Since the demonstration and explanation in class of the light meter, my thoughts on its function and purpose in the digital age has persisted and in fact, sparked an entirely other trajectory of thought.
Through the analysis of Miyagawa and his intimidating body of work, as well as the countless pioneers of cinema explored in Film Light and Histories (Epstein, Godard, Zsigmond, Antonioni, Kurosawa, Fellini, Sirk, Lynch – do I continue with such an exhaustive list?), my own attitude towards the digital vs. celluloid debate has shifted. Prior to this semester I felt the inevitable transition to digital made sense and therefore was wise of the industry to adopt digital across its many avenues – because, if the technology has advanced, why shouldn’t we embrace it? And yet here I am, finding an increasingly profound appreciation for celluloid and just as importantly, the practitioners that mastered it.
The continued practise of celluloid as a ‘tradition’ is no longer an adequate argument, however, the exposure latitude and colour spectrum possible in film stocks, in many cases, is not yet obsolete. But the switch to digital may already be irreversible, considering the transition within the industry is not simply the medium but the entire framework i.e. production equipment, exhibition/projection, distribution. What then remains the benefits of shooting on film? Is purely aesthetic enough?
A collective love and or nostalgia for celluloid remains, both for professional and amateur filmmakers. Recently in 2015, Tarantino released The Hateful Eight on 70mm print, a format only 6 cinemas in Australia could authentically project (Johnson, 2016). His decision to shoot on 70mm (that is 65mm and not blown up 35mm) was to disrupt the consumption of digital media, particularly the kind in home theatres, laptops, iPads, and therefore remind us this (70mm film) was an experience specific to cinema. He claimed,
“You’ll see 24 frames per second play out, all these wonderfully painted pictures create the illusion of movement. I’m hoping it’s going to stop the momentum of the digital stuff, and that people will hopefully go, ‘Man, that is going to the movies, and that is worth saving, and we need to see more of that.’” (n.a., FilmInk, 2015).
But this affinity for celluloid is losing momentum with financiers and distributors, since in contrast to digital, film remains an expensive artistic choice. So, as the veterans of the celluloid generation retire/die (yikes)/or welcome digital, will we just have to let go of our sentiments for the medium? I can’t help but wonder [hope] if someday celluloid might experience a resurgence, like that of Polaroid, which announced its production had ceased In 2008 only to be later revived by an enthusiast of the instant film.
On December 30, 1999 Cheshire Godfrey published an article The Death of Film, The Decay of Cinema that astutely forecast the current state of the industry and its implications. Taking into account a hundred years of cinema theory critique, he ultimately raised the question of digital cinema’s validity.
The critic Andre Bazin believed that photography and its stepchild film brought people into a fundamentally new relationship with reality and the natural world. That’s because photographs, unlike every previous means of visual representation, are not subjective interpretations of visible reality but objective impressions of it. Directly caused by light leaving the things they record, they have an essential equivalence and connection to the objects they portray. […] More obviously, photography introduces an ethical dimension to our view of the world, insisting on the irreducible integrity of people and things beyond ourselves, and reminding us constantly of our relationship to them. […] Thanks to their own physicality as well their relation to the things they represent, photographs, including those in motion, are not just idle records. They are objects of contemplation whose fascination comes from the way they connect us to the world.
He concludes with a future when film is finally outmoded and proposes what will be left may look the same (for a while) but will no longer function the same (which we will eventually realise). I especially fear when Cheshire imagines ‘cinema’ will be a ‘peculiar kind of of storytelling technological art’ only found in museums to document the 20th century. As a result of this seminal article, a critical discourse perpetuated on what ‘cinema’ is if it doesn’t include film. The implications of these ideas gives me the ‘heebie jeebies’, as I don’t like imagining cinema’s future without film.
So, here I/we are, reluctantly required to re-’embrace’ the imminent future of digital cinema, even though I can’t shake the uncertainty of its ramifications. But I wonder, is this just the predicament of a film student in 2018? Will this debate be relevant to a cohort ten years from now?
References
Cheshire, G 1999, ‘The Death of Film/The Decay of Cinema’, New York Press
Johnson, N 2016, ‘Two Australian cinemas show Quentin Tarantino’s latest movie The Hateful Eight in 70mm film’, News Corp Australia Network, accessed 22 May 2018, <http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/movies/two-australian-cinemas-show-quentin-tarantinos-latest-movie-the-hateful-eight-in-70mm-film/news-story/447c435b0cc978dc690dff11002acd02>
n.a. 2015, ‘The Hateful Eight To Premiere In Australia In 70 MM’, FilmInk, accessed 22 May 2018, <https://www.filmink.com.au/lsquothe-hateful-eightrsquo-to-premiere-in-australia-in-70-mm/>