70MM
Last week (or thereabouts) I watched a documentary broadcast on SBS
called "Splice Here: A Projected Odyssey". It was from 2022, made
by an Australian filmmaker/projectionist about the death and
slight-rebirth of film projection. It's a bit chaotic, clearly
assembled from footage shot over years as a bit of a hobby project.
But it delves into a full range of topics, from old Australian
cinemas closed and demolished due to competition from TV, to the
end of the profession of projectionists in the 2010s as digital
projectors replaced film everywhere. Then it covers the film
resurgence, especially about the higher-resolution 70mm film format
which can still rival digital projectors for quality and was
restored in selected theatres for screening Quentin Tarantino's The
Hateful Eight. The cinema in Melbourne where the filmmaker works
wasn't selected, but he pushed for installing an old 70mm projector
there for it anyway, and eventually managed to do so, even
inspiring Tarantino himself to visit a screening of The Hateful
Eight there.
I don't really get fussed over issues of quality myself, happy as I
am with watching old VHS tapes as my window into the world of
cinema. But the projectionists interviewed highlighted to me how
well that job might have suited me. Towards the end of my school
years when I realised that although I enjoyed using computers I
didn't like any of the career opportunities related to them at all,
the only fall-back occupation that took my fancy was to become a
projectionist. For years of going to the relatively grand art-deco
cinema in the country town where I grew up, fronted by a verandah
lined with rusty light bulbs alternately lit in a chasing pattern
that entranced my young eyes almost as much as the movies
themselves, I'd hurt my neck peering back up to the magic hole in
the back wall from which the movies emerged. I never found out what
exactly was back there, behind the dirty disused upper balcony and
under the lining material falling gradually from tall ceiling in
long torn strips. Certainly a film projector though, evidenced by
the quite common interruption of the film jamming and burning
through. Perhaps they closed the upper seating just so that people
couldn't hear the projectionist swearing? In fact the lower seating
itself had much surplus capacity, and later they enclosed the upper
area into two smaller theatres either side of the light path from
the original projector box.
I did try to apply for work experience there while I was at school,
but they turned me down. They could probably see the folly of me
trying to get into an industry that was going to become obsolete
right by the time I got into it anyway. In the end I found
satisfaction after finishing school by binge watching archived
projectionist training films found on the Internet Archive and
YouTube. The older projectors in the early ones looked the most fun
anyway, with optical sound, carbon arc lamps (the auto-adjustment
mechanism for the carbon rods as they burn was genius), and
switching reels during films. As noted in the documentary,
technology had numbed the art of the projectionist somewhat even
before film's demise.
When I visited Portland, where what looked like it might have been
their cinema has been converted into a church, I brought along my
copy of Seven Pillars of Wisdom which I'm still reading at my usual
glacial pace. My mother commented that she'd been to watch the
movie Lawrence of Arabia, based on the book, when it came out in
the 1960s. Somewhat embarrassingly given how many old movies I
watch, I had no idea there'd been one made from the book, but I
only really know what I find in the second-hand stores where
coverage of movies predating home video is pretty patchy. She found
the film too violent, which doesn't take much today and probably
took even less back then when she was still a girl, but she thought
I would like it.
It turns out to have been such a well known epic, shot on location
in some of the arabian wilderness which Lawrence has been
describing to me in intangible detail for months, that this
documentary refrenced it as well. A key example of a movie made for
a big cinema screen with the resolution of 70mm film. Moreover,
later shots inside the cinema where the filmmaker works in
Melbourne, Sun Pictures (even more art deco than the cinema I knew
growing up), happened to show a film reel with Lawrence of Arabia
handwitten on the edge. Sure enough, looking at the Sun Pictures
website, they are still doing 70mm screenings of a small selection
of classic films, including Lawrence of Arabia.
It's not exactly a weekly thing, there's only one screening of the
movie this year, in July. Still by then even at my pace I should
have finished the book, and it wouldn't to too hot for getting lost
on public transport trying to navigate around Melbourne. It's even
on in the afternoon, so not too late for catching a train home (the
movie goes for almost four hours, so a late screening would have
been a problem), and the building turns out to be right next to a
train station. So I've decided to go watch it.
There's also The Astor Theatre, which does 70mm screenings too, but
they don't plan their screenings so far in advance and it seems
it's been two years since they last had Lawrence of Arabia (it's
the same film reel which circulates around Australia, I gather), so
I guess Sun Pictures is the best bet. If this website is to be
believed, it's one of only three 70mm Lawrence of Arabia screenings
set to happen anywhere in the world this year:
https://www.in70mm.com/now_showing/
The only thing is that my eyesight has been getting ever worse, and
it would be a bit pointless going if I couldn't see the screen
properly anyway. I've been telling myself I should get glasses for
ages, and putting it off as you do (or as men like me do). I
decided going to see this film will be my reward to myself for
finally getting them, and sure enough yesterday I finally booked in
at the nearest optomitrists, and arranged my father to drive me to
the town they're in because apparantly they might put drops in you
eyes that ironically make your vision even worse than normal. So
we'll see how that goes this afternoon. I'll never be entirely
happy with a new recurring expense of replacing lost/broken glasses
for the rest of my life though.
- The Free Thinker
