“Serious NXNW Letdown at Village East,” posted on 6.13.24:
I’ve been waiting a long time to see the much-promoted 4K restoration of North by Northwest, and so I couldn’t resist attending yesterday’s Tribeca Film Festival screening at the Village East Angelika.
I had a reasonable expectation that the restorationists had enhanced Alfred Hitchock’s 1959 classic with a distinct visual bump effect (as in “whoa, this looks better than ever before!”).
This would have been due, I figured, to their having sourced the original 8-perf 35mm VistaVision camera negative with all restoration work completed in 6.5k, and then overseeing the creation of a 65mm negative and finally having Fotokem create a 70mm film print.
That 70mm print was what was shown at the Village East last night, and I have to be honest — it looked very nice but it didn’t blow me away, and it certainly didn’t make my eyeballs go “boinnnggg!” There was absolutely no “bump” effect, and I was sitting there going “what the fuck?” and “why am I not looking at the very best NXNW ever created or projected…not since the waning days of the Eisenhower administration but ever, especially given the 8K VistaVision negative scan?”
What I saw yesterday evening was just…very nice. Approvable. Agreeable but nothing to bounce up and down about on a trampoline.