Some of the biggest champions of the cinematic experience seem unable or unwilling to discuss a simple fact – whilst we’ve all had memorable cinema experiences, cinema is not a requirement to enjoy a great film.
For most under the age of about 45 or so, many of our most formative film watches took place on VHS or DVD and in a visual presentation quality that couldn’t come close to either the cinema or high quality widescreen TVs today. Hell, plenty of Oscar voters still watch films via sub-par quality screener links at home rather than go to a cinema – and that was before the pandemic.
Thus the debate about a whether you can have a “worthwhile” experience watching a film on anything less than a cinema screen seems somewhat silly. Some filmmakers are staunch absolutists about seeing on the biggest screen possible with Christopher Nolan serving as the exhibition sector’s pin-up boy.
Others like Steven Soderbergh are far more flexible about it. One who is surprisingly in this camp as well is Denis Villeneuve. The “Blade Runner 2049” and “Sicario” filmmaker does features that are incredibly cinematic and seem perfectly made for the big screen. Villeneuve, however, is also a realist. Speaking on Oscar-winning cinematographer Roger Deakins’ Team Deakins podcast, he says watrching a film on whatever screen size is better than nothing:
“Roger made jokes about my iPhone. For people who don’t know. Roger was traumatized that I had ‘The Thin Red Line’ from Terrence Malick on my iPhone and Roger thought it was horrific. Me, I thought it was cool because I could take the movie with me. It’s not the same, but the thing is… I want to fight for the big screen, but a lot of my cinematic experiences have actually been on television.
I discovered ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ on television, and I later realized I discovered ‘Blade Runner’ on television. I discovered a lot of movies that were massive influences on television, or, like most Ingmar Bergman films, I discovered on VHS. And still, through these movies, they had a massive impact. All that debate on the size of the screen…because I am a filmmaker and I just love films.
I love the experience of being in a cinema with an audience but I think it feels more important that people see them. If in the future people are going to watch more movies on television, that’s fine. The films that I remember from my childhood are from watching them on TV and not the cinema experience.”
Indeed with the coronavirus pandemic’s end still a long way off, the idea of cineplexes getting back to the status quo they had before seems highly unlikely. But the big screen film going experience is also a LONG way off from vanishing altogether. We’ll see how things shake out.
Source: Team Deakins (via The Playlist
