Rivoli Theatre

When Red Salute (1935)premiered at the Rivoli Theater in New York in 1935, the leftist, anti-war National Students League stood outside leading a boycott. Inside the theater, there were fist fights between students and angry patriots, resulting in the arrest of 18 people.

One thing you could count on prior to 1968, that whether the movie was good or bad, it was always great to look at. Top quality release prints and cinematography in virtually all movies made prior to that year. First generation release prints. Even cheap Roger Corman films had sparkling black and white or plush color like his Poe adapatations (i.e. “Pit and the Pendulum”) which looked better than any current film.

Today, whether the movie is good or bad it’s pretty much guarenteed to look murky and gloomy. The style of cinematography combined with high speed printing and platter projection. The irony is ticket prices are higher than ever before.

To note the quality difference, a number of years ago The Paramount showed a camera negative copy of “Dances with Wolves” at a screening.
It was reportedly Costner’s own print of the film borrowed for the screening. The Paramount had reel to reel projection and a professional operator to ensure no damage would come to the copy.
Prior to the screening, the manager told me the print was unfortunately missing one reel so they sent a high speed print of that reel. “Dances with Wolves” had fairly good cinematography and the camera negative copy looked very nice on the large screen. Then either reel two came up which was the reel made from an internegative
on a high speed printer. There was actually an audible gasp from the audience because the image quality was so different. Rather than being razor sharp and grain free, reel two was murky, fuzzy and grainy. It was almost like vaseline was on the lens. Then reel three came up twenty minutes later the it was like someone washed the image with windex because it was sharp and fine grain again.
That’s the quality difference between what Hollywood insiders screen
and the high speed junk shown in megaplexes. It’s really a rip off since we’re being charged to see substandard junk that does not reflect the quality of the cinematography. Of course video masters are made from fine grain materials. They wouldn’t dare use a high speed print for DVD. People would complain. How ironic that showmanship seems to exist in home video formats but had disappeared from theatrical exhibition with some notable exceptions like NYC Ziegfeld and Suffern’s Lafayette which still put on great shows.

Thats it Donovans Reef, early 60’s I think with awesome Technicolor.

Ditto Bill’s comment about Ben Hur. What could compare?
Re The Godfather films of the 70’s. No old Hollywood film ever romanticized sordid reality to such an extent. Even LB Mayer would have blanched.

Bill,

I agree that most new movies are pretty poor. Even if the photography is good, the high speed printing system degrades
the cinematographer’s intent. Very difficult to see some notch
release copies outside of Hollywood or film festival screenings.
I am still furious that only Coppola and Beatty utlized the revived
dye transfer process for “Apocalype Redux” and “Bulworth”. Why didn’t everyone else get behind it? It would’ve dramatically improved release print quality since every copy would’ve had camera negative sharpness and resolution as well as superior color and contrast. Very frustrating.

Robert,

I forgot to add that the John Wayne film you referred to is probably “Donvan’s Reef”. Great Technicolor, mediocre movie.

CConnelly,

I guess it depends on who you consider ‘great’ within the New Hollywood movement. I do agree Scorsese and Coppola were great
and both were Technicolor buffs but I would say they were the exception to the rule. Scorsese championed the Technicolor process and was instrumental in persuading Kodak to improve the stability of Eastmancolor dyes. Coppola was one of the few contemporary directors to utilize the dye transfer process after it’s brief revival from 1997-2001. In fact, Coppola was the last director to use it for “The Godfather II”. The equipment was in the process of being dismantled while they made the last run of dye transfer prints of a new feature. The last print to have a dye transfer run there was a revival of Disney’s “Swiss Family Robinson”. Scorsese simulated the classic Technicolor look in two films, “New York, New York” and the recent “Aviator” (both two strip for the early scenes and three strip for later scenes).
Others like Wadleigh, Hopper, Downey, Van Peebles were not afficianados of Old Hollywood and their pictures represent a rejection of those standards and content. I don’t think thier pictures have held up over the years either but at the time they were taken quite seriously as the ‘new direction’ for cinema. Their pictures were also heavily politicized which is another trend I’m not fond of. All movies have a perspective but the blatant propoganda contained is so many counter-culture pictures of the late sixties and early seventies has severely dated the movies. They may be interesting as cultural artifacts now but their entertainment value is pretty limited. Try sitting through “Putney Swope” today.
Very primitive and hokey.

