‘The Master’’ is the first American feature film in two decades shot entirely in the archaic 70mm film format. But is this anything more than a marketing gimmick?
The format uses film stock that’s twice as wide as 35mm — the standard for theatrical features for more than 10 years. Marketed under names like Todd-AO, Ultra Panavision and MGM Camera 65, heavily promoted 70mm came into use for big-budget films shown in reserved-seat engagements in the 1950s.
The 70mm formats — also known as 65mm, since part of the film space is used for the soundtrack — pretty much disappeared by 1970 because of the cumbersome cameras required and improvements in the quality of images that could be shot on conventional 35mm stock. High-profile films like the “Star Wars’’ trilogy, shot mostly on 35mm, continued to be enlarged into special 70mm prints shown for first-run engagements well into the ’80s.
Most films made in this process were epics, or musicals, so it’s surprising that “The Master’’ — an intimate drama that takes place mostly indoors — was shot in 70mm. There’s only one extended outdoor sequence, and director Paul Thomas Anderson doesn’t even use the full width of the format, which usually provides images about 2 1/2 times wider than they are high.
The format does provide a sharper image than that of 35mm film — but so do films shot and presented on rapidly improving digital video. I’ve been watching films shot and/or shown on 70mm for decades, and I can’t see much, if any, difference between them and the best digital formats. I doubt one viewer in 1,000 could tell them apart.
The Weinstein Company is heavily ballyhooing the initial 70mm engagements of “The Master,’’ which will later be shown in 35mm. It opens today in 70mm at the Lincoln Square, Village East and the Angelika and will widen next week to the Ziegfeld (New York’s premier 70mm showcase) and the Lincoln Square IMAX, for which a jumbo IMAX print was tailor-made.
The use of 70mm for “The Master” has been ardently embraced by some young cinephiles alarmed by the disappearance of film. But it seems to me as much a marketing gimmick as an artistic protest.