Harrison Ford at the San Francisco International Film Festival

Posted on May 7, 2013 by Lincoln Spector

I caught the Harrison Ford event Tuesday afternoon. Unfortunately, I got a lousy seat. Near the back and over to the side. That's what I get for wasting time.

After an introduction by Ted Hope, and clip reels honoring the recently-deceased donor George Gund III and, of course, Harrison Ford, David Darcy came onstage to lead the discussion. He introduced Ford, who received a standing ovation.

Ford was relaxed and funny. He was clearly enjoying the experience. Some highlights of their discussion and the Q&A with the audience:

  • “I'm not really a leading man anymore. That's my former job. I'm happy to now play supporting parts, character parts.”
  • On how the business has changed: “I think films are more sophisticated today than 20 years ago. I find complex to characters that I didn't see twenty years ago, and in the kind of movies that need a leading man.”
  • “I'm sorry that people don't watch movies in theaters as much as they used to. Movies are best seem with strangers, in the dark. [Then the lights come up and] you're with people you've gone on an emotional journey with.”
  • One audience member asked if Ford would name his soon-to-be-born son. He declined.
  • When asked about whether he's involved with Disney's upcoming Star Wars sequel: “I'm not at liberty to discuss it. Either Star Wars or the incident with Lady Gaga.”
  • About Indiana Jones: “I felt we needed to learn something new about Jones every time. I'd still like to do one. I'd like to see what happens when he can't run that fast. And when he doesn't like hitting people or getting hit. I think we should do that in the next five years or so.”

After the talk, enough people left to allow me to get a good seat for The Fugitive.

It was digitally projected, and looked like the kind of presentation that gives digital cinema a bad name. There was little detail. Everything was a bit soft. I don't know what it was projected off of, but if it was a DCP, it was a really bad transfer. If it was a Blu-ray, it was still a bad transfer. I just checked Blu-ray.com's review, and they described the transfer as “mostly abysmal.” I agree.

But the movie itself holds up (I hadn't seen it since it was new). In a very Hitchcockian plot (adapted from a 60's TV show), Ford plays a doctor arrested, convicted, and sentenced to death for the murder of his wife. He escapes, and spends the rest of the film running from a US Marshall (Tommy Lee Jones in a career-defining role) while trying to solve the mystery. The movie sports some great action set pieces (including a train wreck), but is built mostly around the twin mysteries and the characters driving them. The final sequence goes on a little too long, but overall very good.

Let me put it this way: If you love North by Northwest, you'll like The Fugitive.

Filed under: Action Movies, Digital Projection, Festivals, SFIFF | Leave a Comment »

Best Ways to See a Classic Movie

Posted on April 23, 2013 by Lincoln Spector

The best way to see any theatrical feature–classic or otherwise–is in the theater, preferably with a competent projectionist and an enthusiastic audience. But that’s a given.

I’m here to cover a more controversial topic: From what type of media should an old movie–and let’s define that as any one made before 2000–be properly projected for that audience?

Hereare the current major options for professionally projecting a movie today. I’ve listed them in order from best to not really acceptable–in my own personal opinion, of course. Disagreements are welcome.

One caveat: I’m only considering the vast majority of films shot on standard 35mm film, and intended to be screened that way. Movies shot or meant to be shown in special formats have their own best formats.

The Very Best: Archival Print in Good Condition

If the print is special, so is the presentation. Archival prints allow you to see a film as close as possible to the original experience. The print is, in itself, a treasured object, and screening it becomes a rare treat.

This is especially the case if the print was made using a now-defunct technology such as dye-transfer, nitrate, or chemically-tinted black and white. I realize that someday soon, film itself will fall into this category. But that’s still in the future.

Unfortunately, if the print is rare, screenings will be rarer. If you have the only nitrate dye-transfer 35mm print of a particular title, you’re not going to let just anybody project it. And if you insist on only seeing classics this way, you’re going to see very few classics.

The Best Common Experience: Digital Cinema Package

Now comes the point where I piss off the purists.

Assuming that it was decently transferred (and they usually are), a DCP will look better than almost any 35mm print. Scratches, faded colors, and that slight vibration are not part of the artist’s intent–or proof of the film’s authenticity. They’re flaws in the presentation medium. Digital removes them.

I know that a great many cinephiles disagree with me, and to a large extent this sort of esthetic disagreement can never be objectively resolved. But I’ve now seen several classics on DCP, and with most of them, absolutely nothing was lost that the filmmakers would have wanted. And most of these I saw through inferior 2k projectors.

Yes, I know–these films were meant to be projected from 35mm film. But unless you’re watching something relatively new, the chemical nature of film stock has changed drastically since the time of the filmmakers’ intent. So has the light in the projector. I’m not convinced that modern-day film stock can reproduce the look of a nitrate dye-transfer print any better than can digital. In fact, I suspect that digital can do it better.

Which isn’t to say that every DCP of an old movie looks great. There are bad transfers. A good transfer can only be done by someone who cares, knows what they’re doing, and has a decent budget to do it.

Still Wonderful: Conventional 35mm Print in Good Condition

Until very recently, 35mm was the norm. And it still looks great. If I had my choice, I’d probably pick the DCP, but that doesn’t mean I’m not happy to see a great movie the old-fashioned way.

Acceptable in a Pinch: Blu-ray

On two occasions, I saw what I assumed was a DCP, only to discover after the fact that it was a Blu–ray disc. But that was before I saw any classics off DCP. I don’t think I’d be fooled again.

Blu-ray’s resolution is almost as good as 2K DCP, but resolution isn’t everything. Smaller color space and heavier compression compromise the picture in ways that aren’t noticeable at home but are visible on a theatrical screen. I’ve seen slight color banding on projected Blu-ray discs–especially on blue skies.

The result is inferior to 35mm–assuming the 35mm print is in good condition. But if the print is heavily scratched, horribly faded, or chopped up with an abundance of splices, a Blu-ray becomes the lesser evil.