Robert,

Another controversial question. The answer is, it depends what year the prints were made in.

Early thirties Technicolor prints had a very toned down use of primary colors. It was thought that vivid primaries would be an eyestrain to people used to B&W. Technicolor prints of “Tom Sawyer” almost look like a sepia tinted film. However, when “The Adventures of Robin Hood” was released an ultra-saturated, vibrant color scheme was used which audiences responded to. 1939 was an interesting year for the process since both types of ‘looks’ were shown. The original 1939 prints of “Gone with the Wind” were very sepia and held the primary colors down. In contrast, “The Wizard of Oz” featured a garish color scheme that was appropriate for the story.
By the mid-forties, Technicolor had become “Glorious Technicolor” and most picture opted for the rich use of primary hues.
Not realistic perhaps but quite beautiful to watch. “The Gang’s All Here” was an example of an almost surealistic use of wildly exagerated primary colors especially in the “Lady in the Tutie Fruitie” hat number.
I should mention that pre-1950 Technicolor prints were not that consistent in quality. The problem they had was that the dyes were made up of multiple components and had to be mixed. While the prints from each set of matrices tended to be consistent, if another run was made from the same set and another batch of dyes mixed, they probably looked slightly different than the first run.
When Dr. Richard Goldberg became head of the research department at the company, one of his first efforts was to create single component dyes so prints would have consistent quality for the entire run. He accomplished this so post-fifties Technicolor copies had much better quality control than those made in the thirties and forties.
Now comes the controversial point…

When the television medium started to usurp motion picture popularity, the studios panicked and started to devise different methods to compete with the boob tube. One of the first things they did was to increase color production. Since Technicolor remained the best lab in the buisiness and TV was Black and White, post-fifties Technicolor prints tended to emphasize primary colors to a greater extent. “Blazing Technicolor” would be a good way to describe these copies. This applied to re-prints of pre-1950 3 strip films. When “Gone with the Wind” was re-issued in 1954, it had much more saturated color than when it was originally released.
Since Selznick supervised this re-issue (and retained a copy of this release rather than the 1939 original for his archive), you could consider it ‘a definite look’ of the film although not what was originally shown. The single component dyes were richer than the earlier multiple component dyes so by their nature, they changed the look of the process. I happened to be an afficianado of fifties Technicolor movies. It’s my favorite decade of cinema, at least from a visual perspective. Virtually ever color movie looked sensational regardless of the process it was made in.

De Luxe and Metrocolor movies also utilized a vibrant use of primary colors and they did look quite good in their original release since they were struck directly from the camera negative as I mentioned. Of course, the contrast and dyes were never as rich as Technicolor prints but they still looked good…until they faded that is.

So, if you see an old nitrate Technicolor print, it will look different than a safety Technicolor copy of the same title. It will look more vibrant and saturated due to the single component dyes and re-timing of the image to confirm to fifties' standards of color.
I don’t know if they can be considered definitive or not but they sure looked breathtaking.

In terms of VHS and DVD, no video format can replicate the Technicolor ‘look’. Technicolor prints had that kodachrome appearance of three dimensional vibrancy due to the superior contrast, black blacks and pure primaries. Reds almost glowed from the screen. Video pixels tend to bleed when they’re that saturated (especially reds) so they are re-timed and toned down during the mastering process. At it’s best it can ‘simulate’ the film look
(i.e. “The Band Wagon”) but never replicate it. Video by it’s nature has a limited contrast ratio and other flaws. Still, there’s no denying video masters look much better now than they did decades ago within the severe limitations of that technology.

