Weekend, 29-20 April 2000

THE OVERLOOKED FILM FESTIVAL DAY ONE

Hello from lovely Champaign-Urbana, Illinois! It's 1:46 a.m. Friday and I am just getting back from a full day of activities at Roger Ebert's second annual festival, which seems to be moving towards the distinct possibility of being renamed as R.E. seems compelled before each film to explain why the tag "overlooked" doesn't really fit.

But I am getting ahead of myself…

My day started at 10 a.m. with a roundtable discussion entitled "Digital vs. Film: The War for the Soul of Cinema." As it worked out, I was on the devil's side. We've all read the arguments before, but Roger's has become more and more unconventional. He now supports the use of digital film and production methods, but objects strenuously to the use of digital projection. And at the center of that argument is his belief in MaxiVision 48 and his sense that if a change is coming, it should be a change for the better, not just a change for the economically expedient. Which is not to downplay his arguments that the digital experience is not as powerful as the film experience. But, as the change seems more imminent, Roger seems to be embracing the advantages of some digital projection more (for instance, the ability to program a quality movie series without self-immolating in the effort to get decent prints) and now concedes the advantages of digital production completely. And though I still haven't had the opportunity to see it for myself, I am willing to believe that MaxiVision 48 is actually a superior system with superior imaging at a nominal increase in price.

But that's when my evil, bargain-with-the-devil hat comes on. The bean counters of Hollywood don't really care about improving the quality of the image unless it can be proven to them that it will put more butts in the seats. As I pointed out on the panel, no major breakthrough in film technology has ever happened for any reason other than financial desperation, until digital sound. And that happened because a number of studios decided to invest in an opportunity for exhibitors’ hands and to make themselves some more money. And it should be noted that the switch to digital sound, still incomplete but much more focused than before, was an embarrassing mess for the industry. MaxiVision may be sensational. But so was 70mm, CinemaScope and Todd A-O Vision, which we will be seeing here at The Overlooked for the first time in about 45 years. And the list is bigger than that. Why don't we see 3-D releases? Or Sensurround? Not because they were terrible. They just didn't make the studios enough extra money to be worth the trouble and expense. They weren't bottom-line-necessary. The perception of the industry right now is that digital projection will be bottom-line friendly. Maybe not today, but soon. One of the bigger shocks I've had all year was when I found out that Jack Valenti and the MPAA had not yet started negotiations with John Fithian and the NATO people (those two groups are the studios and the exhibitors) over the issue, long considered the stumbling block for digital, of who would pay for the projectors. Those talks, however, are beginning.

But as I sat there and contentiously played the role of the loyal opposition, it occurred to me that, as I wrote above, Roger didn't really care much about all that. Roger was embracing the movie experience above all else. And as guest (Carl Borack--producer of the Shiloh series, Olympic fencing god and old buddy of Dean Goodhill, the man behind MaxiVision) after guest (Donna Cox--Associate Director, Electrical Imaging Lab, Art & Design here at UI and a woman who has worked in digital since before it was called that and who creates images every day) after guest (Richard J. Leskosky--a UI Cinema Studies prof who brought out actual 35mm, 16mm, Betamax and VHS among other formats) embraced the idea of MaxiVision, I let my horns sink back into my head a little. You see, the thing is, I have nothing against MaxiVision.

And ironically enough, I have been a bit of a Luddite on digital projection and film. But at ShoWest (and the Bermuda International Film Festival, in fact), I saw lower end digital projection than the Texas Instruments system that seems to be leading the way right now, and even that doesn't suck anymore. And to make one of Roger's points, the digital system in Bermuda caused a one-hour delay at a screening, when the festival projectionist couldn't quite remember how to get the thing working, since the guys from New York who brought it in and explained it had left the day before. But they did get it working and it looked pretty damned good. I have been to studio screenings that were digitally projected and almost no one among the press corps has noticed. And then, of course, there is the breakthrough in digital cameras and film with George Lucas and the next Star Wars film. A year ago, Lucas announced that this wasn't going to happen…the technology wasn't ready. Now, it is.

Roger's argument is that MaxiVision is ready, it looks better, it is film and all that film entails, and why are we all so mesmerized by the hype of digital? Even in conceding that digital is coming, Roger asks, why limit digital film to 24 frames? Why not go to 48 or even more? The limitations of film (reloading and bulk) don't exist in the digital world. Why fuse the old to the new? Well, my answer is that you have to walk before you run. The idea of printing every other frame, for instance, if you shot 48 a second, brings up questions that no one wants to answer. All it takes to kill new forms of a medium is a little doubt…an excuse. That's the same reason why I am afraid that MaxiVision 48 won't fly. Tiny questions from people who count dollars and are looking for an excuse not to spend dollar one. Digital is a gun to the head. The questions are, "When will it be good enough so no one will notice?" and "When will it be cheaper to replace every film projector in the world than to keep shipping cans of film and replacing worn out prints?" The date answering both questions seems to be getting closer and closer. The question on MaxiVision is "Won't audiences love the improved movie experience and won't it get them to come to the movies instead of staying home and watching DVDs?" And unfortunately, the answer to that is, "They're still coming to the movies now and who cares what their experience is so long as they keep buying popcorn." And until that changes, I see little hope for a MaxiVision revolution.

The hope, of course, is that digital will come and that, when it does, much of what Roger wants will become more clearly valuable. Perhaps we all will have 80-inch screens in our homes and the moviegoing experience will need to be improved to keep us coming. Maybe MaxiVision will be the revolution of that time. Maybe filmmakers will realize that there is nothing holding them back from the higher resolution of 48 frames per second of digital film. Maybe theaters will provide seats that recline so that when you and your date…oops, wrong festival. Roger's not showing Beyond the Valley of the Dolls here.

Anyway, that ate up a lot of column inches while three terrific movies were really the center of our day. The festival's first showing was Charles Lane's 1989 silent, black & white comedy of social consciousness, Sidewalk Stories. I haven't seen the picture in a long, long time, but one thing about a silent, black & white film…it never seems to age. Lane plays a homeless man who sketches portraits on 4th Street & 6th Avenue, and squats in a nearby abandoned building. He ends up taking in a little girl after her father is killed by some thugs, and the relationship brings magic to both of their lives. Lane was compared, after the movie, by Ebert and Joel Siegel, to Chaplin, Roger going as far to say that had Chaplin's name been on Sidewalk Stories, it would be hailed as one of the great films of all time. That may be a bit too much for me to say. But Lane has a touch that is as old-fashioned and warm as the media he chose for his film. And as you watch him, and especially as you meet him, you wonder why this guy is not a major star, in front of and behind the camera, 10 years after Sidewalk Stories. The answer to the "behind the camera" question is True Identity, a Disney film that Lane did right after Sidewalk, and which doomed him and the also incredibly talented Lenny Henry to the Hollywood dungeon for all the classic, but terrible, reasons that happens in Hollywood. (I always tell great festival filmmakers…don't let them seduce you into making an iffy studio film as your next project just because the money and the power are there. Because if it doesn't hit, you will be forever dead to them, even though they did it to you and not the other way around.)

"Fireflies, Coven Coverage & A Blockbuster Defense"