The landscape of cinema could use a return to film

Christopher Nolan, Quentin Tarantino, Steven Spielberg and their ilk swear by the 70mm celluloid method of filmmaking. Perhaps their cinematographic opinion is worth taking stock of.

April 06, 2018 03:21 pm | Updated 03:36 pm IST

It is their love for the wide-angle real-life frame that makes auteurs of Tarantino and Nolan. | Commons/Imaging

It is their love for the wide-angle real-life frame that makes auteurs of Tarantino and Nolan. | Commons/Imaging

This is a blog post from

 

While watching Quentin Tarantino’s Western drama The Hateful Eight , I recalled the PANAVISION logo on-screen with great nostalgia. Growing up on VHS tapes of classic Hollywood films (that were allowed only during summer holidays), this wide, rectangular logo that curves at its corners was part of mandatory classics. We glimpsed it during the end credits of Ben Hur , Cleopatra and Lawrence of Arabia (I diligently sit through end credits, amazed at just how many people worked to make just ONE film). Down the decades, as costs of film production escalated and storage and maintenance of film stock became both expensive and high on effort, the screen became sharper. Colours in cinema became bright and imagined; not always shades that we see in real life. Cityscapes became absolute long shots, with little activity in the frame as they began to be created by computers. Digital replaced celluloid as the preferred medium. Currently, in Hindi cinema, not a single filmmaker uses film stock.

 

 

Today, 70mm and 35mm are set for a revival as filmmakers that matter in Hollywood begin to advocate for and use film stock in the age of digital. As Kodak, the company that manufactured reels and stock, came close to filing bankruptcy, a cluster of auteurs — from Christopher Nolan, Quentin Tarantino, JJ Abrams and Paul Thomas Anderson — took the lead in championing the reel, and extending their support to Kodak. Nolan is at the vanguard of this front today, having shot the award-winning Dunkirk entirely on wide depth-driven 70MM film.

Tarantino had started the first major revival of film stock with The Hateful Eight in 2015. He took out a roadshow across America to ensure suitable projection of this Panavision film, despite multiple glitches in theatres. Tarantino masterfully films the topography of Telluride, Colorado, a snow-clad landscape with stark white hills and solitary snaking pathways. That the landscape of The Hateful Eight is integral to its plot gets evidenced by the wide panoramic view. For instance, when you watch the film’s opening sequence of a tough, tedious journey that some of the ‘eight’ undertake in a horse-drawn cart, the camera trudges along inches of thick, nearly impenetrable, snow; consistently focussing on the grand yet menacing ice-cold landscape that the characters must navigate. You can almost feel the biting cold.

 

 

Shooting on reel involves patience and faith from everyone involved. “We are in a movie, and not in a hard drive,” says Tim Roth, recalling what he felt while acting in Tarantino’s celluloid film. Acting in a 70mm film is about surrendering to the camera; shooting or directing one is about labouring for excellence and good fortune from the elements. For Tarantino, shooting on film was a tribute to classics that he grew up on.

 

 

Shooting on film inspires filmmakers because of its ‘immersive’ experience. Whether a film is shot on 70mm or 35mm, or subsequently converted to 70mm, are technicalities. What the celluloid process achieves is scale and depth of viewing; it’s grand, and epic at all levels. Yet, difficulties involved in managing reel, which is highly combustible, prone to damage upon exposure, and expensive to buy, has led to most Hollywood studios opting out of the format today.

 

 

Nolan has given expression to his fascination with film stock by imbuing the war film Dunkirk with the quality of almost a lived experience. When you watch Dunkirk , you are in it. Which is nothing short of filmmaking sorcery in times of end-to-end CGI. Dunkirk is a seamless movie experience — where the music score, background soundscape and visuals merge and overlap — so that the viewer hears and feels the coming of the Germans before they actually appear onscreen. One feels terror and claustrophobia when a torpedo hits a warship. Nolan has used real naval warships, the real location, to recreate the Battle of Dunkirk. His grand vision scales up multiple times when 70mm pans and wide shots capture the carnage. Hence, the immersion into the battle experience feels real.

 

 

Shooting on 70mm has given cinema some of its most unforgettable moments. Rather than list them all, I will reminisce over the magnificent scene from David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia , where Lawrence is walking into the frame slowly in the great Sahara desert. VFX has not been able to replicate the scorching sun and the orange sky with glistening sand quite so efficiently. Similarly, a lesser-known classic on 70mm, shot during the ’90s, is Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet . In this long but rich screen rendition of Shakespeare’s play, Branagh (who also directs the film) has used film to bring grandeur and heightened clarity to the Danish court. Film stock makes this one feel like an epic. Which is why filmmakers from Paul Thomas Anderson to Steven Spielberg, the latter of whom has shot the real world portions of Ready Player One on 70mm, have reverted to this technology. It takes up time and effort, but the results are worth it in creating brilliant visual imagery. Like Nolan had quipped at a panel discussion about why he prefers to work on film, “It’s like asking a stonemason why he works with marble. It’s ridiculous. It’s what we do.”

 

 

Struggles with projection of 70mm and 35mm began in Hollywood and the West in the ’80s. Spielberg’s ET was converted to 70mm for limited releases in 22 screens across the U.S. Disney’s ambitious plans ran into projection trouble almost everywhere. This was 1982. Costs of maintaining this expensive projection equipment and storing reel had already begun. But its scale has always fascinated filmmakers and those seeking to create larger-than-life visuals.

Interestingly, Soviet Russia, with its struggles to provide bread and milk for its population, used 70mm stock extensively in documentaries, ballet and opera films and feature films. While an exact number is difficult to ascertain, given the scattered archiving process and dilapidated film libraries across erstwhile Soviet territories, keen researchers have established that over a hundred films have been made using this format in the USSR. Given that the Soviet Union was bent upon creating an alternative way of living, projection of grandeur was essential to its propaganda narrative. So there was much focus on using film stock subsidised by the state.

While digital has brought many delights onto our personal screens with the likes of Netflix and Hulu taking the lead, reel will retain its magic for movie buffs. Remember Julie Andrews serenading The Hills Are Alive with the Sound of Music while the camera adoringly sweeps across the lush, beautiful valleys of Salzburg? Now recall the same sequence from Spectre , where 007 fights skilled goons on the snowy peaks of the same location. Which one stays lodged in our memories as breathtaking? A return to the use of reel is worth applauding, for it brings back what we call the magic of the movies.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.