Not so Good: Conventional 35mm Print in Really Bad Condition

When you buy a ticket, you don’t know the quality of the print. And if the print is bad, it can really put a damper on your enjoyment.

Kind of Acceptable Under Certain Conditions: 16mm

Back in the 1970s, I saw a lot of movies in 16mm–mostly in classrooms and lecture halls, but occasionally in theaters, as well. Sometimes it wasn’t bad.

With a frame about a quarter the size of 35′s, a 16mm print has less detail and projects dimmer. Scratches and splices are more noticeable. The sound is significantly worse. Yet it fills the screen better than any pre-HD video format.

But 16mm becomes truly unfortunate for a widescreen movie–which is pretty much any Hollywood feature made after 1954, and foreign features after 1959. That little frame just can’t handle letterboxing well. Worse, a great many prints are panned and scanned..

Of course, some films are made for 16mm, including much by the great, recently departed Les Blank. Last summer I saw a pristine, brand-new archival 16mm print of Always for Pleasure. That print will always be a pleasure to watch. But that really falls into the top category of archival prints.

Why Would You Want To: DVD

Is it ever acceptable to charge people admission to see a DVD? Only, I would say, if there’s something very special about the screening, such as live accompaniment,  and no other source available.

Filed under: Digital Projection, Technical | Leave a Comment »

Saturday at the Movies: 50s 3D Horror and Early Talkie Hitchcock

Posted on April 14, 2013 by Lincoln Spector

I attended two very different revival screenings yesterday. In the early afternoon, I visited the Castro to catch the newly-restored Creature from the Black Lagoon in all of its 3D spender. Then, in the evening, I dropped in at the Pacific Film Archive to catch a rare, early Alfred Hitchcock talkie, Rich and Strange.

Both were fun, but neither was a must see.

The Creature from the Black Lagoon

I’d seen this 1954 science fiction monster movie three times before–all theatrical and always in 3D. But that was way back in the 1970s. Yesterday, I believe, was my first time seeing it without benefit of marihuana.

It was still pretty funny.

Set in a previously-unexplored tributary of the Amazon–that looks suspiciously like the imageUniversal back lot–Creature follows a small group of scientists, plus a colorful local fisherman, as they search for fossils and find something stranger–a sort of man-fish highbred that doesn’t appear to be particularly well-adapted for anything. Perhaps that explains why he’s all alone; his species is well on the way to extinction.

Why am I calling the creature he, despite the lack of any visible genitalia? Everyone in the movie assumes that the creature is male. What’s more, he seems strangely interested in the one female member of the expedition (young and beautiful, of course).

So let’s take a moment to consider that one female character in the movie, played by Julie Adams. She’s supposed to be a scientist, but she never does anything remotely scientific. While male scientists scuba dive to collect underwater rocks, then run tests below deck, she hangs around, puts herself in dangerous situations, and occasionally screams. But as anyone familiar with 1950s horror understands, those are the primary responsibilities of all female scientists.

(To be fair, some 50′s movies treat female scientists a tad more seriously. See It Came From Beneath the See  for a better role model.)

The other characters are equally stereotyped. You’ve got the handsome, virtuous young man, the older, wise scientist, the boss who cares more about money than research, and the colorful fishing boat captain. Much of the dialog is memorable, although perhaps not in the way the screenwriters intended:

Captain: What kind of fishing is that? Who eats rocks?

Old scientist:  I eat rocks, in a manner of speaking. I crush and look inside them and they tell me things.

This was my first time seeing Creature from the Black Lagoon with decent 3D. Before that, I had only seen it in the dreadful anaglyph 3D version of the 1970s, which required cheap, colored glasses that degraded the image.  Yesterday’s screening used modern, polarized, digital 3D, which gets considerably closer to how the film would have looked in the dual-projector setups of 1954.

Director Jack Arnold (who a few years later would make the excellent Incredible Shrinking Man) and cinematographer William E. Snyder don’t overdo the 3D effects–or at least they don’t overdo overdoing them. The underwater scenes are particularly effective in 3D. On the other hand, rear projection scenes are particularly fake.

But then, you don’t go to a movie called Creature from the Black Lagoon expecting realism.

Rich and Strange

The Pacific Film Archive‘s Alfred Hitchcock series is winding down, so it felt like a good time to catch a rare work from the Master of Suspense. Except that Rich and Strange was made in 1931, before he had come anywhere near earning that title.

You can’t honestly call this modestly budgeted British programmer a thriller, as there are very few actual thrills. image(You can, however, call it East of Shanghai; as did the American distributers.) It starts as a comedy of manners, becomes a fake travelogue, then turns into a serious drama about adultery. A shipwreck sequence near the end gives it a little bit of that Hitchcockian suspense.

Why a fake travelogue? Because everything shot for the film was done on a soundstage. Stock footage and studio sets make up for all of the story’s locations.

The plot is simple and initially conflict-free: A bored and miserable married couple (Henry Kendall and Joan Barry) unexpectedly come into some money. So they decide to travel the world first class, seeing the sites and spending time with the "best" people.

Of course things don’t go smoothly. He suffers from seasickness. She gets bored. They both get very drunk. Each is successfully romanced and seduced by someone else, almost destroying their marriage.

For an early talkie, Rich and Strange appears strangely like a silent movie. The many dialog-free sequences are clearly shot with a hand-cranked camera. It even uses a surprising number of narrative intertitles ("To get to Paris, you must first cross the channel.") These add to the light sense of fun, and make for some of the best sequences. The wordless, over-cranked opening, where the husband battles rain, a crowded subway, and a defective umbrella, is one of the funniest sequences in Hitchcock’s work.

The movie sags a bit in the middle, as adultery threatens the marriage and some broadly-drawn characters threaten the film. But the shipwreck sequence, with the characters trapped in a cabin on the sinking ship, reminds us of the Hitchcock to come.

