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