I have been fascinated by the amount of press that film (actual 35mm and 70mm film) has been getting lately. Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey made a big chunk of its box office from 70mm presentations, and Cleveland has two theaters able to show it in this format. The media definitely responded to the “film is news” angle this summer thanks to this blockbuster, but even the Cinematheque benefited from the attention around this celluloid resurgence.
As someone who has been in the movie business for decades and lived through the removal of 35mm projectors as they were replaced by their digital counterparts, I am amused that film is now news. I tried to estimate how many times I’ve threaded film through projectors in my life, and it’s safe to say it’s likely around 25,000. That may seem like a lot, but it adds up quickly if you work in the projection booth of a multiplex theatre that has about 500 showtimes a week. As I threaded projector after projector, it never occurred to me that film would someday be replaced and become a rarified thing.
Rarified it is, though, and it’s been fun to see the excitement of reporters who have done stories on the Cinematheque highlighting our showings on 35mm film. What used to be so commonplace is now something unique and one of the things that makes the Cinematheque special.
I received a message from one of our patrons asking why a title wasn’t playing from a 35mm print. In a perfect world, I’d always book titles to play from film, but as we all know, this world is far from perfect. Very few new titles have film prints struck, so almost all new movies are shown digitally from DCPs (Digital Cinema Packages). For repertory titles, it gets trickier when making the decision as to what 35mm prints will be booked instead of DCPs. Availability is a factor. No quality print for a title may still exist in circulation. Price always enters into the equation, too. Film prints incur added shipping costs (they are heavy!), and there may be additional fees if we borrow a print from a private collection or institution. These costs add hundreds and hundreds of dollars to the showing of just a single film print.
I am excited that this schedule includes quite a few 35mm screenings, including La bola negra (12/4 & 12/5), which shared the Best Director Award at Cannes this year, as well as wonderful classics The Postman Always Rings Twice (11/7 & 11/8), Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (11/22), Sunday Bloody Sunday (12/6), and The Man Who Came to Dinner (12/10 & 12/13).
As always, I want to thank our dedicated projectionists, Mike and Les, for their genuine care when it comes to handling and projecting film prints, ensuring a great presentation for our audience and for the audience who sees that print next.
David Huffman
Director of the Cinematheque at Cleveland Institute of Art