Mildly entertaining on its own merits, Rich and Strange‘s major value today is as a glimpse of the artist who, in three years, would emerge as the greatest creator of thrillers that the cinema has ever known.

The PFA presented a rare, imported 35mm print of Rich and Strange.

Filed under: 3D, Comedy, Drama, First-person Report, Science Fiction & Fantasy | Leave a Comment »

Lawrence of Arabia Again–This Time in a CineMark XD Theater

Posted on March 21, 2013 by Lincoln Spector

Seems kind of crazy. I haven’t been able to go to the movies anywhere near as often as I’d like, lately. Yet I’ve managed to see the same film three times in the last four months. And that film is almost four hours long.

But it was worth it. Although I now own it on Blu-ray, Lawrence of Arabia really does deserve a darkened theater, a huge screen, and an audience of more than your friends and family. And this time, I had a chance to see it in a theater that’s really optimized for a big picture, digitally projected.

The theater in question was the Century San Francisco Centre 9 and XD, and they screened Lawrence as part of their regular Wednesday Classic series.

But this was a special presentation. They screened Lawrence in their XD theater. XD promises a very high-quality digital presentation on a very large screen. They use Barco 4K projectors, a very bright image, and top sound. And sure enough, this was the best-looking Lawrence of Arabia I ever experienced.

For my other recent Lawrence experiences, see Great Projection Saturday, Part 2: 70mm & Lawrence of Arabia and The Digital Lawrence of Arabia Experience. Here’s what I say about the movie in my newsletter when it plays locally:

A+ One of the greatest films ever made. Stunning to look at and terrific as pure spectacle,Lawrence is also an intelligent study of a fascinatingly complex and enigmatic war hero. T. E. Lawrence—at least in this film—both loved and hated violence, wanted desperately to become something he could never be, and told himself that he was liberating Arabia while knowing deep down that he was turning it over to the British. This masterpiece requires a very large screen and either 70mm film or 4K DCP digital projection for its full effect.

The XD theater looked like a typical 21st century multiplex auditorium, but larger. The huge, moderately-curved screen recalled the big roadshow palaces of the 1960s–in other words, the type of theater in which Lawrence of Arabia was meant to be shown. The front row is set back a bit, making it just about perfect for me for this kind of movie.

I should mention that CineMark charges a premium price, $14.50, for XD presentations. But so did those big roadshow palaces.

An XD Theater

When the preshow started, I turned around and looked at the light coming from the projector. And my heart sank. Two light sources, one on top of the other, told me that the 3D housing was still on. The picture was bright, so I’m confident that the polarizing filters had been properly removed. I know that with a Sony 4K projector, running a 4K, 2D image through the 3D attachment results in a 2K image (click here for details). With Barco, I honestly don’t know. I called Barco and the theater, and got conflicting information. So I’m not sure if I’ve seen Lawrence of Arabia in 4K.

Update: It appears that the 3D attachment was left on, but it used the RealD-XL 3D system, which doesn’t reduce resolution the way the Sony does. Some image quality was probably lost, but it wasn’t significant. I definitely saw the film in 4K.

And it looked great–crisp, bright, and detailed. The occasional digital artifacts that marred a few minutes of the Castro’s December screening only showed up in only one shot. The large, curved screen made this very immersive film even more immersive. The sound was just about perfect.

A fair number of people showed up, although it wasn’t near a full house. The audience laughed and gasped in all the right places. Some, quite obviously, were seeing Lawrence of Arabia for the first time. Always a good thing.

Of course, you can’t expect a modern multiplex to offer the sort of showmanship you would get at the Castro. There was no curtain. The masking wasn’t versatile enough for Lawrence’s 2:20×1 aspect ratio (a screen shape that died with 70mm projection), resulting in blank screen above and below the image. The houselights went dark at the beginning of the overture rather than slowly fading while the music played.

In my recent piece on the UA Emery Bay multiplex, I stated "One clear difference between an art house and a multiplex: Good coffee and tea vs. none at all." I have to take that back. The Century’s concession stand sold Starbuck’s coffee and Tazo Tea.

I realize that over the past two years, I’ve written three posts about Lawrence of Arabia that concentrated on presentation and said little about the movie. I’m going to have to fix that.

Filed under: Digital Projection, First-person Report, Large Formats, Technical, Theaters | Leave a Comment »

Noir City in 3D

Posted on February 2, 2013 by Lincoln Spector

Last night I attended Noir City‘s first ever 3D double bill. Both films, Man in the Dark and Inferno, came out in 1953. That year was both the height of the classic noir period, and the zenith of the first 3D craze.

Actually, it was the only year of the first 3D craze. Hollywood turned to 3D after Bwana Devil became a surprise hit in the fall of 1952. By early 1954, the public was preferring movies in 2D.

Both films have been digitally restored, and were projected off of DCPs. This was my first experience with old 3D movies projected with new 3D technology.

The result? I have a new all-time favorite ’50s 3D movie.

Man in the Dark
This isn’t it. Overall an entertaining little crime thriller with a touch of science fiction, Man in the Dark suffers from the addition of the third dimension.

Edmond O’Brien stars as a violent gangster who, on condition of parole, agrees to experimental brain surgery that will make him a law-abiding citizen. (I’d love to know if Anthony Burgess saw this movie before writing A Clockwork Orange.) The operation also destroys his memory. He has no idea who or what he was before waking up in post-op. The movie never explains why he remembers little things like the English language, or that $130,000 is a lot of money.

That’s how much he stole, then hid, before getting arrested. His partners in crime want their share of the loot. So does an insurance investigator. None of them really believe that he can’t remember anything. Nor are they particularly concerned about his well-being or survival.

The result is a quick, slick, and totally entertaining crime movie, but not an exceptional one.

Except for the 3D. For most of the screen time, the 3D adds absolutely nothing to the picture. It’s just there. But every so often, the filmmakers remind you that you’re watching a 3D movie by throwing something at the camera. Surgical instruments, gunfire, a bat, and a spider all get in your face, taking you out of the story, and–at least with last night’s audience–producing laughs that the filmmakers didn’t intend.