In terms of other films made in Eastmancolor and printed at De Luxe, Metrocolor and other facilites, all new prints and video masters will have problems due to color fading of the originals.
Sometimes they can ‘tweak’ them on video, other times they cannot.
Eastmancolor was a very unstable process until 1983. Unless large sums of money are spent to restore the original quality (millions were spent restoring “Lawrence”, “My Fair Lady” and others), they
will never look like they did on their first release unless a surviving dye transfer print exists in a film collection somewhere.

Richard
I have to ask you about Technicolor. I have a friend who has some IB Tech prints. Gone With the Wind, Meet Me in St Louis and a John Wayne movie filmed in Hawaii that I cant recall the name of. I have mentioned on here that recent DVD restorals of GWTW and St Louis look nice but they dont have that rich dripping Technicolor look that the prints do. Someone responded that Technicolor was not supposed to have that “Gaudy” look and that those prints may have been run off wrong. Is this true? I saw GWTW in an archive 35mm IB print in LA that had deep vivid color just like the 16mm IB print my friend has. Even the Metro color prints I recall seeing in the early 70’s re-release had rich color. (not the 70mm one at the Rivoli, that one looked dull). In the 1970’s the Regency ran a brand new print that had been struck at the Tecnicolor lab of The Gang’s All Here. I can’t even begin to tell you how incredible that film looked shown in tech. The banana dance with Carmen Miranda was so deep and rich in color. No video or Deluxe color print could match that. The point im getting at is that on the DVD release of the restored Meet Me in St Louis the color seems toned down to me. It’s the best it’s ever looked on video but if you saw my friends 35mm print you would be blown away. Rich blues, deep blood reds it just has that drenched in color 1940’s Hollywood look.

Vincent: this is not the place to discuss film but what the Hell. Please, I urge you to re-think, re-examine your feelings about 70’s American film making especially from 1967 (“Bonnie & Clyde”) until around 1980 or so with “Raging Bull”. In those years, we had some of the most remarkable films ever made. Yes, there were bummers and YES compared to the films of say the 40’s and 50’s, they were quite different. But what the represented to me and others who came of age then were something truly exciting and intelligent. I don’t think you have to make a comparison against films of the 70’s against the classic films of an earlier generation. They belong together as some of the finest examples of American film making. In the latter part of the 60’s the studio system was dead. Hollywood looked like they were on their last legs. What film makers like Coppola, Scorcese, Polanski, Arthur Penn, Bogdonovich, and especially HAL ASHBY did (as well as some others…) was to reinvent and reinterpret so many ideas. God, some of their films were/are mesmerizing. Penn’s “Bonnie & Clyde”, Coppola’s Godfather films and “The Conversation”, ALL of Ashby’s films starting with “The Landlord” and ending with “Being There” in 1979. God, I get teary just thinking about them.

Believe me, I LOVE the classic films just as much as you do. Please don’t discard them. They are as worthy as the classics of the years before them.

NOW…if YOU want to discuss the absolutely, positively atrocious, God forsaken JUNK, CRAP, GARBAGE that is being “made” today, then we’re in FULL agreement. To think that when I was a kid, I could realize and be excited by all the great films that surrounded me in the 70’s, it astonishes me. And I was a preteenager and I understood that film in the 70’s was exciting. Now? God, I could cry. It’s a damn shame.

The movies today match the crapola places they play them in. The movies today are not worthy to play in these palaces.

Richard- concerning the grain and murkiness that enveloped film making in the 70’s this was one of the reasons that I stopped going to the Times Square houses and the Music Hall. Seeing exploitation or arty american films which are seen best on video at these large screen theaters was like using an intricately carved wooden frame to set off a polaroid.
For some reason people see the very late ‘60’s to mid 70’s as a golden age for american film or when film became adult. I personally think its when american film lost its crafmanship, sense of proportion and just plain entertainment value. It then became pretentious, self righteous and very sloppy. Not to mention the crudeness(and I am no prude) which to this day still astonishes me.

