Film vs. Digital: Tarantino at Cannes 2014

We've all heard the arguments and we all know where we stand on this issue - the positives and negatives of a film industry that is slowly, but surely, turning all-digital. Not only is the image more frequently being captured digitally rather than being shot on film stock, more than likely the film you're seeing in the theater is being projected digitally now as well. It's a big point of contention (there was even a pretty good little documentary called Side by Side about the whole issue - it's streaming now on Netflix here). While I love film and hope it never goes away, I personally come down on the digital side of things - especially when it comes to projection.

The reason is simple: I think we're at a point now where movie theaters are in danger of becoming the modern Roman Colosseum. A place where, for the price of admission, people line up to watch the same thing week after week. Spectacle reigns, to say the least. Of course, bombastic blockbusters have always had a place at the movies, but just imagine if that's ALL there was to offer. These days, if you want to see something a little smaller in scale, you'll have to turn on your TV instead. Writers have left film in droves and flocked to television. Actors, seeing the quality in that writing, have started to do the same. And accordingly, the audience has followed. Everything that the film industry was afraid would happen with the advent of television in the 1950s has eventually come to pass - it just took a while for the technology to catch up.

I hope you can see now why I have nothing against digital projection. Anything that allows films to continue to be seen in a large, dark room, with a communal audience - the way they were meant to be seen - is fine by me.

Now... enter Quentin Tarantino.

Here he is a few weeks ago, at Cannes for an anniversary screening of Pulp Fiction, which won that festival's top award 20 years ago:

Okay, wait a second now.  Declaring the "death of cinema" and blaming it on my generation?

I already give you a lot of flack, Quentin - but this time you've gone too far...

Near the end of the clip above, the word "facsimile" comes up - in a negative connotation - regarding digital projection. Yes, I agree that it is a loss, in a way, that films are now projected digitally rather than in 35mm. But instead of being negative and looking at what's been lost, let's look at what's been gained by all of this.

Let's take a trip back in time, shall we? Let's go back 20 years, to 1994. Yes, this is the year Pulp Fiction was released, but it's also the year I turned 8 years old. This is when I really started to realize that movies meant more to me than just pure entertainment - I began to see it as an art form. So, I dove in, head first. I devoured everything I could find on the subject. I started to see talk about something called "widescreen". What was this? I learned what it was, and about aspect ratios, and pretty much anything else I could find.

At some point, I read about laserdisc players. All the movies are in widescreen? That's terrific! But the more I looked into it, the more I realized it was completely out of my reach, mostly for cost reasons. The only format that was available to me was VHS, and it was pretty rare to find a widescreen tape of a film, especially in Maine (I remember being so excited to come across a letterboxed VHS copy of Jaws... and then being blown away when I watched it and realized how much of the picture I had previously been missing).

In the pictures above (click to enlarge) you'll see an old VHS Academy screener of Crooklyn - a tape that was sent to Academy voters to persuade them to nominate the film (it wasn't nominated and yes, I collect this kind of stuff). Back in 1994 when this movie was released, it didn't come anywhere near my town. I didn't even know about it. I eventually saw it the next year on video. I'm not even sure if I knew who Spike Lee was at that point, but I remember being fascinated by the way the director used a distorted, stretched picture throughout a very lengthy sequence where the main character felt out of place in her environment. By that time, I was thinking of movies in a different way.

But why post a picture of this? Well, because it's a widescreen VHS. I would've loved to have had access to something like this back then. A copy of the movie to watch at home that looks just the way the director intended? It seemed like some kind of pipe dream back then. Of course, then came DVD, and I was in heaven. Every single movie was finally in widescreen (with the occasional frustrating exception), and most movies were eventually released on the format. 

There was one slight problem: the television sets were still square, while the film images were rectangular. Of course, this produced the dreaded "black bars" while watching a film. Some people understood what it meant, and some people... well, they just bought the "full screen" version of the DVD. No matter how much you explained it to someone, those black bars simply meant "my entire screen isn't being used". Then, of course, came HDTV, and the "black bar" problem disappeared. Widescreen TV sets are everywhere now, and most people, if they're watching a movie on it, are watching the film the way it was meant to be seen - whether they even know it or not.

It became even better with Blu-ray: since these discs were meant to be used with these new rectangular TVs, there was no reason for a "full screen" version of the disc. Every movie released would now be in its original aspect ratio. Think about that for a second. You have a much better chance now than at any point in history of seeing a film the way it was meant to be seen. Not every film gets the deluxe treatment with a full restoration, but hey - it's better than nothing. And it's sure better than a widescreen VHS.

You have to be realistic about the whole thing, which is something a lot of people seem to have a real problem with. Continue shooting on film, Quentin. Really, I honestly hope you do. I think both options should be available to directors. But besides your own 35mm screening room and a handful of theaters across the world, most people will not see your movie projected on film. That's a fact, and it's not going to change any time soon. Hell, to be completely honest, the fact that anyone is even seeing your films in a theater is cause for celebration. You should be elated that you're in the position to make mass-distributed, theatrically-released films that aren't special effects extravaganzas - it's a rarity these days.

I've seen films in just about every format possible. I've even seen some movies in every format: 35mm in the theater, then VHS, then DVD, and now Blu-ray. You know the funny thing about that? Every time I saw the film, no matter which way and in which format, it felt the same. The experience wasn't the same at home as it was in the theater, but the film was. Now we can experience films at home in amazing quality. Something has to happen to stir things up, to get people excited about going out and seeing movies again. Maybe all of this new technology will allow films to get made and seen that never would have had the chance before. Maybe these new films will blow the others out of the water. Maybe we're on the verge of a New Wave - or maybe not. But this type of attitude - quibbling about presentation formats at a time when theatrical distribution itself (independent film especially) is in such a tumultuous place - it just doesn't get anything done.

I never got to see Crooklyn in 35mm. Hell, I couldn't even see the movie in its correct aspect ratio for many, many years. But now, that's no longer an issue. The glass is actually half full, Quentin - you just have to choose to see it that way.