I suspect that movies like this, that would have been better in 2D, ruined the 50s 3D craze.

Inferno
Now this was more like it. An exceptional story of attempted murder and human survival, set against an unforgiving desert, Inferno is a unique and totally satisfying experience. Directed by Roy Ward Baker and shot by Lucien Ballard, Inferno made better use of 3D than any other pre-digital film I’ve seen.

In fine nourish tradition, an unhappy wife and her lover (Rhonda Fleming and William Lundigan) decide to kill of her rich husband (Robert Ryan) and make it look like an accident. They leave him in the hills above a desert, with a broken leg, while they go looking for help. And when they reach civilization, they give the authorities wrong information, so they look for the missing millionaire in places where he couldn’t possibly be found.

Just one problem: Hubby doesn’t die. Most of the film cuts back and forth between the deceitful lovers and their intended victim, who drags himself across rough terrain, climbs down a cliff with the help of a rope, and walks with a homemade splint, all the while improvising ways to get food and water. (He has no one to talk to, of course, but we hear his thoughts in voice-over.)

So you’re watching two evil people enjoy a life of luxury, while their victim suffers and struggles to stay alive. You know that the tables will inevitably turn. Wondering how that will happen provides most of the movie’s fun.

For most of the film, Baker and Ballard avoid the throw-at-the-camera tricks that make most 50s 3D movies so annoying. Even when a rattlesnake strikes, it sends its venom to something off the side of the screen, not directly into the camera.

The filmmakers use the stereo-optical photography to emphasize the vast emptiness of the desert, adding to the drama rather than detracting from it. Only at the action-packed climax do they throw fists and pieces of furniture at the audience. But the fight is so intense, and so well-choreographed, that the effect enhances the movie rather than hurting it.

Noir City continues today and Sunday at the Castro.

Filed under: 3D, Digital Projection, Festivals, First-person Report, Technical | 4 Comments »

My Top Ten Movie-Going Experiences of 2012

Posted on January 1, 2013 by Lincoln Spector

As the curtain parts on 2013′s opening titles, it’s time to look at my favorite movie-going experiences of the past year.

To make this list, both the film and the presentation had to be exceptional. I consider the quality of the print or digital transfer, the theater, the showmanship involved with the presentation, the audience, and, of course, the movie itself. 

Some of the best new movies I’ve seen this year, including A Separation and Samsara, didn’t make the grade because I didn’t see them under the best of circumstances.  On the other hand, The Dark Knight Rises didn’t make the grade despite a wonderful Imax presentation, because I didn’t like the movie.

Both the San Francisco Silent Film Festival and the Castro Theatre dominate this list, but that’s not surprising. Silent films inherently require showmanship, and the Festival doesn’t stint on that. And the Castro offers a great movie-watching environment.

2012 was the year that the art houses went digital, and I saw less and less physical film as the year went by. Six of the ten programs here were digitally projected.

10) Anti-Commie Double Bill, Pacific Film Archive
35mm film
Last fall, the PFA screened two very different flicks from 1953, Invaders from Mars was silly, cheap, and a lot of unintentional laughs. Pickup on South Street was a revelation. Written and directed by the great Samuel Fuller (2012 was my Sam Fuller year) this Cold War noir stars Richard Widmark as a pickpocket who lifts a wallet containing top-secret information. Soon, the FBI and Communist agents are after him. By the time it was over, I had a new all-time favorite Sam Fuller picture, and a new all-time favorite noir.

The PFA screened both films in 35mm with changeover projection (the way film should be projected). The print of Pickup, from Criterion Pictures, was exceptional. My one complaint: The movies would have played better if they had reversed the order.

9) Lawrence of Arabia, Castro 
DCP
This Lawrence of Arabiasame film, in this same theater, won ninth place last year, as well. That time, it was the 1988 restoration, projected in 70mm. And it looked great. This time, it was the new, 2012 restoration, projected digitally, and despite some flaws, it looked even better. A long, wide, visually expansive epic that cries out for a giant screen, Lawrence also succeeds as an intimate study. Peter O’Toole plays the title character as an emotionally troubled military genius, a megalomaniac and an exhibitionist, riddled with guilt and wanting to become something he knows he can never be.

Whoever was working the booth at the Castro that day knew how this type of roadshow epic should be presented. The houselights slowly faded during the overture, reaching full darkness just before the Columbia logo flashed onto the opening curtain.

Wonderful as Lawrence looked, I wish the Castro had used a 70mm print of the new restoration, or better yet, had a 4K digital projector. But economics make those options impractical.

8) Amazing Tales From the Vault, Castro
San Francisco Silent Film Festival
Live, with some digital and film demonstrations
Paramount’s Andrea Kalas and Sony/Columbia’s Grover Crisp (both executives in charge of aging film libraries) were on hand to discuss their companies’ digital restoration work. Kalas showed us before-and-after images from the newly-restored Wings (which was screened the night before; see number 2 below). Crisp, repeating a demonstration he had shown at New York’s Film Forum, allowed us to compare the first reel of Dr. Strangelove off of a DCP and a 35mm print. DCP won.

7) Bernie, Palace Theater in Hilco, Hawaii
35mm film
While vacationing in Hawaii this summer, my family stumbled upon a beautiful old movie palace, still in operation, screening independent and indiewood fare. They showed Bernie that night, and although I had already seen and liked it, I decided it was a good time to see it again with the family. The lobby is deep and ornate, the auditorium large, and they’ve got two 35mm projectors for changeover presentation.

Jack Black plays the movie’s title character as a sweet, kind, and patient guy. He seems to truly care about the bereaved people he comforts as part of his job. His voice and mannerisms suggest that he’s gay, yet you suspect he’s never acted on those urges. He ardently loves Jesus, as well as the people living around him. And he shot an old woman four times in the back and hid her body in a trunk for nine months.