Robert,

Get there early and make sure you get a sweet spot seat. For the fun of it, take a walk around the theater before it’s over so you can see how grotesquely distorted the image looks from the side asiles or from the back the cinema. That was always the problem with both Cinerama and Todd-AO. It only looked really good in a few rows of the theater.
I saw the Dayton print of “This is Cinerama” which was in Technicolor so the panel joins matched fairly well. I don’t know what the new LPP print looks like. I imagine it must show some negative wear and differential fading between the panels. You will see the panel joins in most of the travelogue. They’re pretty well hidden in most of “How the West Was Won” in comparison.
Most people don’t know that “This is Cinerama was one of the first movies to use Eastmancolor negatives. The first use of them was in Super Cinecolor. However in that case they were only utilized for principal photography. Afterwards, they were separted into three B&W records (similar to the Technicolor 3 strip method) to make the Super Cinecolor dual emulsion release prints.
Although both Kodak and Ansco developed their color negative/color positive processes circa 1951, no one used them for features. Why? There was a flaw in the process. They didn’t have duplicating stock to make optical effects like fades, dissolves and transitions. Obviously, this was problem for features.
They got around this in Super Cinecolor since the original color negatives were not used to make prints. When they filtered them and separated them into 3 B&W records, they incorporated the opticals into those records. In other words, the B&W records had the opticals but the not color original. For Cinerama, they actually
made the fade ins and fade outs (there were no dissolves) as the prints were being struck. The film was edited in short sections of about 5 minutes each. All three records were contained on the same reel. For example, the rollercoaster had panels A, B and C assembled onto the negative roll. Technicolor devised a printer to fade in each panel as it was being struck on Eastmancolor stock.
Then Reel 1 part "B” section had all three panels of the dancers.
Reel 1 part “C” section had all three panels of Niagra Falls and so on. The reason they did it this way is so the color timing would be reasonably consistent between the three panels for each section. After printing, the Cinerama print was assembled in a synchronizer.
There were many splices in each reel because each 5 or 6 minute section was printed separately. Even with this technique, the panels didn’t always match. The original prints of all of the 3 strip Cinerama films were printed in Eastmancolor in the fifties even though Technicolor did the lab work. All of these prints had faced. However, in 1962, Technicolor adopted it’s optical printers to derive matrices from the three negatives so the two narrative features were printed in the dye transfer process which didn’t fade and had better quality control. I suspect that the compilation film released last, “The Best of Cinerama” was also printed in the dye transfer process but I cannot confirm it since no copy has survived.
The Dayton prints were 1962 dye transfer prints of “This is Cinerama” and “How the West Was Won”. In general they looked great except for some Eastmancolor replacement footage used to fill missing frames of the travelogue.
In 1953, Kodak developed a less than satifactory method to make opticals in Eastmancolor. The shot in question would be filmed with their color negative. Then they would make B&W separations of that image, incorporate the optical effect and reprint them on the same negative stock. The end result was an incredibly grainy and contrasty optical effect. It did allow the production of feature films in Eastmancolor although you could always see the image degredation in the opticals. It looked so bad that they only used this method for the actual frames containing the effect. For example, a shot would be camera negative for a person walking away, then the same shot would be continued in grainy dupey optical effect. After the dissolve it would cut back to camera negative. It was pretty distracting and created a visual ‘pop’ on screen which you can see in all of the early CinemaScope features. Later, Kodak developed Interpositive/Internegative stock for opticals which was slightly better but still rather grainy with poor resolution.
Why didn’t Technicolor prints in scope or flat derived from Eastmancolor negatives show these artifacts? The reason was that Kalmus developed a method of “A and B” rolling the color camera negative and putting it through the printer twice (actually six times for the three matrices). That way they could incorporate the fades, dissolves and even superimpositions directly off the camera negative. In other words, the original camera negative of “Spartacus” did not have any opticals. They were made directly from the A and B roll negatives while the 70mm or dye transfer print was being made. In the early sixties, Technicolor devised a different method for first generation opticals known as ‘auto select’ printing. Rather than A & B roll the camera negative for two passes through the printer, the entire shot was included on the cut camera negative sometimes up through the slate or flash frame.
When a dissolve was needed, the printer was rigged to fade out the first shot on the roll, they automatically rewind and fade in the next shot of the same roll for the dissolve. The same applied to other effects like fades. When “Lawrence of Arabia” was restored, every optical had to be remade. The advantage was that the entire release print contained the same generation regardless of whether it was regular action or an optical effect. Thus Technicolor large format prints as well as dye transfer prints looked far superior to prints from other labs like De Luxe which never had these capabilities and always contained the grainy looking opticals.

