FEATURE FILMS SEEN IN 70MM (1 Viewer)

[Michel_Hafner]

Digital projection still has a long,long way to go before it will ever match the quality of 70mm.

Digital projection was introduced to replace 35mm in the first place, not 70mm. Now with 4K we are there for 35mm and halfway there for 70mm. Modern 70mm requires 8K for a no loss presentation of the original negative. 4K does a pretty decent job, though. The problem is less the resolution than the black levels of digital projectors in cinemas. At home that is solved, though.

 

[Tino]

Good question. Especially since the OP also started this thread a while back.

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/topic/329787-70mm-films-how-many-have-you-seen/

Pretty much exactly the same thread a year ago. Again what's the purpose of THIS thread since it's exactly like the last one ??

 

[OliverK]

More importantly, kind of, is WHEN people saw these releases. How many actually saw this stuff when it came out? There is a difference.


I saw so many wonderful 70mm presentations in their original showings, all multiple times - Exodus, Ben-Hur, Mutiny on the Bounty, West Side Story, King of Kings, Patton, El Cid, Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, The Sound of Music, Lawrence of Arabia, The Bible, Can-Can, Scent of Mystery (also in Smell-O-Vision), 2001: A Space Odyssey, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Spartacus, My Fair Lady, The Agony and the Ecstasy, The Hallelujah Trail, Khartoum, Grand Prix, Doctor Dolittle, Star, Ice Station Zebra, Chitty Chitty, Bang Bang, Ryan's Daughter, Airport.

Yes, the WHEN is important and clearly not everybody can be as old as you are


Your selection is interesting as the majority of these is available in 70mm LPP prints or at least they were before all prints were supposedly destroyed (My Fair Lady). No chance though to see a nonfaded 70mm print of Ben Hur anymore, or Mutiny on the Bounty, or El Cid and many more.


That being said while I watched most of these in 70mm prints only 11 of them were nonfaded prints and they were all produced from the late 80ies onwards, everything else was pink to a varying degree.


What many fail to grasp - and how could they as it was a completely different time back then - is what a sensory experience it must have been to watch a movie with such clarity and sharpness and fidelity of sound while many only had a black and white TV at home and all TV's were really small and the sound only mono. The difference between what was available at home and in the theater was HUGE, and things will probably never be that different again for such a long time.

 

[cinemiracle]

Yes, the WHEN is important and clearly not everybody can be as old as you are


Your selection is interesting as the majority of these is available in 70mm LPP prints or at least they were before all prints were supposedly destroyed (My Fair Lady). No chance though to see a nonfaded 70mm print of Ben Hur anymore, or Mutiny on the Bounty, or El Cid and many more.


That being said while I watched most of these in 70mm prints only 11 of them were nonfaded prints and they were all produced from the late 80ies onwards, everything else was pink to a varying degree.


What many fail to grasp - and how could they as it was a completely different time back then - is what a sensory experience it must have been to watch a movie with such clarity and sharpness and fidelity of sound while many only had a black and white TV at home and all TV's were really small and the sound only mono. The difference between what was available at home and in the theater was HUGE, and things will probably never be that different again for such a long time.

It was truly a different experience in those days. Now it is mostly all digital which I abhor.

 

[OliverK]

It was truly a different experience in those days. Now it is mostly all digital which I abhor.

Digital CAN look very good but for a format that supposedly is so much more foolproof with regard to presentation than analog I see so many issues that I can only wonder how it was possible to mess up that one strength of digital, too.

 

[Tino]

What issues?

 

[Ashly Yeo]

Seattle's Cinerama will be showing 70MM films next month. The schedule was released yesterday:

https://twitter.com/SeattleCinerama/status/766377567284670466

 

[Rick Thompson]

Then you have something like Finian's Rainbow, which according to Francis Ford Coppola's commentary was shot in 70mm and reduced down to 35mm, during which in many cases they cropped Fred Astaire's dancing feet!