6) The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Rafael
DCP
Clive Wynne-Candy is an officer and a gentleman. A career soldier in His Majesty’s army, he believes in following the rules of combat–even against an enemy willing to commit atrocities. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp follows Wynne-Candy through four decades, from his dashing youth to a somewhat foolish old age. Along the way, filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger–the same team that created The Red Shoes and Black Narcissus–provide warmth, heartbreak, laughs, and several viewpoints on what it means to be a soldier, a patriot, a young man, an old man, and a decent human being.

This beautiful, three-strip Technicolor fable received a major restoration in 2012. Screened through the Rafael’s new digital projector, it looked great. A talk before the screening helped set the scene.

5) Children of Paradise, Castro
DCP
Have you ever loved a film for decades, then seen it restored, and realized that it’s even better than you thought?

That was my experience watching the new restoration of Children of Paradise. Suddenly there were shades of gray and fine details I’d never seen before (was that really one of Arletty’s nipples?). Flaws and scratches and duty stamps have been removed, and what’s left is a beautifully realized past recreated in sumptuous black and white.

The most ecstatically French of all French films, Children follows the life of a beautiful woman and four men caught in her orbit–all set in the theater scene of 1840s Paris. That this big, expensive epic was shot in the last months of the Occupation makes it all the more impressive.

4) The Master, Grand Lake
70mm
Physical film may be dying, but it hit back in some interesting ways last year. For instance, two films released this fall were shot in the 70mm format (see When You Least Expect It: The Return of 70mm), the first films shot that way since 1996.

And of the two, only The Master was released in 70mm. Oakland’s Grand Lake Theater, which is grand indeed, was the only Bay Area venue to screen the film that way for more than a one-night stand. I saw it in their opulent main theater, which was almost sold out that night.

Writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson loosely based The Master on the life of Scientology founder, L. Ron Hubbard–although it should in no way be considered an expose. Philip Seymour Hoffman plays the Hubbard-like title character, but the story really centers on an alcoholic drifter played by Joaquin Phoenix. The weak final act hurts but doesn’t ruin The Master, and the 70mm image gives it a striking clarity.

3) Headhunters, Kabuki
San Francisco International Film Festival
DCP
This Norwegian thriller entertained me more than any other new film I saw in 2012. The protagonist of this Hitchcockian tale leads the good life of wealth, power, and a beautiful wife. But even his high-paying, high-status job can’t pay for his lavish lifestyle, so he moonlights as a burglar, breaking into homes and stealing expensive paintings. But something goes seriously wrong. Then it gets worse. And then…Well, before long, avoiding the police is the least of his worries. See my full review.

What was so special about the presentation? The audience. They cheered, laughed, and gasped in horror in just the way that they’re supposed to in this type of movie. Headhunter is a crowd-pleaser, and it sure pleased that crowd.

2) Wings, Castro
San Francisco Silent Film Festival
DCP
Live accompaniment by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, Ben Burtt, & others
I never cared for realistic sound effects in silent films, but this summer I found the exception to the rule. Sound effects wizard Ben Burtt (Star Wars, WALL-E, and others) used bicycles, drums, a typewriter, several assistants, and devices that I couldn’t possibly name to bring the air and land battles of World War 1 to audio life. Music by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra–one of the best ensembles accompanying silent films today–added emotional heft to the story.

But let’s not forget the movie. William Wellman’s Wings, the first film to win the Bestimage Picture Oscar, is a grand epic of regular soldiers at war, taking its time to develop the atmosphere and characters, and foreshadowing an important death. When the action starts, we’re entirely invested. The two leads, Charles (Buddy) Rogers and Richard Arlen, give complete and subtle performances. There’s a moment when Arlen’s character is receiving a medal, and the weary sadness and confusion on his face speaks more eloquently than any dialog ever could.

Newly restored, Wings looks more thrilling than it has in at least 80 years.

1) Napoleon, Oakland Paramount
San Francisco Silent Film Festival
35mm, with the final sequence in three-strip Polyvision
Accompanied by 46-piece orchestra conducted by Carl Davis
I have a confession to make. I went into 2012 all but certain that this event would hit the number 1 spot on this list. I was right. This may have been the greatest movie-going experience of my lifetime.

I doubt I have ever seen such a perfect melding of cinema and showmanship. Napoleon requires the special presentation that the Festival provided, and the presentation would overwhelm any other movie. Running 5 1/2 hours (broken up by three intermissions, including a long dinner break), and filled with thousands of extras, this picture is huge in every way. Yet it can be intimate and witty when appropriate. Although the film was made in 1927, it uses the camera and scissors in ways that seem revolutionary today.

And 20 minutes before the end, the masking opens up and the screen triples in width, showing us a vast vista recorded by three cameras and shown by three projectors. The audience went wild.

I’ve been watching silent films for more than 40 years. Many of them had color tints. But this was my first literally tinted print. Rather than recreating tints on color film, restorer Kevin Brownlow ran black and white film through dye baths, giving the colors a radiance that no photochemical or digital process can replicate.

Carl Davis, one of the heroes of modern-day silent film accompaniment, conducted a full orchestra at the screening. His score, which leaned heavily (and appropriately) on Beethoven, added zeal, depth, and beauty to the film.

Talk about a hard act to follow.

Runners up

Filed under: Digital Projection, Festivals, Large Formats, Technical, Top Ten | Leave a Comment »

The Digital Lawrence of Arabia Experience

Posted on December 30, 2012 by Lincoln Spector

I spent yesterday afternoon at the Castro, watching one of my all-time favorite films, Lawrence of Arabia. I’ve seen it many times, and over the last few years, always at the Castro. But this time was different. Sony digitally restored the epic this year, and this new version was played off a DCP instead of a film print.