One of the reasons that “2001” looks so good is that most of the effects were made directly onto the camera negative in multiple passes. Quite different from combining multiple elements and reprinting them on duplicate stock. In other words, Kubrick would
mark the beginning of a take on the actual negative (possibly a hole punch) then shoot his miniature against a blue screen. The the same camera negative would be rewound inside the camera in a dark room back to the start mark. Next, the other elements would be filmed like planets and then another pass would add the stars and so on. This went on for years with small rolls of film adding elements over a long period of time. It was primitive and hand rigged but quite effective a technique since you saw first generation optical effects on screen with razor sharp depth of field which added to the illusion of being in space.

For “Star Wars” Lucas used optical effects combining different separate elements and reprinting them on improved internegative stock. The reason they tended to look good was that he photographed them in large format VistaVision. This added sharpness and improved the resolution. They would not have looked as good had he filmed them in 35mm Panavision. Even so, they were not as razor sharp or impressive as the camera negative effects in “2001” filmed in 65mm.
However, the 70mm blow up print shown at Loews Astor Plaza did look good back in 1977. What helped was that the special effects were cut quickly and not lingered on like the “2001” effects. Combined with the innovative use of stereo sound, they were quite effective although if you looked at some of them a frame at a time you would see artifacts like off registration engines on the backs of the ships and so on. In any event, Lucas made them work within the context of the narrative.
I can’t say I’m impressed at all with CGE space effects. To me they look completely artificial compared to those filmed in 65mm or Vistavision in the sixties and seventies. They lack dimensionality
of filming with miniatures and tend to have that ‘flat’ computerized look. When you have a motion controlled camera moving past a miniature properly lit, it gives that optical distortion of any movement passing a lens which it part of what makes it look real.
Computer generated effects lack that optical distortion inherant with shooting through a lens although the distortion is part of what tricks the eye into thinking it’s real and giving the object a sense of dimension and roundness. CGE effects out putted to film also generate a ‘thin’ negative which effects the resolution and alters the grain structure of the image. However, audiences don’t seem to mind the look of CGE effects which have replaced optical effects.

What an education these last threads have provided, thanks!

