“A digital copy of a movie carries no history. It’s clean and new every time. It has no memory, and it has no soul.” — Projectionist Stephen Bognar in a 4.14 N.Y. Times op-ed about the dying of 35mm, titled “The Last Reel.”
“A 35mm print of a movie often carries history, much of it in the form of scratches, tears, missing frames, green lines, pops, reel-change marks and faded colors or weak, washed-out values when the film is in black-and-white. It looks flawed and worn-down and a little more diminished every time it’s shown. It has too much memory, and a soul that I would have to call worthless at this stage of the game. With any luck I’ve watched my last 35mm-projected film.” — Me, speaking right now as I sit in front of my 60-inch Samsung watching an absolutely perfect digital rendering of Sir Carol Reed’s Odd Man Out.