A bit of history: Lawrence of Arabia was recut and shortened multiple times after its 1962 release. In 1988, Robert A. Harris restored the film to something like it’s original cut–with the help of director David Lean and editor Anne V. Coats. That restoration received a major 70mm release, and became the definitive Lawrence. For the film’s 50th anniversary, Sony restored the film again, using digital technology not available in 1988 to better clean up the image. This new restoration follows the 1988 cut.

So how did the digital Lawrence look? As always with this sort of film at the Castro, I sat in the center of the first row. And from there, for the most part, it looked very, very good. The details were clean and sharp, the vistas expansive, and with a visible film look. The dramatic impact of the images were all there.

But it wasn’t perfect. The image occasionally looked over-processed–as if someone was trying too hard to remove a film-based flaw. But these moments, which may not have been noticeable to someone sitting a few rows back, marred maybe five minutes of this nearly four-hour movie.

On the whole, this new restoration improves upon Harris’, which I last saw, at the Castro and in70mm, about 18 months ago. Faded images and cracks in the film emulsion that marred earlier versions are now gone, and the image is much closer to what, I imagine, Lean wanted.

But was this the best way to project this restoration? The Castro’s 2K digital projector can screen an image slightly superior to a pristine 35mm print. But 35mm was never the optimal way to see Lawrence of Arabia. It was always intended for 70mm presentation, and a 70mm frame is nearly three times the size of a 35mm one.

I suspect the film would have looked better in 70mm. The 2012 restoration credits mention 70mm print timing, so I assume that at least one print was struck. I don’t know if Sony is making that print commercially available, and if they have, why the Castro didn’t rent that.

I also strongly suspect that the picture would look even better with 4K digital projection (which has four times the resolution of 2k). Alas, for economic reasons that are understandable even if they’re regrettable, the Castro doesn’t have a 4K projector.

But the folks running the Castro did a crackerjack job presenting the film. Like most big roadshow pictures of its time, Lawrence starts with an overture–music with no image. The houselights slowly faded throughout the overture, plunging the audience into darkness just in time for the curtain to open on the Columbia logo. The projectionist was awarded with applause.

The audience expressed its appreciation throughout. No one thinks of Lawrence of Arabia as a comedy, but it has its moments of dry British wit. The audience laughed in all the right places.

A few weeks previously, I watched Lawrence without a skilled projectionist or an audience. I was at home with the new Blu-ray. It still works on that medium, and still looks great, but the experience didn’t really do it justice.

The Castro will screen Lawrence of Arabia three more times today and tomorrow–at 2:00 both days and 7:00 tonight. Click here for details.

Filed under: Digital Projection, First-person Report, Great Films, Large Formats, Technical | Leave a Comment »

New Movies I’ve Seen Recently…and How I Saw Them

Posted on December 26, 2012 by Lincoln Spector

I’ve managed to see six first-run movies in theaters over the last couple of months. I liked all of them to varying degrees. Here’s what I thought about the movies, and about the conditions in which I saw them.

Technical note: All of these films were screened digitally, two of them on screens that had only recently been converted. Four of the films and part of another were shot digitally. They all looked good, although the only one shot on film looked the best (Lincoln).

Non-Technical note: Five of these films had clear, individual protagonists, all male. The exception was about four people; three of them male.

I’ve written this in the order in which I saw them. The first grade is the for the movie; the second for the presentation.

A-/A Skyfall
Daniel Craig continues to rewrite the whole idea of James Bond in his third outing as fiction’s favorite spy). This time he suffers a traumatic experience in the pre-credit sequence, disappears, then comes back months later only because he feels that M needs him. He’s physically and emotionally unfit to serve, but he does so anyway because some shady figure appears to be targeting MI5. This may be the first Bond film set mostly in Brittan, and the first since The World is Not Enough to give Judi Dench a part worthy of her acting talents. Her M carries the story almost as much as Craig’s conflicted and emotionally tortured Bond. And speaking of Craig’s unromanticized interpretation of the character, has anyone else noticed that he never ends the picture happily in a beautiful woman’s arms?

My wife and I saw Skyfall at the Cerrito, projected onto their beautiful, big screen. The Cerrito is always fun, with their couches and good food. But that night they had something special. Someone had gone to the trouble to prepare an appropriate pre-show playlist. As we waited for and ate our dinner, we were treated to theme songs from classic spy movies and TV shows.

B/C+ Argo
Ben Affleck’s truth-based political thriller holds together very well for most of its runtime, even though we know the ending. After Iranians took the American embassy in 1979, a CIA specialist (Affleck, who also directed) takes on the assignment of rescuing a handful of Americans hiding in the Canadian embassy. His far-fetched plan: Create the illusion of a movie company scouting for locations. The Hollywood and Washington scenes are played very effectively for laughs, while the Tehran scenes provide equally-effective thrills. But in the final half hour, Affleck and his screenwriters provide three saved-in-the-last-second moments that might work with Indiana Jones, but are two too many for this allegedly true story. Another complaint: The real hero of this story, Tony Mendez, is Hispanic and looks it. Affleck is unquestionably white.

My wife and I (I saw all six of these films with my wife) caught Argo at the UA Berkeley. This former movie palace has been broken up into so many many auditoriums that only the lobby retains any grandeur. We saw Argo in a tiny hole in the wall down a long hall.

A logo before the movie proudly proclaimed a Sony 4K projector. I turned around and, sure enough, two stacked light sources told me that they hadn’t bothered to remove the 3D lens for this 2D movie. Thankfully, the image wasn’t horribly dark, suggesting that they at least removed the 3D filters. Still, Argo didn’t look as good as it might have.

A-/B Lincoln
What? No vampires? And how much a movie called Lincoln wasn’t about me?