Robert,

Cinerama as a process was designed to generate the illusion of
peripheral vision. The concept was to make the audience feel as if
they were ‘inside the picture’. The same year it was introduced (1952), a competed process premiered which was 3-D. Rather than put the audience in the picture, the picture seemed to emerge out of the screen, especially with ‘off screen effects’ (i.e. the paddle ball man in “House of Wax”).
The way the three projector process gave the peripheral illusion was as follows:
Principal photography was photographed with 3 35mm cameras that used a 27mm prime lens. It was determined that 27mm replicated the human eye’s focal length, at least in respect to distance. The cameras were in a “U” formation so that they not only photographed was was in front of them but also the sides. To project these three images, the projectors replicated the formation and exhibted them on a deeply curved screen. “Giggilos” were in the projectors to merge and blur the join lines. Louvered screens were used so the left and right panel didn’t reflect the images onto the opposite side of the screen. The effect worked in that when you had a sweet spot seat
(in the middle of the theater), the screen wrapped around you and you could see down the center and sides of a street or in a location.
When the camera moved or was on a helicopter (i.e. the America tour or rollercoaster in “This is Cinerama”) you definately felt you were inside the image. However, the join lines were always noticeable.
In “How the West Was Won”, the cinematographers went out of their way to hide them so they were less noticeable in trees or building edges but it was a distracting way to film a movie. Rather then getting the most dramatic composition, you spent most of your time
trying to hide join lines.
The man who made Cinerama a viable entity was Michael Todd. While the process had been trade screened for many industry personnel, no one saw it’s potentional except for Todd who was really an outsider from Broadway. The first thing he did was to tell
the creators to put the rollercoaster up front and shoot in color.
Todd and his son became part of the company with Lowell Thomas and
shot the first half of “This is Cinerama”. Others shot the second half. It premiered and was an enormous hit. Todd proposed to his
partners to modify the process and get rid of the multiple projectors, join lines and make ‘everything come out of one hole’.
His partners rejected the idea since they were making money with the process ‘as is’.
Todd hired Dr. Brien O'Brien to create the “Todd-AO” process.
70mm had been tried in 1929 but didn’t catch on, primarily because of the difficulties in converting to sound and because the image was not that impressive in mono sound and B&W. Todd-AO was also a deeply
curved screen process that generated a similar peripheral illusion
to Cinerama at times. A series of prime lenses were developed that
had a very wide field of view. Technically, only the ‘bug eye’ lens
photographed what was in front of the camera as well as the sides.
It was used extensively for the travelogue sequences in Todd’s “Around the World in 80 Days”. It was an interesting lens and gave the illusion you were being sucked into the screen, a bit different than Cinerama. It did have some distortion but then so did Cinerama’s three panel projection. Fortunately, the other lenses used for medium shots and close ups did not distort but didn’t generate the peripheral illusion either. Basically, Todd AO
gave the peripheral illusion intermittently depending on what was required for the scene. It was not as wide as the original Cinerama although it was determined that in a ‘sweet spot’ seat, having the image go beyond your vision was unecessary. So from eyeball to eyeball you still got the impression you were inside the picture.
The other factor for this illusion was depth of field, namely, foreground to background sharpness. In standard Hollywood features,
close ups and medium shots had a shallow depth of field. The background was soft. In both Cinerama and Todd-AO, the lenses had an expanded depth of field so in most cases the foreground and background were always sharp rather than soft. This was integral to the peripheral illusion.
Todd died in a plane crash in 1958 and his process was purchased by Fox which dumped their CinemaScope 55 and made future blockbuster features in Todd’s 70mm process. However, they abandoned the bug eyed lens and it wasn’t used again. How did the new 70mm prints look? In general they attempted to retain the sharp depth of field
on a deeply curved screen which did generate somewhat of a peripheral
illusion but was not as effective as the Cinerama’s three lens version of the original bug eyed lens. I guess they felt it worked well enough and presentations were impressive so audiences would not miss the actual illusion of being ‘inside the picture’.
The Panavision company created superior anamorphic lenses in 1957
which eventually replaced the heavily distorted CinemaScope lenses which created a very wide image but had shallow depth of field and a great deal of distortion. For “Raintree County” and “Ben Hur” they also added a 25% anamorphic squeeze to the 70mm process and dubbed it MGM Camera 65 and later Ultra-Panavision. Basically they replicated the aspect ratio of the original 3 panel Cinerama process
on 70mm film. However, they in now way simulated the peripheral illusion. The image was wide and sharp but just looked like an upgraded scope picture. The presentations were impressive but the peripheral illusion was gone. In 1963, Cinerama dumped the three panel process and went with this system for “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World”. The quality was as good as “Ben Hur” shown flat on a wide screen but was not really “Cinerama” in terms of the original impact. Later, Cinerama abandoned the Ultra-Panavision process and
played standard spherical 70mm (pretty much identical to Fox’s application of Todd-AO) until it’s demise in 1972. Things became more confusing when Cinerama started releasing regular flat 1.85
features in the early seventies that weren’t even in widescreen.
“2001” was filmed in 65mm and the effects had a razor sharp depth of field. When projected on a curved screen, they did make you feel as if you were in outer space. It wasn’t really the Cinerama peripheral illusion but it worked for what it was. One of the things that Kubrick did to make these effects so convincing was to have constant movement on screen. The camera would pan past planets and space stations as the ship flew by. The movement helped generated the illusion of ‘being in the picture’. In contrast, similar effects in “Star Wars” were locked down and things flew past the frame. Not as effective as having constant movement in the space shots like “2001”. The movement also hid the fact that they
were miniatures or stop motion ships. Kubrick also lit them dramatically to improve the illusion. The key to special effects in space was the lighting of the miniatures and to film them a different speeds but never at 24 frames per second. Also, you moved the camera, not the miniatures so the movement was smoother.

