost…
Hey, for nature documentaries, shoot on digital to your penguin-heart’s content. But when we are talking about the cinematic art of story telling, digital can’t hold a candle to film, especially in low light (No pun intended). So many recent films shot digitally have come out looking fine until the lights go out. Suddenly, I might as well be watching someone’s home movies. The motion is off, it adopts a distracting kinetic energy, and the image is covered with noise. Though film has a similar aesthetic issue in darkness, the grainy texture of film can be mostly cleaned up in utilizing digital tools. Really, just as it was true before the release of The Phantom Menace in 1999, the perfect way to make a beautiful movie is in finding a marriage between the two technologies, rather than sacrificing one for the other.
Cinema was originally a creation of light, glass, chemicals, and emulsion: a physical reproduction of the physical world. It’s possible that no camera will every interpret the world as well as the human eye, but we can be certain that computing could never interpret our world, or one of its favorite artistic mediums, as well as film passing behind a lens and capturing the illusion of movement. Whether shooting, or projecting, I am faithful anyone could attend a 70mm IMAX screening of Nolan’s latest creation and understand they are seeing the most beautiful, detailed images available.
Technological advancement in Hollywood has almost always been made in the pursuit of making more and/or spending less money. When television was born and coaxed people to stay at home, for example, wider panoramic images quickly became the definition of cinema: this was something you couldn’t get at home. Now, with the help of Google, Paramount and Christopher Nolan have asked audiences to take a step back from current technological progress and ask if we have been moving in the wrong direction. Really, it’s not so much a step back, as it is a consideration of a more attractive avenue. After all, if digital implements in the filmmaking industry are decreasing cost, the savings are certainly not getting back to us. Ticket prices continue to rise.
When you select your experience to see Interstellar next month, and catching it on film is an option (especially 70mm or better), it is highly recommended that you take the opportunity to watch these images they way the filmmaker intended they be seen. Really study the screen, and I can almost guarantee this massive undertaking will convince you of the superiority of film.
…now, we can only hope the movie doesn’t suck…