 

[B-ROLL]

Seattle's Cinerama will be showing 70MM films next month. The schedule was released yesterday:

https://twitter.com/SeattleCinerama/status/766377567284670466

It looks like some else likes Pink Floyd The Wall maybe it will get a bluray release

Of the others I can only say for certain I have only seen TSoM & LoA in 70mm (PFTW was 35 for sure)

 

[cinemiracle]

Then you have something like Finian's Rainbow, which according to Francis Ford Coppola's commentary was shot in 70mm and reduced down to 35mm, during which in many cases they cropped Fred Astaire's dancing feet!

I saw FINIAN'S RAINBOW several times and it was projected in 70mm. A much loved musical . I never saw it as a 35mm reduction. Feet were also missing from the dance musical CHICAGO on occasions. There was no excuse for that abomination. It was truly the director's fault . Unfortunately all 70mm to 35mm reductions suffered as did the early cinemascope films that were shown in non-cinemascope cinemas. It was the same problem for widescreen films shown on video and later dvd.

 

[cinemiracle]

It looks like some else likes Pink Floyd The Wall maybe it will get a bluray release

Of the others I can only say for certain I have only seen TSoM & LoA in 70mm (PFTW was 35 for sure)

I saw PINK FLOYD THE WALL in 70mm originally. I am surprised that a 70mm print still exists. It was very successful at the box office at the time.

 

[cinemiracle]

Digital CAN look very good but for a format that supposedly is so much more foolproof with regard to presentation than analog I see so many issues that I can only wonder how it was possible to mess up that one strength of digital, too.

I failed to see any 'strength's ' in digital projection in a cinema. Film projection could be flawless providing you had a projectionist that really cared about presentation and had a passion for the job.

 

[OliverK]

I failed to see any 'strength's ' in digital projection in a cinema. Film projection could be flawless providing you had a projectionist that really cared about presentation and had a passion for the job.

Please reread my post - the strength is that is supposedly is much more foolproof - the evidence in the real world does not really make it look that way. A good projectionist costs money and cinemas already spent that on digital projectors - nothing left for a proper projectionist in many cases :-(

 

[Jimbo64]

Then you have something like Finian's Rainbow, which according to Francis Ford Coppola's commentary was shot in 70mm and reduced down to 35mm, during which in many cases they cropped Fred Astaire's dancing feet!

Finian's Rainbow was blown up to 70mm wasn't it?

 

[ahollis]

Finian's Rainbow was blown up to 70mm wasn't it?

It was filmed in 35mm Panavision.

 

[Jimbo64]

It was filmed in 35mm Panavision.

That's what I thought, I'm still not clear on how a 70mm blowup would crop the feet off dancers. I always thought the blowup removed parts of the sides of the anamorphic image, not the top or the bottom.

 

[Tino]

I saw PINK FLOYD THE WALL in 70mm originally. I am surprised that a 70mm print still exists. It was very successful at the box office at the time.

Pink Floyd The Wall was an immediate flop at the box office when it was released. I saw it opening day and my theater was pretty empty.

It made $22 million in its initial run. In today's adjusted dollars its total box office is $65 million.

Still love it and would love a blu Ray special edition.

 

[Bob Cashill]

The Wall was hardly an "immediate flop." In its week of widest release it was No. 3 at the boxoffice, behind E.T. and An Officer and a Gentleman, and was No. 33 for the year--excellent for a film that's so offbeat, and much better than most movies that go on to have strong cults.

 

[Tino]

Perhaps not an immediate flop but it certainly wasn't "very successful at the box office at that time".

Not knocking it but I would say it's definitely considered a major box office disappointment.

From IMDB

The film was viewed as a disappointment in general by the band and the film's key crew members. Writer and composer Roger Waters feels that the film is too depressing, and does not let the audience sympathize with Pink. Director Alan Parker felt that the result was amateurish, calling it "the most expensive student film ever made." Various conflicts occurred between Parker and Waters during filming of the film, only adding to their distaste of the final product. Designer Gerald Scarfe claimed on the DVD commentary that he doesn't understand why people like the film. Pink Floyd's guitarist David Gilmour has stated that the film was the "least successful" version of The Wall's concept. It seems that the only people who really liked it are the fans.

 

[OliverK]

I will say that of all the BlowUps I have seen The Wall had the cinematography that was most unsuited to being blown up to 70mm - it looked horrible. And yes, i know it was blown up for the sound, still it was a massive disappointment to me when I saw it.