Seriously, I liked most of Lincoln very much. Tony Kushner’s intelligent screenplay concentrated on the struggle to get the 13th amendment through the House, ending slavery before the South was defeated. That made Lincoln a film about the political process, showing us the arguments, backroom deals, and compromises behind one of the most important and idealist laws ever to go through the American government. The script doesn’t shy away from moral ambiguity, either–Lincoln is clearly prolonging the war, leading thousands of young men to an early grave, in order to end slavery. The acting is uniformly excellent, especially Daniel Day-Lewis in the title role. But director Steven Spielberg and composer John Williams occasionally overdo it, bashing us over the head with whatever emotion they want us to feel.

For what it’s worth, this is the only picture of the five shot entirely on film, and it’s also the best looking. But Janusz Kaminski’s camerawork is occasionally too beautiful, distracting us from the story.

We saw Lincoln at the Shattuck soon after it went all digital. However, the particular auditorium we saw it in has been digital for over a year. I have absolutely no complaints about the projection or sound, but there was nothing exceptional about it, either.

A/B+ A Late Quartet
Artistic collaboration is always a tricky business. A string quartet that’s been playing together professionally for decades begins to come apart in Yaron Zilberman’s musical drama. The problems start when the cellist (Christopher Walken, for once not playing a psychopath) tells his partners that he has Parkinson’s disease, and will not be able to play for very long.This sets off various chain reactions, as personal and creative differences that have long been simmering for years bubble to the top. People get hurt, they get angry, and they sleep with the wrong people. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Catherine Keener are brilliant (aren’t they always?) as the frustrated second violist and his violist wife. Like the Beethoven piece that gives the film it’s title, the picture is slow, deliberate, and rewarding, with the joy coming primarily from the performances.

Like Hoffman’s character, I’m married to a violist, so seeing A Late Quartet was inevitable. We saw it downstairs at the Albany. This was our first experience at the Albany since they went digital.

Before the movie, an employee came down to the front of the theater and welcomed us. The movie itself It looked and sounded great. No complaints.

A-/D Life of Pi
I came in wondering what Ang Lee could do without his major collaborator, writer/producer James Schamus. Pretty darned good. Told in flashback and shot almost entirely in a studio water tank, Life of Pi tells the story of an Indian boy who’s shipwrecked in the middle of the Pacific ocean, sharing his lifeboat with a full-grown tiger. Clearly, this is meant as a parable, as the boy gains skills and discovers abilities he didn’t know he had, while wrestling with fate, God, and a companion who wants to eat him. The computer-animated tiger, I’m glad to say, behaves like a real beast, not an adorable Disney creation. The digital effects aren’t always convincing, and the story occasionally drags, but the film’s best parts easily outweigh the weak ones. What’s more, this is the best use of 3D I’ve seen since Cave of Forgotten Dreams.

I wanted to see Life of Pi in 3D, on a really big screen. In the East Bay, by the time we got around to seeing it, that meant the AMC Bay Street 16 in Emeryville. Yes, the screen was big, and the sound was terrific, but the left side of the image looked slightly blurry, with a sort of double-vision effect, as if the two parts of the 3D lens weren’t properly aligned.

Did I complain? No. It was the AMC Bay Street 16. Why bother.

B+/D Hitchcock
Don’t go to this movie expecting to learn anything about Alfred Hitchcock and the making of Psycho. From the opening scene, where Anthony Hopkins appears in a fat suit and addresses the audience directly, Hitchcock is clearly what Sir Alfred would have described as "only a movie."  Helen Mirren is far more glamorous than the real Alma Reville–Hitchcock’s wife and major collaborator–but that doesn’t hurt the picture an iota. The story, part of which actually happened, shows how Hitch and Alma got the idea for Psycho, struggled to find funding, cast and shot it, then did brilliant work in the editing room, and all the while with Hitchcock suspecting that his wife was having an affair. Fun escapism disguised as film history.

Just one warning: Don’t see Hitchcock if you haven’t seen Psycho. It contains spoilers.

We saw Hitchcock upstairs at Berkeley’s California Theatre–our first time there since it went digital. Made up of what was once half of a balcony, the auditorium was small and oddly shaped.

And familiar. We’d been there many times.

But this time, there was an audio problem. The California’s other two auditoriums were both showing The Hobbit, and the theater isn’t sufficiently soundproofed to block out such a loud movie. Battles and explosions did not improve Hitchcock.

Filed under: 3D, Action Movies, Digital Projection, New Films, Technical, Theaters | Leave a Comment »

From 35mm to DCP: My Thoughts on a Critical Symposium

Posted on November 18, 2012 by Lincoln Spector

The current issue of Cineaste Magazine contains a symposium article on the digital transition.

Fueled by a conviction that this transition brings with it important and wide-ranging repercussions with regard to film culture, and that it’s critical to investigate and debate these consequences, we have organized this Critical Symposium, inviting a range of people—repertory cinema programmers, studio representatives, critics, and scholars—to respond to a questionnaire on the topic. The responses represent a range of different perspectives on this momentous period in the history of film exhibition, a sea change that is nevertheless going largely un-noticed in the culture at large.

You have to buy the print edition to read the full article (mine is in the mail), but the introduction is available online. This introduction lists the six questions asked of the participants. I thought I’d answer them myself.

1) How would you characterize the losses involved in the transition away from the exhibition of traditional film prints, especially with regard to the digital projection of works originally shot on film? The benefits?
Outside of a few popular classics, older films will, I fear, no longer be screened theatrically. This could happen because of revival theaters unable to survive the transition economically, and through studios not bothering to prepare DCPs of obscure works.

One obvious benefit is that the popular classics are more available theatrically than any time since the 1970s. Mainstream multiplexes are now screening The Godfather, Vertigo, and others one or two nights a week.

Another benefit is that we won’t have to deal with scratched and faded prints.

2) How conscious do you think the average viewer is of the difference between film and digital projection? Do you think this awareness is important? And, if so, what can be done to foster it?
I don’t believe most of them know there’s a difference. Nor, really, should they.

From the point of view of the theater owner, the digital transition is like the talkie revolution–a very expensive upgrade. But from the audience point of view, it’s more like the switch from nitrate film to acetate–too minor to be noticed.