In summary, I don’t think that 70mm Cinerama was ‘inferior’ to three panel Cinerama. They were both great presentations but had different impacts. Three panel gave a realistic illusion of peripheral vision but had the flaw of panel joins and headache of keeping three projectors and a magnetic sound reproducer in synch.
Single strip Cinerama gave a razor sharp widescreen image that surpassed CinemaScope and didn’t have the distortion of the Bausch and Lomb lenses used in that process. It generated a ‘you are there’ effect at times but less of a ‘you are inside the picture’ peripheral illusion. All these processes had tradeoffs. None was perfect.
One of the main advantages of all of the fifties and sixties processes was that all prints were struck directly off the camera negative. This was as good as you could get quality wise. This was also the case for standard flat and scope 35mm features in either Technicolor or Eastmancolor. Everyone saw first generation sharpness and resolution. While the quality was topnotch in theaters, striking so many release copies off the original wore out the negative. In 1968, Kodak introduced CRI (Color Reversal Intermediate). Fox was the first studio to use it, then others adopted it too. While negative wear was alleviated, a great deal of quality was lost (resolution, graininess) when making release copies from a second generation element. Later, CRI’s were abandoned and prints were made from internegatives derived from an interpositive.
Today all release copies are three generations removed fromt he camera negative also a small number of EK copies are struck for Hollywood screenings. Prints derived from CRI’s and IN’s look horrid when shown on the enormous Cinerama type screens. The image breaks up into blobs of grain floating around the enormous screen.
They look passable in small screen multi-plexes. Thus, even if the
enormous curved screens still existed throughout the country, contemporary films would not look good on them. The current style of cinematography is completely different that that utilized in the pre-1970 era. Rather than extensively lighting the image to generate saturated colors, rich fleshtones and a sharp depth of field, many cameramen underexpose the negative today with very little light, de-saturated colors and fleshtones and a shallow depth of field. The latest Oscar winner, “Million Dollar Baby” was shot in this fashion. Very de-saturated, murky and dark. It would not be appropriate for large screen presentation in Cinerama but will look presentable on DVD since they’ll derive the video master from
pre-print material. The high speed general release prints looked terrible in my opinion although I have a friend who saw a camera negative copy in Hollywood and he said it looked ‘okay’.
I guess the dramatic difference in cinematography during the studio era vs. the “New Hollywood” era (post-1968) is a whole discussion in itself. Personally, I really hate the way most post-1970 films look but my frame of reference tends to be movies like “2001” and “Lawrence of Arabia” which I find aethetically
breathtaking and spectacular. I can’t say I found the camerawork
or imagery in “Million Dollar Baby” aethetically pleasan to sit through not withstanding the fine acting. I’m sure there are supporters (or appologists) for the contemporary style of cinematography but this much is certain. It is not appropriate for large screen (or curved screen) exhibition…