3) What’s your attitude toward the idea that focusing on the particular qualities of 35mm and 16mm film projection amounts to a kind of fetishism? Are there dangers on both ends of the spectrum?
For many people it has become a fetish. Nowadays, film artifacts that everyone used to complain about–scratches, dirt, bob and weave–make it "authentic." It isn’t the talent of Kurosawa, Bergman, or Welles that made great art, it’s 35mm film with real scratches.

I strongly suspect that if you mounted a digital projector’s image chips on a subtle vibrator, put a butterfly shutter in front of the lens, and added software to the server that produced random scratches, a DCP would be indistinguishable from film.

Contrary to many cinephiles’ opinions, this is not the death of cinema. Compared to other changes in cinema’s history–sound, color, widescreen–this is minor.

Yes, I’ve heard all of the arguments. These pictures were shot on film and meant to be shown on film. And if you can screen an original print in excellent condition, I would agree. But that’s not the reality of revival cinema.

Last month, I attended a screening of The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, newly restored, on DCP. The film was originally intended to be shown on nitrate, dye-transfer Technicolor prints, illuminated by a carbon arc (and believe me, I’d love to see it that way). But I’m not convinced that a modern, polyester, Eastmancolor print, illuminated by a Xeon bulb, is any closer to the original than a DCP.

4) Given the enormous costs of upgrading to digital projection, is there any way to avoid losing hundreds or thousands of smaller cinemas? And, if not, how will this affect film culture?
This is the part that scares me. I don’t know a way to save those theaters, and a lot of cinematic heritage will be lost when they close.

On the other hand, I think there’s a good chance that small theaters will come back in a decade or so. Moore’s Law doesn’t just mean that digital technology gets more powerful; it also means that it gets cheaper. In a few years, when the cost of digital projection drops, we may see a resurgence of these theaters.

That’s cold comfort, of course, for the people who own the theaters. And for those of us who don’t want to go years with nothing but big multiplexes.

Another consideration: Blu-ray discs look more than just passible on a good projector. They don’t measure up to a pristine 35mm print, but they look better than a worn and scratched print, and they’re relatively cheap to project. If the number of classics on Blu-ray increases, theaters may be survive showing these.

5) Will more than a small fraction of film history be treated to the deluxe digital restoration treatment? How great is the likelihood that many films will not make the leap and will be effectively lost? And for those that are transferred to digital, will the transfers tend to be overseen by technicians with a genuine sensitivity to the qualities of the originals?
The ideal solution–every film gets a full restoration by people who know what they’re doing–ain’t gonna happen. The money simply isn’t there.

On the other hand, even in the analog world, only a small fraction got a full restoration. Lesser films, at best, merely get preserved. A new negative and a print are struck from the best remaining source. Preserved films generally carry the scars of time that restoration erases.

So the question becomes: Will it be economical to digitally preserve films for which there’s no money to restore. That could happen if the technology gets good enough and cheap enough. Hopefully, that will happen.

If not, many of these films will become unavailable as archives become reluctant to send out prints to the remaining 35mm-equipped theaters. And that’s a damn shame.

6) If there are any issues or consequences resulting from the transition to digital exhibition that you feel have not been touched upon by the questions above, please feel free to identify or address them with further comments.
One major issue, and one big question:

The issue: Archiving the films for future generations. We know how to store film with reasonable protection; we don’t know how to archive bits.

At this point, we need a two-prong approach to this problem. First, the archives and the studios must jointly develop and agree to a standard (for hardware and software) for archiving digital motion pictures, publish the specs for that standard, and make sure that all improvements to the standard are backward compatible.

Second, everything needs to be archived on film, including new movies not shot or projected that way. Because we have no way of knowing for sure that the digital archiving system will work.

The question: If you’re going to prepare an old classic for Blu-ray release, how much more does it cost to also create a DCP master? Or, to put it another way, how come there are old movies available for home use on Blu-ray that are not available to theaters in DCP?

Filed under: Digital Projection, Technical | Leave a Comment »

How Many Films are Still Shot on Film

Posted on November 14, 2012 by Lincoln Spector

When I tell people who work in technology, but not in cinema, that most professional, theatrical movies are still shot on film, they find that shocking. It seems counterintuitive.

Well, of course most filmmakers still shoot on film. It looks better–whether it’s projected on film or digital.

Or do they? And does it really look better?

Since I’m not Karl Rove, I decided to test my assumption against reality. And reality won. The fact is that, based on a quick survey, more current films are shot digitally. Depending on how you count them, it could be a lot more films.

To find out, I checked out movies listed as playing "near you" by IMDb, going to each film’s Full Technical Specs page to see how they were shot. The "near you" page lists 50 films, but I only counted 34 in the survey. Why? Since I wanted a snapshot of new films, I skipped those dated earlier than 2012. Others I skipped because their IMDb page lacked technical specs.

I came out with 21 films shot digitally, and only 13 shot on film. That’s nearly two thirds of the pictures shot digitally.

On the other hand, those 21 digitally-shot movies included four animated pictures, two live action ones shot in 3D, and one "found footage" mockumentary. Since it’s pretty much unthinkable to shoot any of these genres on film these days, perhaps they should be disqualified. The filmmakers really didn’t have a choice to shoot them on film.

If we consider only pictures that might have been shot on film, the numbers become much more even–14 shot digitally vs. 13 shot on film. Nate Silver would probably tell you that, considering the small sample size, this is a statistical tie.

Does the change bother me? No. It’s inevitable, and as digital cameras improve, the differences become irrelevant. I saw Skyfall a couple of nights ago, sitting close to the screen at the Cerrito. It looked gorgeous. I only discovered afterwards that it was shot with the Arri Alexa–a digital camera. This isn’t the first time that I’ve seen what I assumed was film, and later discovered was the Alexa.

If digital looks this good, I have no complaints.

Filed under: Technical | Leave a Comment »

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